Khonsa Tour Guide

A tiny township in a valley surrounded by the Himalaya, Khonsa’s hidden charms snag you with deceptive ease. Travel this road and uncover the sheer splendour of the rainforest of Joypur.

Khonsa is an excellent jumping off point for exhilarating treks through uncharted forests. Venture out on fascinating excursions and Mother Nature will show you things you never dreamed existed. Now’s the time to brush up your knowledge about orchids after all out of the world’s finest species over 500 are to be found in Arunachal. Come April and the jungles here reveal the exotic beauty of these rare and exotic blossoms.

Spy on the white gibbon monkey swinging from branch to branch high overhead. Track the elusive red panda in its natural habitat around Khonsa’s great forested slopes which are home to the musk deer. The cute darling mithun, a cousin of the common buffalo, is a venerated creature in this region many an Arunachali lass has been married in exchange for mithun buffaloes as dowry. Tread carefully lest you offend them by treating the mithun with disrespect.

Tradition

It’s best to have a good travel agent to help organize trips to the Kheti and Lajo villages, inhabited by the Nocte and Wanchoo tribes. Life is hard yet they remain contented as they grow crops on steep mountainsides and fetch drinking water from streams hundreds of meters below.

Khonsa Museum

Khonsa’s museum isn’t really a museum in the traditional sense. Rather it is a collection of traditional tribal artifacts, showcaseing delicate bamboo and cane work and colourful handlooms from different areas of the region. Weapons share space with household implements. Long flat swords were used for cutting the undergrowth or the enemy’s hands.

Around Khonsa

Miao 154 km

Take a drive down the road to Miao headquarters of Changlang District an dgateway to Namdapha National Park. The drive winds through the historic 430 km long Stillwell Road, which used to connect margherita in Assam to Kunming in china. Built by Chinese troops under the supervision of US Army General Joseph Stillwell during World War II, it cost about $130 million way back then and is said to be one of the most expensive roads in the world. But it closes down soon and since all road routes into Myanmar are closed it remains mostly free of passengers.

Namdapha National Park. 166 km

An hour’s drive from Miao lies Namdapha, a wildlife enthusiast and botanist’s dream come true. It is the only park in the world that has four of the great cats inhabiting this thick jungle tiger, leopard, clouded leopard and snow leopard. The park is also home to several species of macaque and the endangered Hoolock gibbon. Birds like the hornbill, Bengal florican and whitewinged wood duck nest freely in the 2,000 km park. The sheer remotensess and inaccessibility of the greater part of the park have protected it from the interfering and often insensitive Homo sapiens species. More then 150 species of timber stand tall on the hills here.

You enter Namdapha through a 25 Km stretch of forested road. On one side is the clear Noadehing River on the other the mysterious jungle. We spotted hornbills and green pheasants flopping around on the main road itself. The forest department at Namdapha arranges treks, elephant rides and camping in the forest.

The Forest Lodge (Field Director, Project Tiger, Namdapha Reserve, Miao, Changlang) is situated in Deban Village. The river flows swiftly in the fornt and at the back loom the high-forested hills. There is also a Tourist Bungalow (Tariff Rs 100, Meals are available on order.

Air Nearest airport: Dibrugarh 216 km/5 hrs. Taxi costs Rs 4,000 return fare. For helicopter service to Khonsa, check at Itanagar’s AP helipad.

Nearest Railway Stations: Tinsukia 169 km, 4 hrs, Taxi costs Rs 3,000 return fare.

Road Khonsa is near India’s border with Myanmar. Drive down NH37 form Guwahati till Makum via Jorhat, Dibrugarh and Tinsukia. Take NH38 till Margherita via Digboi then head for Khonsa via Changlang.