Inertia before the wild

 
27th November 2021

The day when I did nothing active, except head out to the sun once in a while during the day to keep blood flowing. And, to the market in the evening to look for anything.

The place I was to stay yesterday night refunded the money paid in with a load of apologies. Regretted not being in station and having me received by his not so helpful assistant.

Cards fall the way they are supposed to.

Sitting doing nothing has it’s advantages. Got to looking at the map. Organised the travel over the rivers before and in the North East. And, I am sure I have missed some in the initial run up to West Bengal.

Rivers crossed before the North east

River Krishna at Guntur
River Godavari at Rajahmundry
River Mahanadi between Puri and Bhubaneswar
River Ganges at Farakka

Rivers crossed in the North east from November 14th 2021

River Teesta  - between Darjeeling and Siliguri at Teesta
River Sankosh between Darjeeling and Guwahati at Gossaigaon
River Manas,  between Darjeeling and Guwahati at Barpeta Road
River Shil Torsa between Darjeeling and Guwahati past Apilurduar

River Brahmaputra while entering Guwahati

River Kopili between Guwahati and Kaziranga at Jagiroad
River Diphlu between Jorhat and Dibrugarh before Bokaghat
River Bruhi Dihing between Kaziranga and Tinsukia past Moran
River Dhansiri Guwahati and Tinsukia past Bokaghat
River Lohit between Tinsukia and Roing
River Dibang at Roing and while exiting Roing towards Aalo
River Siang Between Roing and Aalo at Pasighat
River  Subansiri at Daporijo and while entering Daporijo from Aalo
River Jia Bharali ( Kameng ) between Ziro and Tezpur

River Brahmaputra while exiting Tezpur towards Guwahati

River Dawki ( Umngot ) at Dawki

Upto and including November 26th 2021

Seeing that all the rivers flowing into the Brahmaputra have been crossed, this drive should be called “Around the mighty Brahmaputra”, just as I called my earlier run to Uttarkhand “Up the Ganges".

The North East is fascinating. It’s terrain varies between the central plains and the surrounding mountains, the different weather patterns are unpredictable, it’s people are evenly friendly, it’s food is such a variety of styles and tastes, and an absolute dream, the scenic beauty is never ending, and, it is yet unadulterated to a large extent.

In all, traveling the North East is a pleasure one must flavour again and again, to really assimilate all of it.

There will be another trip here for sure. Yet to cover Mizoram, Manipur and Tripura. All three states are currently not the best place to picnic.

And, am not yet done with the rest. Nagaland has been done once, and most certainly will be visited again. Sikkim too needs more attention in my plans.

Tomorrow I move to a different genre in this trip - Wildlife - at Kaziranga National Park.

How can one visit the North East and not spend time at Kaziranga.

That was written in the morning when my feet were up being sunned.This is continued 28th morning.

Went to the Police Bazar late afternoon to buy some walking socks for the kids. Crowded as hell, but fully masked. Sad, could not get to see all the pretty faces.

Finally ate some Rasagollas. Had been craving for them ever since I crossed into Odisha.
 

Walked  from there to the Cherry Blossom Literary Festival of Shillong at Ward’s Park. Listened to some music of SD Burman, before the event we had gone for started. It was a conversation between a young theatre artist from Shillong with Nasiruddin Shah. Extremely well conducted. The young lady took the powerful theatre persona in his 70s thru the various stages of his career. The persona was gracious in his replies, sharing his fears and joys in his journey of the stage, with oodles of advice for the current budding artists.

Got back for some well deserved whiskey and hot food. It was cold in the park. Sweater, heavy jacket, and woollen cap.





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