The bhataktiatma : Travelogue of a wandering soul

Don’t compare with other north eastern states North eastern states have always fascinated me, I have firm belief that North eastern states are all about unending beauty and are a treasure box yet to be opened,   I started believing it more after my visits to Meghalaya and Sikkim. With the same belief I decided to plan for Manipur, well started with Nagaland but could not receive any response from any of the locals I tried to connect in Kohima hence had to concentrate on its neighbor. “Loktaak gaya hai ( been to loktak ?)   ” would be the common answer for the question , what are the places we can visit in Manipur , all the locals we spoke, refused to think beyond Loktak lake and we were already reconsidering our options on day two of the trip. The way we plan our trip is , we keep two days for a single location and that way Manipur was supposed to be 10 Days tour but on day one itself while walking on the busy streets of Imphal we realized we have already co...

Travelling is the best way to enjoy the freedom , it allows us to witness natural wonders from close ,meet different people and witness different culture ,restrictions put on the travel can deprive you of all the fun. Inner Line Permits ( ILP) are the permits required to travel areas near international border in india , they are required for foreigners as well as for the indian's in North Sikkim. These permits are required for the security reason , enforced by the army ( atleast thats what the local say ) , they are required sometimes however most of the times they are way of exploiting money from the travellers in case of North Sikkim they have gone one step further and in the name of providing employment to locals restricted the tourist vehicles from other states. Our zoom car had a national permit but it was not allowed in North Sikkim , "You may have national permit but you would need North Sikkim permit " local would say. Here is how security reason has been use...

“Sir !! Today is the last day of pooja ,dussehra ,the streets will be extremely crowded,if the mahananda bridge is blocked i will have to drop you there itself and then you are on your own” our taxi driver sanjay was trying to justify 700rs he had charged for bagdogra airport to siliguri drop while 4 of us struggled to fit into tiny alto car. We had landed in bagdogra an hour back and were on the way to pick up zoom car to start our much awaited sikkim roadtrip. North eastern states have always been on my travel radar ,we started making initial plans for all the north eastern states , sikkim won the race over meghalaya-manipur / Arunchal -assam . Sikkim had least daily travel distance and that meant we would get more time to explore the places than the driving itself.  7 people enrolled ,whatsapp grp was formed and the date to book flight tickets was decided , on the day of booking only 4 turned up , same 4 were now praying for godess durga to open the mahananda bri...