North East Travel Diary

The Road to North East

Day 1 – Flight for Guwahati and a night stay

The rush for catching the flight

With all the curiosity, butterflies in my stomach and adventure at the back of my mind, I started early morning on my “official trip” by catching the flight from Ahmedabad to Guwahati. While waiting for the Auto determined to go along only on the metered basis, thoughts of North East were just giving goosebumps. Time was running out and finally I got an auto who agreed after having waited for around 15 mins. On reaching the airport, I saw many VIP vehicle movement and unusual crowd supposedly due to some celebrity league the day before at Ahmedabad wherein quite a few Bollywood actors were participating. Well, the thought of the North-East was just too pervasive to even get me anxious, leave apart excited. J.

Inside the flight of Vistara

Having boarded Vistara flight, an airlines I was traveling by for the first time, I was presented with a pleasant surprise by being upgraded to premium class till New Delhi. It was a connecting flight to Guwahati from Ahmedabad via New Delhi and Bagdogra. I was quiet impressed by the in-flight services and good gestures. While both breakfast and lunch were delicious, I particularly liked the taste of Burberry Cheese cake a lot.

It was already an hour post take-off and I had not taken my eyes off from the window despite cloudy weather and low visibility. After New Delhi, I was shifted to the middle seat of Economy class. But as it was cloudy, I did not bother the co-passenger for windows seat. While landing at Bagdogra airport, I saw many tea plantations. However, it was the view of snow-capped mountains so up close that was really mesmerizing. Finally landed at Guwahati where like every time, the first person I met was Prashant (my colleague and close friend Anshu’s brother) who came to receive me with his uncle. Was it merely a co-incidence or some nature’s plan that, exactly a year back in time, I was in the same region after having discussed all its nitty-gritties with a close friend back in Ahmedabad?

Momos at Fancy Bazaar, Guwhati

After freshening up, initially, we planned for the famous momos at fancy bazaar, near Shani temple crossroad but later, Prashant took me to a new restaurant “Zaika” where we had the Tandoori Momo and the taste was just out of the world. It was prepared the same way Paneer Tikka Masala is prepared but it was quiet a tasty one, probably the best one of my life. Then we went to the famous momos wala of Fancy bazaar, ate Cheese Momos, the second best momos of my life, earlier it was best but Momos tikka masala overtook it that night.

Sukreshwar temple at the bank of Divine Brahmaputra river

Sukreshwar temple is a temple dedicated to Lord Shiva. The architecture was Bengali style and quite similar to Kamakhya temple. Saying there is - The size of Shivling keeps on increasing from the day it was found way back on 1700’s by Ahom king of Assam. Thereafter, sat for few minutes at the Brahmaputra Ghat but with mosquitoes wanting to have their supper from our blood, we had not an option but to leave.

Papoon live at Rongoli fest

Again a coincidence, having missed the show of Papoon (my favorite) at Ahmedabad, I got to know that Papoon would be performing tonight at Rongoli -fest organized by Govt of Assam. At First, we ate the home cooked food prepared by my friend’s father; a tasteful combination of rice, dal, kaddu and mix vegetable and then we went back to the Rongoli fest. It was 10 in the night and Papoon was yet to follow. And then it started -  A treat to watch back  on his  home ground, people were just dancing on each of his songs. I was left mesmerized.

The songs to mesmerized

Huge gathering 

Day’s End

While on the bed, I was thinking what a day it was and I was not yet tired. How often had it been that days back at office were low on work load and yet, I was simply mentally drained whereas despite the travel, roaming around, the prospect of an upcoming deadline, etc., I was here, lying at peace with myself, in a part of the world that could compete any other when it came to preserving it’s natural beauty and cultural conscious. I closed my eyes, thinking of the valleys of Meghalaya where I’ll be next day.