|
To TAWANG with SANTRO
It was 25th. December 2001,when we reached Tejpur, the district head quarter of Sonitpur District, Assam. We had the plan of visiting Tejpur and Bhalukpung (a place on the border of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh) during our winter holidays. But when we visited the Coal Park now known as Chitralekha Uddayn, we purchased a book on tourism on Tejpur. This book inspired us to plan for the visit to Tawang.
It was 368 km from Tejpur and the main place to stop over for the night is Bomdilla, which is 192 km from Tejpur as per the booklet. When enquired from the Sumo-operators, we came to know that on regular basis it takes a little over 12 hours to reach Tawang from Tejpur. The roads are quite steep and have sharp bends. The roads are narrow. It is very difficult if the driver is not very alert for opposite traffic. The most difficult patch is the Sela Peak, which has to be crossed beyond Bomdilla and which is at almost 14000-ft altitude. Nobody suggested for taking the self-driven vehicle particularly Santro mostly because of two reasons, firstly less experienced driver on mountain roads and unproven vehicle on these roads of high altitude and snow.
We means my wife, 10 years old son and my in laws of ages 74 & 68 took a decision at the Tourist Lodge room to make it to Tawang now or never with our two years old Santro. We decided that we will go slowly and carefully and will stop over for the night at Bomdilla if required. We will take our vehicle and it will be better self-driven than to depend on other’s vehicle and mercy of the driver.
Accordingly we collected ILP on 26.12.2001 and geared up for our journey. We started for Tawang at 5.30 am from Tejpur. We reached Bhalukpung, the foothill of the mountain terrains of our journey at 6.30 am and completed the formalities of ILP entries. Then our bright red Santro started climbing the hilly roads amidst the green silent gigantic mountains. Our expressions and exclamations kept on increasing notes one after another as we watched the picturesque beauty scene after scene and went up the hills. Even after only 30 km of journey all the peaks of nearby visible green mountains covered with thick forest came at the level of the road and our expression was obviously “We are on the top of the World.” But we never waited. We kept on driving and stopped whenever we felt. After crossing few mountains, it was now again climbing up the hill after which we reached BOMDILLA. It is at an altitude of 9400 ft. It was 11 am. We had our breakfast-cum-lunch in a roadside restaurant.
We knew that we will have to cross Sela peak, which is of 14000 ft altitude to reach Tawang, and we wanted to reach Tawang within the daylight.
So we didn’t loose any leisure time and set out for forward journey. We drove for another 3.1/2 hours to reach Sela Peak. We could see small patches of snow and ice while climbing by the western side of the mountain. The scene of those small patches even exited us. As we reached Sela Top, where a memorial also stands by the name of the girl, we were simply spell bound by the scenic beauty of the other side of the mountain, which was fully covered with milky white glaring snow. It was our first experience to watch snow from a hand reaching distance and in such a huge quantity. We have seen the photographs of Switzerland and Alps mountains covered with snow with pine trees holding the snow deposits as per their capacity, but this was nothing less. This was real, it had no frame to limit the scene as that of the photograph. We drove down a little and stopped in front of the memorial of Jaisheebaba, who fought a heroic battle alone with Chinese army and died. There stands a welcome point manned by the Indian Army. The place was fully covered with snow even on the road. The Jawans offered us hot tea with snacks and it was just like ‘Amrit ‘ at that point of time.
We headed for Tawang and reached at around 6.30 pm. Our journey of 13 hours long drive ended after we could find a hotel to save ourselves from the chilling cold. Tawang is at the altitude of almost 11,000 ft.
There was no snow but ice was abundantly seen everywhere from windscreen and body of the parked vehicle to the roadside small drains. We made ourselves comfortable in the room form the radiating heat of the ‘Bukhari’ fired with wood. Some how we passed the chilling night.
In the morning it was full sunshine day and as we took a look through the window we were again spell bound by the beautiful landscape with almost 350 years old (second oldest within Asia) Buddhist Monastery in the fore front. It was total ice that covered our vehicle as we came down stair to take it for refueling. We climbed another 29 km uphill beyond
|