Arunachal Pradesh - Land of The Rising Sun

Traveling is a celebration, celebration in a way of cherishing and appreciating the bountiful beauty of nature. We decided to indulge in such a journey into the land of the Rising Sun, mystical Arunachal Pradesh and India’s eastern-most state. Arunachal Pradesh literally means “The Land of the Dawn-lit Mountains”. Due to its elemental forces of nature, all playing their best in a single ground, this tour was one crazy tour and the plan was crazier.

The first week of December 2012 had filled us with ideas to go on a trip out of Assam viz. Sikkim, Darjeeling, Nagaland, Bhutan and Nepal along with other co-trainees which was planned (?) by “The Bluffmaster”. We seven had foreseen that these plans were not going to happen and on 6^th December we planned (master plan) to visit Arunachal Pradesh which was presumed impossible by every other person in ILP.

We seven, like a secret mission, to make the impossible possible, started hunting travel agents to book the vehicle and to get the inner line pass to Arunachal Pradesh. We had lot of challenges, foremost is we had less than 7 hours to get the pass from Deputy Resident Commissioner, Government of Arunachal Pradesh. Next one is to convince our facilitators to allow us for this plan which they had thought was not a good or safe idea to execute. Last but not the least there were landslides happening on the way for which we had to take all the care.

The night of 7^th December 2012 was filled with excitement, with the coming day to be bliss as we would be in the Land of The Rising Sun, the place about which we had read only in books and visited only in our dreams. It was really a dream come true for us, visiting the most exotic places like Dhirang, Bomdila and Sela Pass.

We had a roller-coaster of a ride at night, journeying towards Bomdila and reached around 8:30AM in the morning. It was a beautiful small town, with brilliant landscape and snow-clad mountains of the Himalayan Range. We had our first stop at the Buddhist Monastery, the repository of culture which was a mind blowing experience. We were unfortunate that we could not visit the Craft centre and Shopping centre, since it was a Saturday and they were closed, which would have given us a feel of the local version of Himalayan Buddhist life.

We had a scrumptious meal in Hotel Siphiyang Phong after which we experienced the real cold for the lifetime. Then we left for Dhirang, which was a journey of about 2 hours along the valleys. We reached by dawn and found place for our stay. Even though it had turned dark, our enthusiasm was at its best and we made our way towards the hot water spring in Dhirang. This was highly adventurous as the whole town was out of power and we had to use our flashlights to reach this place, feeling all along like sleuthing Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes. We returned to the place of our stay, had a late dinner in that chilly night, the temperature dropped subzero and were freezing away, never feeling sorry for the experience. We went to sleep hoping to see the ice-capped snowy peaks the next day.

The next day started off at 5.00 am in the foggy morning and a nice drive through the narrow and steep curvy roads that lead us to Sela Pass. The inexorable charm of Lilly white snow, meandering water-bodies and prominent hillocks refreshed our mind, heart and soul. The snow fall we experienced was breath taking wondering many a times if it was India or Switzerland.

We literally had gone crazy throwing snow on each other, taking as many clips as possible, skiing, jumping around and trying to feel every second we stayed there. In fact, we were not ready to face the truth that we had to leave the place.  It was indeed a thrilling experience to be in this part of India.

After two long lovely days, our celebrations came to an end. With all this amazing, astonishing and memorable experiences we had, we started off towards Guwahati. Though the trip is over, the memories of the beautiful days are still fresh in our thoughts, the thoughts we oath to cherish for an eternity and beyond.

Such journey of ecstatic moments can be experienced only by experiencing it.

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Memories of Arunachal Pradesh :

To know more about Arunachal Pradesh Tourism, visit Arunachal Pradesh 

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Much Awaited KAMAKHYA!!!

Our stay in Guwahati would hardly be complete without a visit to “The Kamakhya temple”, situated somewhere in the middle of Nilachal hill, 800 feet above the sea level, the holiest Hindu shrines of Mother Goddess Durga as it is believed for centuries that this is the place where Mother's Yoni dropped after Lord Vishnu cut Sati's body in 52 pieces, to stop Lord Shiva's dance of Destruction (Tandava Nritya), which he was doing out of anger after his wife's death. This temple is also associated with Tantric activity and sacrifice.

We started from National Games village around 9:00 AM and reached the temple at 11:00 AM. Beware of the shopkeepers at the entrance of the temple who would force you to keep your footwear in their shops for free. Later on they would demand you to by puja materials which would cost more than 250 INR!!! So make sure that you leave your footwear at the temple gate.

Since it was a Saturday the temple was highly crowded and we had to decide to take the ticket for direct entry, we finally took a ticket of 100 INR per person. We managed ourselves to join the long queue. By the end of an hour or so we were inside the temple. The temple is built with stone and very narrow with sloping, dark stairs inside the Sanctum Sanctorum.

We were absolutely blank and had no idea where to go and what has to be done inside the temple. At this moment we could see many priests who were waiting to help and guide us (Money minded people). We had to select one among them. The priest accompanied us throughout our visit inside the temple, teaching us various mantras and rituals to be followed in the temple, which we enjoyed as we weren’t able to repeat what he was chanting! The temple consists of three major chambers. The western chamber is large and rectangular and is not used by the general pilgrims for worship. The middle chamber is a square, with a small idol of the Goddess. The walls of this chamber contain sculpted images of Naranarayana, related inscriptions and other gods. The middle chamber leads to the sanctum sanctorum of the temple in the form of a cave, which consists of no image but a natural underground spring that flows through a yoni-shaped cleft in the bedrock.

In the temple sacrifices are still very much part of worship. We could see groups of devotees with goats to offer to Shakti. The environment inside the temple was not very pleasing as none of us were ready to witness the sacrifice. Hence we made our move out of the temple. We did click few snaps capturing the rare beauty of Kamakhya which holds an ancient history.

The priest didn’t stop even after coming out, he still was making us to do some rituals during which he chose one of us and put a garland, kumkum on all our foreheads and gave a smile showing that he has used all of his experience to fool us without giving a hint of it.

Now it was time to pay the priest, because the priest was demanding a huge amount, we guys had a tough time in deciding it. We landed up giving 300 INR and finally made our way towards Woodlands Hotel as it was time for lunch.

 Know more about Kamakhya Temple, visit Kamakhya Temple

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First outing : Purva Thirupathi Balaji Mandir

On one fine Guwahati evening we started our exploration in a more ethnic way by visiting Balaji Mandir. 

We started towards Balaji Mandir from National Games Village where we were accommodated. We first took a cycle rickshaw to go to Basishta Chariyali. The first experience in cycle rickshaw was really nice.

 From Basishta we headed towards Balaji Mandir as per guidelines of our national games village security guards in a tum tum (Red color Tata Sumo, city taxi).

As expected with sooner setting sun in Guwahati we entered temple when it was almost dark. In that almost setting sun’s shade the white colored Purva Thirupathi Balaji Mandir looked very beautiful, we all were mesmerized by its beauty.

We washed our legs in the tap near gate and with full devotion in our hearts, we entered Ganesh Mandir and sought his blessings for our upcoming adventurous, surprising, joyous journey.

Then we entered Core of the temple where idol of Balaji with Padmavathi and Laxmi is seated, which is carved out of a single stone weighing 4 tons and the features, the smiling face, ornaments carved on the stone with Shankha, Chakra and Four arms: one showering blessings and the other on the hip; all add to the solemnity and serenity of the Temple.

Then we entered into Chamundeshwari Mandir to take the blessings. Finally with peaceful mind and pure heart we left Balaji Mandir.

Know more about Purva Thirupathi Shri Balaji Mandir visit Purva Thirupathi Balaji Mandir

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Set to explore...

It was October 15^th, 2011…A day when TCS came to SJCE, Mysore for campus recruitment. We four (Sachin, Shivashree, Vinutha and Zaiba) together along with Dharma and Abhi separately started our journey with TCS. Do not know about Abhi and Dharma, at least we four were on cloud nine when we got into TCS with a hope of enjoying a lot certainty with TCS. We four had great deal of plans to enjoy in ILP Trivandrum; we were certain sure of having our ILP in Trivandrum.

After a pause of almost six months. In April, 2012 we did experience our first certainty with TCS when we received our joining letter. It had packet of surprise with it.

Here it goes…

Our ILP was set at Guwahati, 2758 Kms away from place we stood. I swear I was on sky flying high, happily dancing in the streets of Manasa Gangotri like a mad. If not all I at least had Shivashree and Vinutha with me to jump around partying the happiness.  

After all the confusions, difficulties, fights, all six of us started our journey towards Guwahati though not together. Dharma was the first one to set his journey in Guwahati Express from Bangalore on 19^th September 2012. Next, we four in Indigo and Abhi in Spice jet from Bangalore international Airport on 23^rd September 2012.  

Finally our ILP started on 24^th September 2012 in NEDFi Building, Dispur. Bubbling with enthusiasm, we started searching people from same place. We succeeded in finding Dharma, Abhi and Subramanya from same college. It is strange but true we met each other for the first time, we jelled up very well with each other soon and made a group and set to explore Guwahati with no hope that where it ends. 

-Sachin