Tezu Holiday Trip

Tezu in Lohit district, which lies in the easternmost corner of Arunachal Pradesh and of the Indian mainland.

One of our road journeys up the Lohit Valley our jeep encountered an insurmountable obstacle. Namely the Lohit itself we slithered to a halt on a damp riverbank and the driver shepherded us to a small boat.

The southern part of Lohit District lies in the plains. Logging has ravaged the enormous forests here but large swathes remain interspersed with paddy fields and few tea estates. They would probably have disappeared altogether were it not for the remoteness and wildness of this region. The Lohit River does a better job of environmental protection than any Supreme Court order. Its countless distributaries and channels sprawl across the plains rearranging themselves and the roads every monsoon. North of Tezu lie the Mishimi Hills which are entirely covered in lush vegetation tropical evergreen in the foothills and pine forests ahead of Chequenty.

The mishimi hills are recommended only if you are adventurous or very well connected with Bharat Sarkar. Or both which seems unlikely. Tourist facilities range from very basic to non-existent mostly the latter. The sarkari offerings circuit houses and inspection bungalows are very pleasant but few and far between. By the same token this region is untouched by tourism or other obvious sighns of development. The indigenous Mishimi peoples live for the most part as they have for centuries in small biodegradable settlements constructed almost entirely of bamboo. They practise shifting jhum cultivation grow a substantial crop of opium poppy and devote their lives to the acquisition of large herds of mithun. They dote on the beast but also sacrifice them in large numbers.

The Tai Khampti people whose culture is remarkable in different ways populate the lower reaches of Lohit district. The khampti people migrated to this region from northern Burma in the 18th century and retain links with their confreres in that country as well as in Thailand. They have retained their language a curlicued south East Asian script and their Theravada Buddhist religion. Gilded stupas and monasteries dot the khampti settlement most notably in chowkham 32 km from Tezu.

Road NH37 till Dibrugarh via Nagaon jorhat and sibsagar from dibrugarh continue on NH37 till Dum Duma via Tinsukia. At Dum Duma take the state road heading east for Tezu via Namsai and Chowkham

Railway Stations: Dibrugarh connected to Delhi and Kolkata by the Rajdhani Express Brahmaputra Mail and Kamrup Express.