Our first north east trip:)

Itinerary

Bengaluru - Guwahati - Shillong - Guwahati - kaziranga - Tezpur - Tawang - Dirang - Tezpur - Guwahati - Bengaluru

22 december to 1 january total 11 days

22 landed in guwahati around afternoon from bangalore and reached shillong by 7pm- lot of traffic- shared cab (dezire) 500rs per seat and 4 people per vehicle.
23rd took bike explored shillong- elephant falls, sacred forest, shillong view point. Rent 500rs for yamaha ray Z.
24th explored cheerapunjee and stayed at pynursla near mawlyonng. Cab 2000rs
25th explored dawki, mawlyonng and reached guwahati. Cab 2500rs for dawki, mawlyonng. Cab 500rs per head from shillong to guwahati.
26th explored guwahati umananda temple(nothing great), kamakhya temple and reached kaziranga. Bus 350rs per head.
27th kaziranga national park jeep safari central range(650 per head for 4 people in one jeep), did not get elephant safari seats and by night reached tezpur. Bus 200rs per head from kaziranga to tezpur.
28th tezpur to tawang took one full day- 850rs per head- tata sumo- 10 people per sumo and one driver- congested but very economical- best seats 1,2,5,6
29th explored tawang by foot- budha statue, monastery, war memorial- if cab 1500-2500 for these 3 things
30th tawang to dirang- jhung falls, war memorial, hot spring, monastery. Personal sumo 5000rs
31st dirang to tezpur- nameri national park- not so great views. Personal cab 3500rs.
1st tezpur to guwahati to bangalore. Bus 250rs A/C volvo from tezpur to guwahati

Day 1: Reached Guwahati at 2pm from Bengaluru. Lot of cabs available just outside the airport. Mostly swift dezire vehicles, they charge 2000rs for one ride. So if 4 people share it will come to 500 per head. If you want to take 2 seats for one person also they are fine. If no traffic should take max 4 hours to reach shillong. If hotel is near the police bazar which is the center point in shillong
they will drop you near hotel. Else drop is till Police Bazar.

Per day active daylight is only between 6am to 5pm. Plan the day accordingly!!

Day 2: Rented a bike from a very sweet person (Albert) who came and gave the bike at hotel for a reasonable price(500rs per day) even during the peak season. Online services were charging somewhere from 700-900 for scooty.First headed to Elephant falls, its a small fall consisting of three steps passing through some nice views.
From there went to sacred forest. It has to be covered only by taking a guide as the whole forest is about knowing the culture of the place. Two kinds of packages is available. One for 30 minutes
and one for 1 hour. Guide charges 300 and 500 respectively. It is quite a nice walk inside the forest and interesting facts to know. Depending on the guide you might get less/more information. Lastly went to the view point, actually view point comes on the way to elephant falls itself, do not take the route that the google maps show. View point is just fine, nothing amazing. Something to be noted in whole of meghalaya is every place has entry fee and parking fee ranging from 10-50rs per place. We could not handle the weather and the cold breeze so we decided to take cab for next two days.

Cabs have some standard packages, 2k for cheerapunjee day trip, 3k for Dawki and mawlyonng trip and another 2k for local site seeing. If you can drive bikes those are the best as it helps beat the traffic also and turns out quite cheap. The distance is also not much so plan accordingly. 

Day 3: Started to cheerapunji, lots of water falls around here to explore wakaba falls, seven sister falls, nokalikai falls. Since we went durinng december lot of falls ran out of water. nevertheless views are amazing. Best of the falls is nokalikai(do read the story why the falls got this name), spectacular view. Masmai caves also can be covered on the way, huge cave of limestone that I have seen. With this finished the cheerapunjee trip.

Day 4: There are three things for this day, Cleanest village of India, trust me the place has a vibe of some European town. Does not look like a village from any angle. Second is the living root bridge. This is the single layer bridge, the double decker living root bridge is in nongriat village which we did not cover. As it takes is a full day trek, it is deep inside the village and even the trek is not a easy one. The single layer living root bridge itself is wonderful, truly one of the wonders of man. Along the way there will be lot of private properties claiming to have a view of Bangladesh but do not fall for them. The Bangladesh and India border can be clearly seen once we go to Dawki. Coming to Dawki one of the best things in whole of Meghalaya, the transparent water will give you goose bumps. Lots of crowd can be expected here, lots of heat also, boating is available for 1000rs per boat. After Dawki we directly went to Shillong to Jorabat as from jorabat we get a lot of buses to kaziranga

Day 5: This was a buffer day for us. We went to Kamakhya temple, the oldest hindu sakthi pitam. It is like a huge pilgrim center , so full crowd annd a big queue inside temple. There is 1000rs ticket which gives a faster darshan but the temple has a different feel and vibe around it. After this we had some more time so went to umananda ghat to get a look of Bhramhaputra river and there is a small ride to an island temple. Seeing these two places left to kaziranga by taking bus from Kharapana. Reached Kaziranga by evening 6:45pm, and the elephant ride tickets will be issued from 7pm at the central range. So went directly there and stood in the queue but had to leave bitterly without the tickets. As at central range the preference is given to foreigners and VIPs and at max there is only 30 tickets per slot and only two slots available. The process was not even transparent, few foreigners were present but mostly the agents were present and no clarity on who qualify to be a VIP. Hamara Bharath mahaaan!!!

Day 6: Took Jeep safari quite early in the morning to get better chances of sighting animals specially Rhinos and also because we can get some buffer time if we plan to go for another ride.
In kaziranga national park, three ranges are available. central, western and eastern ranges. Central and western both have higher chances of sighting of rhinos. Eastern is mostly for bird sighting. Elephant ride is available only in western and central, western is run by private people and the tickets get booked quite early. Where as central is run by government but ordinary tourist have very slim chances of getting ticket. We were lucky enough to spot 4 rhinos, few elephants and many more birds species during our jeep safari. According to the local people the best season to see a lot of animals is feb to march and december seems to be a worst time to go. Because of the huge rush the animal spotting was adversely affected. By night reached tezpur and slept early as next day the sumo to tawang starts at 5am. The sumo tickets are available at the bus stop itself, a lot of counters are available running services to dirang, bomdila and tawang.

Day 7: All the sumo services start between 5-6am and it takes 12-14 hours of time depending on the weather and snow fall. Crossing sela pass is the toughest part. People can be stuck there for days also. Coming to seats in sumo, there is numbering and they put 10 people, and seat numbers 1,2,5,6 are the most preferred. It is surely congested but quite economical and reaching tawang in one day will give a buffer time for roaming around tawang. We reached by 8pm, had an amazing experience of snowfall. Eating hot chapatis slept with the help of the heater. Do take hotels with heaters else it is impossible to handle the temperatures. We experienced -10 degrees also!!!!

Day 8: We initially planned to go to Bumla pass and Madhuri lake , we even applied for the pass with the help of the hotel staff one day prior to arrival itself. Because of heavy snow fall permits to those two places was blocked. So we did the local site seeing in the beautiful weather of tawang. These is only 3 places to see, war memorial, budha statue, and monastery.
We set to go to these places by foot, slowly enjoying the weather. If we have to take a cab, they charge somewhere between 1500-2500 to show these 3 places. If we can walk that's the best way to explore, all three things span across only 4kms.

Day 9: We waited to see if we can get the permits but the way was not opened. So we head back to Dirang stay there for the night and then go to tezpur. The way from tawang to dirang is spectacular annd since while coming we did non stop on a shared sumo, we decided to take a personal cab. The rates are again fixed, 5k from tawang to dirang and 3.5k from dirang to tezpur. Enjoyed the whole journey to dirang, by stopping at jhung falls. It was just breathtaking. And of course the selapass also. Lot of military camps would come on the way providing free chai and snacks and a nice talk!!

Day 10: Today it is about travel from dirang to tezpur. We went to nameri park on the way a small deroute, it is just a small park with boating and mostly used as family day out for all the near by places. By evening we reached tezpur and since it was 31st night our hotel stay had a party organized, we joined it and celebrated the new year embracing all the memories of the trip.

Day 11: This day was full of travel, from tezpur to guwahati by ASTC volvo bus to Guwahati paltan bazar, and then bus from paltan bazaar to airport, there is one bus for every one hour at 90rs per person. Took the flight and landed in bengaluru and then through the bengalur's traffic reached home exactly 12am of the new year day. 

If one wants to save a day one can do direct from dirang to guwahati also.