The bhataktiatma : Travelogue of a wandering soul

“What is the weirdest food you have eaten?” The question I didn’t have exciting answer to, until today... Arunachal Pradesh is so big and diverse, it’s impossible to cover it even in a months' time, I only had 7 days. While Tawang was my initial choice, despite of all the efforts I could not get satisfactory information on road conditions, stays and most importantly the transport cost. People I spoke to had split opinion on visiting Tawang during winter month of December. I shifted my attention to Namdapha national park which had been on my list since almost a decade. However soon I found out it wouldn’t be economical for a single person to trek inside Namdapha. Every year before anyone can trek inside Namdapha , the jungle had to be cut to create walking trails, prolonged monsoons have been pushing this activity till January since last few years. This meant trek in Namdapha was not on till January. Fortunately, I received response from Karun Roy of Down Lit adventures, and he ...

  The summer temperatures were breaking all the records , even at places where its too early to be summer. Its been two years since covid , I haven’t had a chance to trek in the Himalayas , desperately needed to be in mountains before another covid wave hits us. As usual the go to place was the Indiahikes website and in no time I had successfully registered for Ali Bedni Bugyal trek. Rishikesh : The lost city I had very fond memories of Rishikesh from my previous trek visit , hence had planned to land in Rishikesh two days before. A convenient flight to Dehradun and shared cab with fellow trekkers whom I met on pre paid cab counter was the end of luxurious travel , Google map was showing dark red “ This is usual situation on weekends sir , I will drop you as far as I can but then onwards you are on your own” our taxi driver added to our agony. Driver was right , we had to be dropped at the start of the main city itself , long queues of vehicles were ahead of us moving at snails pa...