The roads in AP, in particular the way to Tawang, were brutal, and the areas between towns very sparsely populated. But even so, we managed to meet tons of nice people living in these places, and everywhere we went made AP seem less and less remote.
Above: View from Jamtse Gatsal, just a few kilometers fro Bhutan.
In Itanagar, the capital of AP, we met up with two random guys who just invited us into their homes, introduced us to their families, and showed us around town. Upper left: A former bomb squad officer, who built this house on his own, and now lives there with his wife. Upper right: The guy making the “V” symbol is another police officer, who happened to be off duty and hanging out with his two tourist industry friends when we met them. They took us out for drinks, and then back to his house, where we met his cute family, and got to play with his gun! (Unloaded of course). There was lots of talk of gun control laws, being proud to be rednecks, and “maintaining protocol,” which is a slang phrase I’ll be using from now until the day I die.
Next up, there was Phurpa Tsering, who we met in Bomdila, about a third of the way to Tawang. What a cool dude! He found us a good deal on a hotel room, and then invited us over for tea and conversation while we waited for another province-wide strike to subside.
As we moved closer to Tawang (which is only a few kilometers from Bhutan, and just a few more from Lhasa), things got way more Buddhist. Monasteries began to pop up everywhere, Tibetan Buddhist architecture became more common.
Flags on flags; it’s impossible to take a bad picture of the ubiquitous Tibetan prayer flags.
Same goes for prayer wheels. They’re everywhere.
I was even lucky enough to catch the tail end of the mourning period for a Tibetan monk who’d recently passed away. The ceremony lasts for weeks, and there is a constant supply of yak butter tea on hand for visitors to the monastery. Above, you can see two guys heating and churning the tea. It was delicious.
Then there’s Tawang Monastery itself, more than 3,000m (10,000ft) up in the mountains, and super old. This monastery was also the Dalai Lama’s first stop after escaping from Tibet. There is a small museum paying homage to the Dalai Lama’s visit.
Above and below: More photos of the interior of Tawang Monastery.
And below, some of their monastic activities:
While wandering around Tawang, we were fortunate enough to run into two people who positively influenced our stay there. First was Pema, pictured below in orange:
Pema’s a school teacher in a tiny village south of Tawang, and niece of the man who owned the hotel we were staying at. I chatted her up one morning and she invited us to visit her village, which looks like this:
It’s 1.5km (1 mile) downhill, and even though as a crow flies, it was only about 5km from Tawang, it took us 2 hours to get there. Pema took us on a hike, showed us the terraced rice fields, fierce mountain goats, suspension bridges, and at the very bottom…
This raging river…oh, and more prayer wheels, this time built over a small creek, which turns them continuously.
Thanks Pema!
This post is getting pretty long, so I’ll save the final part of my Arunachal Pradesh story for one last post…
Above: View from Jamtse Gatsal, just a few kilometers fro Bhutan.
In Itanagar, the capital of AP, we met up with two random guys who just invited us into their homes, introduced us to their families, and showed us around town. Upper left: A former bomb squad officer, who built this house on his own, and now lives there with his wife. Upper right: The guy making the “V” symbol is another police officer, who happened to be off duty and hanging out with his two tourist industry friends when we met them. They took us out for drinks, and then back to his house, where we met his cute family, and got to play with his gun! (Unloaded of course). There was lots of talk of gun control laws, being proud to be rednecks, and “maintaining protocol,” which is a slang phrase I’ll be using from now until the day I die.
Next up, there was Phurpa Tsering, who we met in Bomdila, about a third of the way to Tawang. What a cool dude! He found us a good deal on a hotel room, and then invited us over for tea and conversation while we waited for another province-wide strike to subside.
As we moved closer to Tawang (which is only a few kilometers from Bhutan, and just a few more from Lhasa), things got way more Buddhist. Monasteries began to pop up everywhere, Tibetan Buddhist architecture became more common.
Flags on flags; it’s impossible to take a bad picture of the ubiquitous Tibetan prayer flags.
Same goes for prayer wheels. They’re everywhere.
I was even lucky enough to catch the tail end of the mourning period for a Tibetan monk who’d recently passed away. The ceremony lasts for weeks, and there is a constant supply of yak butter tea on hand for visitors to the monastery. Above, you can see two guys heating and churning the tea. It was delicious.
Then there’s Tawang Monastery itself, more than 3,000m (10,000ft) up in the mountains, and super old. This monastery was also the Dalai Lama’s first stop after escaping from Tibet. There is a small museum paying homage to the Dalai Lama’s visit.
Above and below: More photos of the interior of Tawang Monastery.
And below, some of their monastic activities:
While wandering around Tawang, we were fortunate enough to run into two people who positively influenced our stay there. First was Pema, pictured below in orange:
Pema’s a school teacher in a tiny village south of Tawang, and niece of the man who owned the hotel we were staying at. I chatted her up one morning and she invited us to visit her village, which looks like this:
It’s 1.5km (1 mile) downhill, and even though as a crow flies, it was only about 5km from Tawang, it took us 2 hours to get there. Pema took us on a hike, showed us the terraced rice fields, fierce mountain goats, suspension bridges, and at the very bottom…
This raging river…oh, and more prayer wheels, this time built over a small creek, which turns them continuously.
Thanks Pema!
This post is getting pretty long, so I’ll save the final part of my Arunachal Pradesh story for one last post…
