My friend Arif always says, if you not only measure or feel but to inhale the beauty, you have to visit a state at least twice despite of your previous experience. Because second visit always change your perception. we asks him how could you inhale beauty!? he lit and smooch his favorite flake, after inhaling a longgg puff into a fat lung his only one word, comes with a huge white fog of smoke through his mouth & nostril, is "Like that".
So we decided to visit Arunachal once again. Our last visit was tawang. But this time destination is "MECHUKHA" far north east of north east India. this is my first blog and it is about least explored location of north east by we Indians. the reason of writing this blog is having very little information of north east (especially eastern part of arunachal) on internet. Without any further intro let's start our journey to heaven...
Day 4
Menchuka - Shangri La of North East
cool breeze coming through my left side window listening my favorite play list on my earphone. Our tata sumo riding through nude chest of wild arunachal. Lashing green goddess of untouchable beauty seducing me by dancing with his invisible partner of air. I am sitting in front enjoying the raw beauty till jimmy's hand shake my shoulder and shouted "JAHAPANA' don't forget we are also seating behind you to enjoy music and nature. Jimmy is our coolest guitarist friend. He is the last person to join in our plan from his busy schedule on my request. Actually he is not wanderer like rest of us . his only wish to seat on a cliff of snow covered mountain and play his guitar.
last night we planned to start at 7 am as we have to cover around 290 km in hilly region. When you have a guitarist friend and a loquacious person like arif in your gang special in hill station how could you sleep early in bed. As usual we just manage to starts our day at 10'o clock from aalo to our destination Mechukha, Scotland of India.
Let's come to information section we'll continue our story later on.
How to Reach-
By Air- Either you can fly to Dibrugarh airport (around 450 km from mechuka) or Guwahati airport (around 880km).
By Train - Either you can go to Guwahati Railway station (around 450 km from mechuka) or Dibrugarh Railway Station (around 440 km from mechuka).
From Dibrugarh
One can hire car from here to mechuka via silapathar. From Silapathar there is two way either you can go via pasighat-aalo route or you can take 50 km shorter route via likabali-aalo to mechuka. You can also hire car from silapathar or pasighat to mechuka.
From Guwahati
By car - One car hire car to mechuka via tezpur-naharlagun-north lakhimpur-silapathar-aalo route or dibrugarh-pasighat-aalo route.
By train - there is two option one is upto naharlagun station by Shatabdi Exp(12088) or Donyi Polo Exp (15617) and second option is upto murkongselek (MZS) railway station by Lachit Exp (15613). For my opinion second option which we took is more convenient and budget friendly than rest of all route.
Most convenient route
Lachit Exp (named after great warrior lachit borphukan) runs everyday at 20.30 from kamakhya junction (7 km only from Guwahati junction) to Murkongselek station (which is 52 km to pasighat). We took Lachit Exp from Kamakhya junction and board at silapathar railway station next morning at 6.05 am on right time.Last night we arrived at kamakhya junction just 1 hr before our warrior train departs. how we just manage to save our journey we'll discuss later on.
Day 1
In the first place our journey starts from our home town Burdwan, West Bengal to Arunachal. You will be surprised how we end up in kishanganj platform no 1. In this stage of our journey i named it train scandal.
Train scandal
We are 6 friends in our gang. Our married friend raghav recently got appointment at Lumding, Assam (around 200 km from guwahati). According our plan he will join us tomorrow at kamakhhya. Rest 5 of us starts our journey from Burdwan station at 2.30 pm on tebhaga exp. My name is siddharha. I want everything according to plan exceptional to arif. what a irresponsible guy he is.His only part was for train ticket booking. as usual due to his casual behavior he did not booked train ticket. having no option we decides for break journey. arif got 5 tickets on tebhagha exp from burdwan to malda, from where we will board on brahmaputra mail to kamakhhya junction tomorrow morning. we board on tebhaga exp at 2.30 pm. arif with his unashamed smile says relax guys everything is in under control. after a while our most jolly friend Gopal just screams by checking running status of brahmaputra mail which is 5 hrs late already. our 2nd married friend deva who is very short tempered guy. our journey starts with deva's temperament. deva gives threats to arif, i'll through you from running train. i whispers to gopal if he is not able to lift 93 kgs fatty we will surely help him. eventually arif find a long distance train (Svdk Kyq Express) from kishanganj (around 130 km from malda) to guwahati. we reached at malda on right time around 7.30 pm. our next struggle how could you reach kishanganj station at where our train will arrive on 1.30 am midnight.we have 2 option either by train a takes a cab. after a long "chai pe charcha" debate we decides to hire a cab. again its arif's turn to hire a cab for us because we know among us, he is very good in bargaining. after 10-15 mins sitting beside driver's seat he comes with ballu bhai driving an old maruti 800. our monster friend smoking 'bidi' and says come on guys hop on to ballu's BMW. we understand he brainwashed the local driver by his talking capability.
By the way our adventurous journey starts at sharp 9.30 pm outside malda station by a fucking old maruti 800 car. only arif and our brainwashed driver is confident to reach our destination on time. rest of us thinking we wil end up our journey anywhere in between malda and kishanganj. Around 10'o clock we take away our dinner ( rumali roti and tarka) from a roadside dhaba as we don't have much more time. outside there is dark pitch night, here and there little light can be seen like fireflies. Only visible part is 10m shitty raod in front from headlight of this shitty car. After completing his dinner jimmy asks ballu bhai i can't take anymore you just stop the car at anywhere where i can get my medication ASAP. We know what is his medication, gopal explains to ballu about his medicine. Ballu understands the situation and stop his shitty machine to a shop and tell us you can take away our medicine from here. Jimmy just jump out of the car and grab his 2 Lt medicine in two hands. Our Rathyatra resume with Jimmy's medicine. After taking 2-3 pegs he starts to sing and forced us to drink. I fear if I do not control this situation then it could go all wrong. But who will listen to you!! Everyone just want some enjoyment after a long tired some and hectic journey. They want to forget the tension of situation by accepting Jimmy's offer except Arif. He is such a weird guy he never get tensed like he is always in hallucinations. In this situation Gopal is very pleased he drinks with roti-tarka leftovers like it is his last supper. First Deva refused to take then he drinks most of it out of anger to arif's train scandal. I am drinking very little because I know I have to be handle the situation if anything goes wrong whether Arif do not drink but I can't rely on him. On empty raod our moving bar driving at speed of 70-80 km/hr till 12.30 am then comes the hard part.
Ballu drastically slow down to 20km/hr due to heavy fog surrounding us. We can't see a damn thing in this thick fog entering to our moving bar by side window like foggy god wants to be drunk with us. Suddenly tension and adventure both get us. Arif shouted hey guys are we driving in Sikkim!! I can recall our north-sikkim trip in very early morning to 'Gurudongmar'. At 3.30 am we started to sail in fog to gurudongmar. The memory is so fresh that I am feeling like we are driving in Sikkim till Gopal ask me to check the mobile connection. Again tension get upper hand to adventure. All of us has no or weak signal in our mobile. We are not able to track our train wheather we can catch or miss again our train. Around 2 pm our Rath arrives to kishangunj station. I am feeling hopeless that we ruined our 2nd arunachal trip till Gopal shouted checking his mobile. Svdk Kyq Express runs in 2 hrs late. Jimmy wakes up and tell then why don't you drink some wine for celebration!! All of us shouted to him with "no".
Arif having devil's smile to me "Don't be fear when Arif is here, everything is in under control". Ignoring him I go to enquiry and find Gopal is right our train is running late by 2 hrs. We drink chai and snacks from outside the station in a local shop for time pass. Only Gopal eat two double egged omlets. Around 3 pm we decides to go to platform. We have to wait another 1 hr. Devil fog still with us like he is planning to trip with us to arunachal. For another 2 hr we are waiting in ass freezing cold. When announcement on Mike of our train is arriving Gopal smartly takes a 1lt water bottle and tell wait for me I am coming for 5 mins. What a guy he goes to toilet on train line. After 15 mins he comes with smile of relaxation but train is not coming. Around 5.30 morning at last our savior train appear out of thick fog and takes us. To be continued...
Day 3
Aalo
Either you go from Dibrugarh or Guwahati you can't reach mechuka in one day, you have to stay at Aalo (187 km away from mechuka village).
kamakhhya
we arrived at kamakhhya around 5.30 pm. our next train Lachit exp depart at 8.30 pm to murkongselek station (last Indian railway station in northern eastern part of Arunachal). Outside station we gathered in a chai shop and take some snacks and tea and waiting for raghav (recently got appointed in Lumding). we are discussing about him by then he joined with us. within just 3 months he is now a changed man both physically and mentally. But for us he is our childhood friend raghu. suddenly gopal shouts where is jimmy and deva!!! we rang them continously but no one is replying. after 15 mins jimmy rang arif chill bro we are marketing our medicine for night journey in train. how immature they are! if RPF get them with liquor it will end our journey. at 8.25 pm they came with their marketing.
Our train Lachit Exp starts at sharp 8.30 pm. It feels our journey actually starts right now as Raghu joined us and also for previous train scandal.
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