Exploring Assam, Arunachal and Meghalaya in a BMW 330i GT

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The easier part is writing about the destinations which can be done with facts and pictures. The difficult part is expressing the experience of the journey.

BHPian graaja recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

A road trip to Assam, Arunachal and Meghalaya in a BMW 330i GT:

“Focus on the journey, not the destination.” – Greg Anderson

Picture credit: Mrs. Megazoid.

Completed a 24-day road trip to the Northeast (Assam, West Bengal, Arunachal and Meghalaya) starting on 21st December 2021 and ending on 13th January 2022, covering about 9400 kilometers through 12 states, in the BMW 330i GT. This road trip was not about the places I visited (though I thoroughly enjoyed them as well), but about the life I lived these 4 weeks – the company I spent time with, the people I met, the roads we traveled, the food we ate, the adventures we undertook, and the conversations made.

The easier part is writing about the destinations which can be done with facts and pictures. The difficult part is expressing the experience of the journey. I will try to cover both in this travelogue.

Before starting, I would like to first thank everyone who made this road-trip possible.:

My wife for letting me go on a road trip for such a long duration. She managed everything at home while I was away and told me every day not to worry about anything back home and to enjoy the trip. Without her support, it would not have been possible to do such a long road trip.
Dr.AD, RobiMahanta, Megazoid and Mrs. Megazoid for the wonderful company they provided during the trip.
Mrs. Megazoid for the fantastic planning of the Meghalaya part of the trip – more about this later.
My friend and TBHPian quicksilver who arranged a full size spare wheel and also gave me several inputs on the maintenance of the car.
All TBHPians who provided their inputs on route planning in this thread.
Friend and TBHPian 500CountryCruiser who gave first hand inputs on what to expect and best practices to follow based on his drive to Arunachal.
DBHPian Sheel who provided his inputs on route planning.

Table of content:

As this is going to be a very long travelogue, I have split it into posts with links below. Please skip to the topic of interest:

The plan.
The company.
The people.
The food.
The places of stay.
The car.
Preparations for the trip.
Bodh Gaya
Kalimpong and Dooars.
Pasighat – Pongging Hanging Bridge and Sirki Waterfall.
Kaziranga Safari.
Tura – Pitcher plant, Waterfalls, Rock formations and Siju caves.
Tura – Hoolock Gibbon sanctuary, Fish sanctuary and Daribogkre.
Mawphanlur natural lake.
Cherrapunji – Wei Sadong waterfalls, Nohkalikai falls, Arwah caves.
Sunrise in Cherrapunji and the Mawryngkhang trek.
Nohwet – View of Bangladesh, Umngot river and Phe Phe waterfalls.
Barapani Eco Resort, Umiam lake.
The final leg and conclusion.
The plan:

It all started with a talk about taking part in the Gumball Challenge that TBHPians Robimahanta and Megazoid were planning to do. This challenge involves driving 4000 kilometers from Koteshwar in Gujarat to Kaho in Arunachal Pradesh within a time frame of 90 hours.

I and Dr.AD wanted to do this challenge. But after opposition from my family for the continuous drive with lack of sleep, I and Dr.AD decided to do a relaxed drive from Bangalore and meet the Gumball challengers near their destination and explore Pasighat and Kaziranga. As Dr.AD and Robi did not have enough leaves, they decided to fly back from Guwahati while Mrs. Megazoid joined us in Guwahati for the next leg where we toured Meghalaya for a week and Mrs. Megazoid flew out of Siliguri. I and Megazoid then drove from Nagpur to Bangalore and then I proceeded to Coimbatore. So this road trip can be split into four parts.

Part-1: graaja and Dr.AD driving to Namsai to meet robimahanta and Megazoid.

This part is the trucker’s life that AD has mentioned in his travelogue. Most of the days we were driving from morning to evening and halting for the night. We usually started the day early morning anywhere between 5 am to 7am and targeted to complete the drive before 7PM. There were some exceptions where some days we had miscalculated the road conditions and ended up driving till late in the night or started as early as 3 am as we had to cover a lot of distance that day. Below is the itinerary for this part.

Day #1: I drove from Coimbatore to Bangalore and AD joined me in the evening.
Day #2: Drive from Bangalore to Nagpur.
Day #3: Drive from Nagpur to Mirzapur.
Day #4: Drive from Mirzapur to Darbhanga and visit Bodh Gaya en route.
Day #5: Drive from Darbhanga to Kalimpong.
Day #6: Spend a day in Kalimpong.
Day #7: Drive from Kalimpong and Dooars and some sight seeing.
Day #8: Drive from Dooars to Tezpur.
Day #9: Drive from Tezpur to Namsai and meet Robi and Megazoid.

Part-2: graaja, Dr.AD, robimahanta and Megazoid in Pasighat and Kaziranga.

In this part, I, Dr.AD, Robi and Megazoid spent time in Pasighat and Kaziranga and drove to Guwahati where Robi and AD took a flight to Bangalore.

Day #1: Drive from Namsai to Pasighat (This day overlaps with Day #9 of Part – 1).
Day #2: Sight seeing in Pasighat.
Day #3: Drive from Pasighat to Kaziranga.
Day #4: Safari at Kaziranga in the morning. Drive to Guwahati in the afternoon.

Part-3: graaja, Megazoid and Mrs. Megazoid in Meghalaya.

In this part Mrs. Megazoid flew in from Bangalore to Guwahati and joined us. We travelled in Meghalaya and visited many places. We stayed mostly in homestays, experienced Meghalaya hospitality, culture and food. Most of our activities were also adventurous like treks to waterfalls, rock formations and caves.

Day #1: Drive from Guwahati to Tura. On the way, met a guide who showed us pitcher plants, a waterfall, huge rock formations and Siju caves. Reached Tura late in the evening and checked into a homestay called Dongrama.
Day #2: Moved to another homestay called Huro A Song in the morning. Visited Hoolock Gibbon sanctuary, fish sanctuary and orange orchards. Spent the evening around camp fire.
Day #3: Drive to Cherrapunji (also known as Sohra). On the way we took a detour and visited the Mawphanlur lake and spent the evening watching sunset and taking lots of pictures of our cars. We checked into Jiva resorts in the evening.
Day #4: Local sightseeing in Cherrapunji. We visited the Weisawdong falls, NohKalikai falls, and Arwah caves.
Day #5: Drive to a village called Nohwet. On the way we took a detour and did the Mawryngkhang trek and in the evening reached the Na I Mei homestay.
Day #6: Sightseeing. Went to Dawki village from where we saw the Bangladesh plains, drove along Bangladesh border, went boating, kayaking and swimming in the Umngot river known for its crystal clear water, and visited the Phe Phe waterfalls which required some offroad driving.
Day #7: Drove from Nohwet to Umiam lake. Took a speed boat to reach the Barapani Eco resort and spent the rest of the day resting in the island.
Day #8: Drove from Umiam lake to Siliguri and checked into Sinclairs retreat in the evening. The next day Mrs. Megazoid took a flight from Siliguri to Bangalore.

Part-4: graaja and Megazoid driving back to Bangalore and Coimbatore.

In this part, I and Megazoid drove from Siliguri to Bangalore and I then proceeded to Coimbatore.

Day #1: Drive from Siliguri to Mirzapur. This was one of the toughest drives. We had to drive through 120km of broken roads and roads under construction. We started our drive at 7:30 in the morning and reached Mirzapur after 11 in the night.

Day #2: Drive from Mirzapur to Nagpur. This drive was a fast drive all through 4 lane roads.

Day #3: Drive from Nagpur to Bangalore. This drive was also a fast drive through 4 lane roads. The second part of the drive after Hyderabad was a little slow due to lot of truck traffic. I and Megazoid said our goodbyes in a tea shop in the evening about 100km from Bangalore.

Day #4: I drove from Bangalore to Coimbatore and reached home by noon.

Dr.AD has beautifully written about Part-1 and Part-2 of this journey in his travelogue at this link in his own unique style.

Robi has given a detailed update on his Gumball experience in this post.

Below table summarizes the complete trip:

The Company:

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together – An African proverb.

I got to spend 24 days with some amazing people who are a bundle of energy and joy. I derived lot of energy from them to power through those long days behind the wheel and the adventures.

Dr. AD: Though Dr.AD has been a very close friend the past few years, this is the first time we got to spend so much time together. He is a man who is brimming with energy and is passionate about anything he does in life – driving, cars, photography, artificial intelligence, chess to name a few. As he mentioned, the first few days, we were like truckers: drive from 5AM (we even started at 3AM one day) to 7 or 8PM, eat at dhabas and enjoy tea at small tea shops. After a tiring day’s drive, it would be dinner and conversation – cars, food, health and fitness, artificial intelligence, photography and many more. AD is also a great photographer who easily identifies framing opportunities for car and landscape photography. He tells you to park the car in certain angle in a certain location and gets some fabulous pictures (you can see these in his travelogue).

Robimahanta: Robi is another close friend who is a fantastic driver and photographer. From the energy levels he showed during the sightseeing in Pasighat and Kaziranga, no one would believe that he had completed a 4000km drive in 90 hours just the previous day. He is a fantastic photographer and I learn lots of new things in photography from him. As Assam is his home turf, he took us to awesome places and got us local delicacies like thukpa, momos and pork. Though I had his company only for three days in this trip, we had lots of fun and made lots of memories in those three days.

Megazoid: I had met Megazoid only a year back in a couple of WDM (windows down motoring) drives he used to organize. After spending more than 2 weeks with him in this drive, it feels like he is a friend of many years. He is another bundle of energy. When I used to be tired after those long treks and activities in Meghalaya and doze off in the car, he would be driving the car through bad roads for hours. We share a lot of interests like travel, health and fitness, cars and farming. Loved the conversations we had ranging from cars, driving techniques, farming, health and fitness and life in general. Through this road trip, I have gained a good friend for life.

Mrs. Megazoid: Mrs. Megazoid is an avid traveler, and she planned our complete Meghalaya itinerary. She took us to off-beat locations away from regular crowded tourist spots, booked our stays in homely homestays in villages which helped us explore more of Meghalaya’s interiors and culture. She is also an excellent photographer and captures lots of great images of nature and the cars. I would like to thank her once again for the wonderful time in Meghalaya.

A few pictures with this wonderful company:

With Dr.AD: