33 GHiRT-1 NE

Summary Details of this Tour:

The GHiRT dream:

Ever since I did the GIRT (Grand India Road Tour) in Dec-2007, with my college friend, Tapan Ghosh, I have been dreaming of doing a similar road tour ... but this time in the Himalayas! i.e. starting from Srinagar in J&K, thru Ladakh, thru Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and ending in the Easternmost parts of the Himalaya in Arunachal Pradesh! The name GHiRT was (sort of) jointly coined, by one 'Sadanand Kamath' and a 'Dilliwala', two veteran posters on IndiaMike the India Travel site. IndiaMike discussions on GHiRT can be seen in this Thread.

By March-2009, a year has passed in dreaming and debating what sort of vehicle or SUV is required to do such a journey, in rough terrain and bad roads of Himalayas? The final choice of the SUV is narrowed down to M&M Bolero or Scorpio. While doing research on the vehicles & routes, in Team-BHP site, I came across a veteran roadie, one HV Kumar (HVK), who has logged thousanads of KMs in his Scorpio. HVK has gone everywhere in India, by road! Later, I was surprised to find HVK lives just 2 blocks away from my home in Thane! So, I met him a couple of times to discuss the vehicle, routes & seasons for doing GHiRT. In fact, a "season-fitted" slow-paced, plan for doing GHiRT (in one stretch) looks like this:

15-30 Aug - J&K -->> from Srinagar to Manali via Kargil, Leh

01-30 Sep - HP, UA -->> Manali, Kaza, Shimla, West to East Uttaranchal

01-30 Oct - Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan -->> entirely West to East

01-30 Nov - Arunachal, Assam, NEast -->> moving West to East

However, most people have advised that I break it up into 2-3 segments, rather than in one long stretch.

Our Scorpio crossing the Rangit river suspension bridge, in West Sikkim

Tsomgo Lake near Nathu-La ... in East Sikkim

The Pemayangtse Monastry ... in West Sikkim

Khecheolpalri Lake, W Sikkim

Jhomolhari range (behind the clouds) .... from Drukyel Dzong

Trashichhoe Dzong - Thimpu

The ruins of the historic Drukyel Dzong ... beyond Paro, Bhutan

Smiling girl ready for School at Lango, Paro

A beautiful covered bridge crosses the river to enter the Dzong

Looking north towards the clouded Himalayas ... over clusters of Chorten at Dochu-La (10,500ft)

River Lodge at Jakar, Bumthang - the best hotel we stayed in Bhutan

Young Monks at the Wangdi Chong Palace, Jakar, Bumthang, Bhutan

Pele-La (11070ft-3375M) Chorten

HVK (R), KS (L) & Scorpio at Kibuthu Helipad at 7:50am 25th-Apr-09 This Pic taken by an Army Jawan posted at Kibuthu - just 10Kms from the Tibet-China border, at this Eastermost road point in India.

Post Trip Summary:

The trip happened more or less as per HVK's plan; we reached Gangtok in 3 days and did Local Sights and Tsomgo Lake that had plenty of snow. Nathu-La was not possible due to snow and so permits not being issued. We also saw main parts of South and West Sikkim visiting Tashigang, Yuksom, Pelling, Pemayangtse and Kechopalri Lake.

Bhutan was amazing and we did the entire route from Paro in West to Trakshigang in East Bhutan, over 6 days. Not possible to summarise all of Bhutan's positives in a few words here. So, see details in subseqent pages.

Finally, we did Arunachal - Itanagar, Ziro, Daporijo, Alang and Pasighat. Since river crossing at Pasighat to go to Tezu was not possible (due to bridge being inoperative) we had go back to Shilapathar in Assam, to cross the Brahmaputra on a Ferry to Dibrugarh and drive back to East Aruanchal via Tinsukia, Doom-Dooma on the southern bank of Brahmaputra river to reach Parsuram-Kund and then go on to Kibuthu. Kibuthu is an amazing, scenic place, mostly an Indian Army Camp on China border. Arunachal on the whole was great; with misty low clouds, blue braided rivers and lush green forests everywhere.

On the way back, I decided to drop off at Guwahati and fly back. But HVK carried on solo, to complete his K2K2 goal in 4 days! When he reached Koteswar, he sent me an SMS from there that read: Apr-25 9 am Kibuthu-AR eastmost and Apr-29 11-15 am Koteswar-GJ west most; a total = 4130kms!

Later, we accounted that HVK had driven his Scorpio a total of 11,700 Kms in this entire NE trip. For me, Mumbai to Siliguri of 27oo Kms and then the GHiRT portion from Siliguri through Sikkim, Bhutan & Arunachal, upto Kibuthu was another 4000 Kms, approx. For a detailed account of the GHiRT-1 story, please see the continuation pages in the links below.

HVK had brought a Garmin GPS that he was using to record Waypoints at important places. The GPS WayPoints for the entire trip is available to you in this GPS-File; by clicking on this link and opening the file, you can see our entire route on Google Earth (if installed in your computer).

Main Sqr at Pasighat, Arunachal

The rough dirt track short-cut road from Itanagar to Ziro, is in clouds!

The road passes along misty rivers near Alang in Arunachal

Arunachal is full of green forest, flowing rivers and misty clouds

Typical tribal abodes thatch & bamboo huts on stilts at Alang

Srinath & Hariharan - two 13-year, 9th graders, with us on this tour!

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GPS Waypoints of entire route ... click on picture for a larger image

In the detailed stories and pictures, I have indicated the WayPoint number (as WPnnn) from this file. So if you have Google Earth open, while reading the subsequent pages you can 'zoom-in' to the waypoint number and get an amazing aerial view of the place! I got a whole new perspective of the hilly terrain that we covered, by seeing the places and route on Google Earth!