a small ferry on the Brahmaputra at Dibrugarh, at the end of the day
The day we leave Nagaland, there is another festival, in Mon, but we have to move on. Even we don’t have all the time of the world. As instructed, we check out with the Mon police, most of whom are obviously also at the festival, and we drive out of the mountains to the plains of Assam, again. To Dibrugarh.
military presence in Nagaland is quite pronounced
we come across soldiers everywhere, but especially in the Mon area near the Myanmar border
a small, irregular tea plantation, typical for tea in Nagaland
a slightly larger one, with lots of gaps in between the plants
The change of scene from Nagaland to Assam is striking. Already, in the flatter part of Nagaland we seen more development, even some factories. But as soon as we cross the border – where, once again, nobody is really interested in our permits – the environment changes. More concrete, much more rubbish on the street. We are in Sonora, a small town, where the first Hindu temples appear again, the cows on the road, and traffic jams. Totally the opposite of any town, like Mon, in Nagaland.
and we even meet an elephant on the road
a police check, it could well be the border with Assam again, but we are not being stopped
that we have reached Assam is clear: cows on the road again, in this predominantly Hindu state
in Assam the tea plantations are meticulous, well organised
and colourful thanks to the tea, and the tea workers
harvesting large bags-full quantities
which are being deposited in a truck
And where in Nagaland we saw some small tea plantations, rolling down from the hills, and often with large gaps where bushes had not survived, once in Assam everything is tea, as far as one can see. Vast plantations stretch on both sides of the road, and even in between the houses are small plots where tea is being grown. As the tea is ready to be harvested, it is a really beautiful sight, with the bright green colour of the young tea leaves. And occasionally with the harvesters, which bring with them all the other colours.
Saturday afternoon activity in Dibrugarh: walk along the river promenade
Dibrugarh
Dibrugarh is really only our transit hub. I would have wanted to travel by train to Siliguri, from where we continue our trip to Darjeeling and Sikkim, but this would have taken us two days. A flight does it in a little over an hour.
and enjoy an icecream
or some other sweet
or even a sugar bomb
there is a small colonial cemetery in Dibrugarh
with graves going back to the 18th Century
although most are 19th Century
There is little to do in Dibrugarh, except for a walk to the Brahmaputra, which is impressively wide, here. It is Saturday afternoon, and lots of people gather on the dike along the river, where small stands sell food, and other ware, mostly from a blanket on the ground. Really popular, to the extent that at times it becomes uncomfortably crowded on the dike. We retreat to our hotel, but not before finding a bottle of wine again from behind an iron grill, after dry Nagaland (well, outside the Aolyang festival, at least).
next: Siliguri
ultimately, everybody is gathering at the banks of the Brahmaputra, for sunset
