"You are going to the Northeast; you must go to Mechukha." We were told. "The Northeast" is seven states with generally bad roads, relentless rain, and mountainous terrain, mainly ensuring that the travel window is small and closes fast. But when the feeling of carpe diem seizes you, you just need to push that window open, even when the rain is about to start pattering on the panes literally. The weather app predicted a 90 per cent chance of rain on the days we were to head into the furthest folds of Arunachal Pradesh, but I took the opportunity of it not being 90 per cent of the time. Still, we wouldn't get that helicopter ride to this valley so close to the McMohan Line, which would put us there in hours instead of the winding two-day road trip we would now have to make. Google showed a nine-hour journey. Google is an armchair traveller, but being on the road, the journey sometimes becomes a wayside destination.
It is a wet morning when we start from Dibrugarh, crossing the Brahmaputra, which is swollen with all the run-off. The newer and shorter Basar route (still incomplete, as we discovered on the way back) is blocked, so we will take the Pasighat one. (Arunachal has shiny new blacktop roads or just slushy dirt tracks. There is rarely anything in between.) Travelling between the river and the hills of Arunachal, which rise abruptly but remain cloaked by low clouds, we cross brightly coloured idols near a stream. Statues from a festival gone by.
A feeling of abandonment permeates the air, yet they seem at home strangely. Climbing the hills after Pasighat in a misty drizzle, we discover the Brahmaputra keeping company. It is the Siang here, a regular river running down the mountains, not the sea, in the Assam plains. Orange orchards cover the hillsides, now devoid of the small, sweet, and juicy fruit in cane baskets sold in the markets during the season. Giant black and pink pigs dig the roots in a grove. Somewhere, we leave the Siang and follow the Siyom River through narrower valleys. The dark tropical forest is multi-tiered and dotted with towering coral trees in full bloom. The flowers were a startling smattering of red high in the canopied jungles.
We travel to the bottom of a narrow valley, which broadens into a bean-shaped bowl to reveal shallow, pebbly Siyom sinuously created islands. On one side sits the town of Aalo or Along, where we spend the night. It is the biggest settlement in this region, with eating joints serving Korean food, if you please. We see men wading through the river through the rain, probably fishing. Our guest house overlooks a dryish rivulet with a couple of ruminating Mithuns. A man paddles upstream in a narrow, fast-flowing channel in a long wooden canoe. He seems to have decided it will take less effort to get into the water and push the canoe up.
En route, the villages have traditional thatched bamboo houses on stilts, which are by no means small where the topography permits. Wide verandas with benches built into the bamboo railings lining them beckon enticingly. Kaying is a picturesque village nestled amid terrace fields being prepared to be transplanted with iridescent green rice shoots. White flags stained with a red sun flutter on top of some houses, indicating animistic indigenous Donyi Polo religion followers, where the sun and moon are worshipped. Perhaps we cross a church or two and see memorials with figurines by the roadside on steep slopes. On these slopes, the huts are tiny, perched in the air on long stilts. Pigs and ducks waddle on the edge of the road. Rashid, the driver, is extra cautious. He says if he runs over one, we must compensate for a couple of possible generations lost. The argumentative Indian in me wonders, "How do I know the animal wouldn't have been part of the next family meal?"
The drive winds through thick evergreen forests with groves of tamed pineapple and bananas growing wild. The banana tree trunks shine like thick, polished mahogany pillars. We cross a big feast with a large congregation in the middle of nowhere. All the men have dahs slung across their shoulders. At the famous Siko Dido waterfall, whose waters wisp in the air beside the road, a grocery store has a dried beehive hanging outside like a Chinese lantern. A young girl walks, dragging a suitcase-sized speaker, belting out some peppy songs. Surreal. The road loops up to Tato village on a shoulder with a commanding view of two valleys.
In the 62 War, the Chinese had almost reached this junction. The ongoing road work has left no road here or beyond. Pretty women with bright lipsticks and gumboots work in road construction. We leave the Siyom and go along the Yargyup Chhu, which flows at the valley's bottom. The evergreens give way to rocky mountainsides hiding whispering waterfalls and trumpet trees flowering a taffy pink, alive with the twittering of tiny birds on full volume one moment and, like a mute button being pressed, deathly silent at our approach. Crimson red and big white rhododendrons stand out against the ashy grey sky. Ponies emerge from thickets of towering bamboo to graze on the hillside.
The bone-rattling dirt track we've been intermittently on for some hours curves, and the ranges part into an open golden expanse cradled by bare, gentle hills, the higher reaches shrouded by low clouds. The valley floor has a small town and scattered technicoloured houses, a smattering of conifers, and a meandering silver-grey Yargyup Chhu, seemingly in no hurry to leave. Grazing ponies with shaggy manes and prayer flags being whipped by the wind complete the postcard setting of Mechukha, the 'medicinal water of snow' as the syllables of its name in the local Memba language add up to. The bracing air and beautiful vistas are a tonic for sore travellers.
Via Dibrugarh: Reach Dibrugarh by flight or train. Then, take a taxi to Aalo (7 hours approx). The next day, head to Mechukha (7-8 hours). Start early (in case there are some traffic disruptions or road-related issues).
Via Guwahati: Reach by flight or train. Take the Lachit Express to Silapathar. Then, take a taxi to Aalo. Have a night's halt at Aalo and drive to Mechukha the next day. Take the Donyi Polo Express to Naharlagun. Then, take a taxi from Naharlagun to Itanagar. Then, take another cab to Aalo. After a night's halt, proceed to Mechukha.
There are some basic hotels in Mechuka and a Circuit House.
Mechukha is a seasonal chameleon but best avoided during the monsoon.
Note: This is a previously published story that has been republished for your reading.