Best ways to travel the North east states?

itamar

Hi,
I'm planning on travelling the north east states since i love the tribal and rural aspects of the area and its remoteness from tourism but all in all it is looking a bit rough to make.

1. What is the easiest, yet cheapest way to get in and travel in Arunachal pradesh? is it best to make through organised tour? do i must apply for permit a month ahead, or through organised tours can one get it more quickly?

Can i apply the permit through travel company but then travel on my own (with friends, not literaly on my own)

2. How much you say would be the lowest budget per day i can make it through this area?

3. What would u say are the best rural-tribal places to visit in all the north east?

4. Which season is preferable to this area? May-June or, August-September? I'm afraid these are the time periods i can devote for this area even of not best.

Thanks alot!

Travel_hungry

Hi I am reffering Arunachal Gov tourism site. YOu can find the details where to apply.
http://www.arunachaltourism.com/entry.htm
About the cost , NE is not too much costly. Hope other senior member will help you.
Regards
Travel Hungry

osgeek

Great to see someone travelling to NE India. Most tourists seem to tour only Golden triangle or Goa or down south.
Here's my suggestion. The most convenient way to reach NE fast is to take a flight upto Guwahati airport. I think Delhi has a daily flight to Guwahati. From there you have to take a bus to go anywhere. For Shillong you can go by a Sumo from Guwahati. A great place to visit. Umyam, Elephant falls and Sohra (Cherrapunji) are some of the places near Shillong worth visiting. Tribal place, hmm..I have visited Smit, about 50 kms from Shillong. It has a queen's palace which Khasi tribe people visit and respect.
Assam has Kaziranga national park famous for Rhino which is about 5-6 hr from Guwahati by a jeep/car. Arunanchal has good places like Tawang, though I am not sure if they permit foreigners as it borders China and security might be paranoid.
Another option is to catch a train e.g. from Delhi you can catch Avadh-Assam express or NE express(preferred), or Rajdhani(best) to Guwahati.
About expenses, the places are all cheap to buy things. Shillong would be the most expensive of all the NE regions. While at Guwahati, try to catch a ferry or a boat and enjoy the vast Brahmaputra river.
It rains a lot in NE, so best would be pre-summer, pre-monsoon days. May-June would be good as later it starts to rain heavily in many areas.

__________________
India Photoblog at:
www.indiasnaps.blogspot.com

Travel_hungry

Now a days daily fligh from delhi to guwahati - air decan, jet , indigo, spice jet etc. Low fare airlines will cost nearly RajDhani train.
If you want to go by train. don't take Abadh Assam. Rajdhani and SamparkKranti(only 6 stopage) are good options. They travel less within Bihar. So time is less and less conjusted. From Paltan Bazar you will get Arunachal state run Bus from ASTC( Assam State transport Corp) or hire a taxi.
In the gov tourism web site i had mentioned before, they state that foreigner should take a permit from mentioed office.

Regards

itamar

I thank you all for your comments, but I'm asking not for instruction how to get to the region. I ask about permits (People who did it - How much time does it takes to process it for Arunachal or Nagaland, And is it possible to prepair it from abroad), And for good tips for handling inside the region.

Yes, Permits are the main technical problem in this region and i'm not sure how to make it in Arunachal and Nagaland.

Anybody with experience as a foreign?

machadinha

As far as I know -- but it may well vary per country -- you can apply for these permits when applying for your India visa at home. Having a permit won't guarantee you'll actually get in though, it seems to depend on the situation on the ground & may finally be up to the officer in charge when you want to get in.

Alternatively, permits can and must be applied for in e.g. Delhi or Kolkata with the appropriate offices I believe, count on some days for processing, I really don't know how quickly this can be done. If you already have a permit it probably doesn't hurt to enquire on the ground about its validity and your chances of actually getting in. Some states will just be off-limits, can't comment on the ones you mentioned. I suppose there are people who make it without a permit but it's at your own risk right. Nagaland I wouldn't hold your hopes up but I don't know. Has long been one of the trickiest areas & you might ask yourself if you want to end up in something of a low-key civil war, which is why you probably won't get in anyway. It could be open today though, I really don't know.

Hope this is of the slightest help. And no, I haven't visited so no tips, but I've been about to and certainly plan to do so some day.

nb For some backgrounds to the region try also http://www.alertnet.org/db/crisisprofiles/IN_CLA.htm . This is a little heavy on the danger side of it all, but will give you some good backgrounds nonetheless. (According to it, a ceasefire has been in effect in Nagaland since 1997 but I don't know how this reflects on foreign visitors. And as Vir added below & I had overlooked, solo travel may be subject to restrictions in any of the NE.)

__________________
Reading tips, all picked up at IndiaMike : INDAX's A Comprehensive Guide To India / Dinoj Surendran's Desi Humor / ITHVC on Culture Shock & Travel Health / JetLag Travel Guides For the Undiscerning Traveller / India Travel Links

vir

i wanna some info regarding ARUNACHAL PRADESH

Thanks to Rhytha...

itamar

Thanks,
We'll see if can make this part of my trip possible.

):

Spirit of Havelock

They say you can get permits at indian consulates overseas, I tried to get one for Mizoram in Sydney and the consulate here was hopeless. If you have got more than a month or two to play with, I would try to sort them out whilst you're there.

The taxi touts at Guwahati train station are actually OK, they do an honest job. Old India hands tell you to avoid taxi touts, which is true in 99% of India - but NOT in Assam. The taxi tout that latches on to you as you step off the train will sort you out - so don't give him the big F OFF as you might do in other places. There are 500 taxis outside, they all have set destinations and there are no signs. You need a tout!
Some of the shared 4WD taxis can even take you out of the state -so getting around is dead easy. Don't be put off by Guwahati - it gets a lot better!

As I said in another thread which got deleted (learning that India Mike is a soft and fluffy place where no hard opinions are allowed ) anyway, fact is, the militants there don't have a beef against Westerners. Most places are peaceful, but where there is trouble, they are pissed off about LOCAL issues, and not INTERNATIONAL issues - like Communists or Islamists are. Better stop there, or the Soviet India Mike censors will pounce on me again. Anyway, this is not just an opinion, I've been there ten times and.... well, let's just say, I know this. I think any foreign tourist is more at risk in Goa - I've been robbed and threatened in Goa and an English guy I knew was murdered there. Never been threatened or robbed in the NE, and I don't know of any tourist killed there - let alone actually knowing one who was killed. So, as far as I am concerned all the travel warnings are bullshit, written by people who have never been there - so go happy, and GOOD LUCK, you'll love it.

Oh, places to go - ok hers's one tip, and it's not in any guide book - NARTIANG, Jaintia Hills, Meghalaya. India's answer to Stone Henge - I loved it, a really mysterious place!

Oh, and by the way, Goa is still COOL despite what I said.

machadinha

That thread was moved to off-topic forum for the usual logistical reasons. If you have an issue with mod policies you are kindly requested to take it up with the mods and they'll be sure to make you feel exactly where they stand. Alternatively, you are, of course, perfectly welcome to visit other forums. Feel free to read this site's Forum Rules in the meantime, in fact you're invited to do so before you start posting.

Thanks, M.

Spirit of Havelock

How y'going Mach - me ol'mate! Not the first time I've been deleted though . I respect the rules of any forum - but there seems to be a "make it up as you go along" attitude at IM.

The deleted forum was about whether the NE gets ignored in India (wasn't my thread) - it was a political and social question. It's a difficult issue, that involves ISLAM Vs. CHRISTIANITY, BANGLADESH, TRIBAL LAND RIGHTS and imperealist attitudes within the Republic of India. When all that was raised (and not just by me), you guys got scared and deleted the thread. Don't patronize me with this OFF TOPIC bullshit. The problem was not that it was OFF TOPIC the problem was that it was going to the heart of the matter, and it was a potato too hot for India Mike to handle - better we talk about pot and backpacks I suppose.

Hey but thanks for IM anyway, it's a great site, my only problem is, if there are strict rules, they should be defined.

steven_ber

It's simple really.

This is a travel forum, we try to allow some flexibility, but as soon as a political thread turns nasty, it's moved to the off topic forum.

It's kind of like a bar, strictly speaking children aren't allowed in bars, but the owner lets them in to keep his customers happy, but as soon as the children start making a nuisance of themselves, the owner starts being strict with the rules.

There are 2 main reasons for moving posts to the 'off topic' forum.

1, a member needs 50 posts to be able to view that forum, this helps to keep that forum invisible to search engines, thus preventing people joining the website just to join in the argument of the day.

2, 'Off topic' threads don't appear on the home page, this keeps the website looking like a travel website.

Because of the actions of a few members, ANY thread we consider to be political or controversial will be moved to the off topic forum, a real pity, I think some of those threads are important to many members.

__________________
.
How to get helpful replies to your transport/Itinerary questions.



Train information.

itamar

This is a completely non-political thread...
Purely a traveling thread, and actually about something that we should try to clear up for everybody here, since NE states are quite in a vague status.

Lets focus some issues:
For a long time i'm trying to figure out how to travel in the NE and some questions remains unsolved:

1. Permits for each state - how long to process?
2. Permits for each state - how much would cost?
3. Would an organised tour make everything more possible and easy?

Any foreign, with experience, who travelled Arunachal Pradesh for example, and know exactly how to do it best, please share with us.

kmalik

Itamar -

Can you share what you learned? Arunachal Pradesh is near the top of my list - though I am more concerned about the logistics of how to get there / how much time is sufficient and the feasibility / sanity of visiting in December, which is the unalterable timing of our visit.

vpsingh

It is best to have a tour operator arrange for inner line permits since you will be wasting atleast two days of time for this (one day to apply and another to collect it). The permits are quite cheap and the officers generally do not make troubles unless you are for some purpose other than tourism (do not know what they mean by this).
The best way to visit Arunachal Pradesh is to divide tour in two-three parts. You have to comeback to Assam each time you decide to move to a new district in Arunachal. The road network is still poor and buses very few.
Arrive at Guwahati by train/plane and then move to say Tawang/Bomdila. Once done, come back to Assam and then move ahead to Itanagar/Ziro and so on.
While there use the bus services (both state and private), they are faster, cheaper, take you to all kinds of places knowing exactly when to stop for food, bathroom breaks, fresh air, just so etc and most importantly safer. (Trains have been insurgent targets before but buses never).
If you have got loads of money you can take taxi, but I will advise not because they do not give any advantage in north-east apart from privacy.

This was my itinerary-
Delhi-Guwahati(Assam)-Shillong/Cherrapunjee(Meghalaya)-Kaziranga (Assam)- Tezpur(Assam)-Bomdila(AP)-Tawang(AP)-Tezpur(Assam)-Itanagar(AP)-Hapoli(AP)-Ziro(AP)-Lakhimpur(Assam)-Tezu(AP)-Namdapha(AP)-Guwahati-Delhi

While in Arunachal, respect local culture and old people. Never, never take pictures without asking. Ask and they will happily oblige. Tribals still follow their customs and dresses/food habits even in towns. You will love it.