Some places are offbeat because they are hard to photograph well. Anini is offbeat because almost nobody lives anywhere near it. Dibang Valley district has one of the lowest population densities in India - single figures per square kilometre - and Anini is its headquarters, at around 6,000 feet, at the end of the road.
You do not go to Anini to see a thing. You go because of what the absence of things does to you.
The drive
From Roing the road climbs over Mayodia Pass and then keeps going, north and north, following the Dibang through gorges where the river is a long way below and the far wall is close enough to read. It is a full day and often more, on surfaces that range from good to theoretical.
What you notice is how little there is. Long stretches with no settlement, no vehicle, no phone signal. Waterfalls coming off the rock straight across the road. Cloud sitting in the valley below you rather than above.
Idu Mishmi country
The people here are Idu Mishmi, and their traditions are tied closely to the forest and to the tiger, which they regard as a brother - a belief that has functioned as effective conservation in a district that also happens to hold the Dibang Wildlife Sanctuary and confirmed high-altitude tiger presence.
Stays are homestays and government guesthouses. Food is what the household is eating. This is not a place with a hospitality industry, and pretending otherwise would set you up to be disappointed.
We will be honest with you about this one
Anini needs an Inner Line Permit, a driver who has actually done the road, and a schedule with slack in it, because landslides close it and nobody is coming to reopen it quickly. Medical facilities are minimal. There are no ATMs worth relying on.
Come between late October and April. Do not come in monsoon - that is not caution, it is the road being genuinely impassable. And if your trip has a fixed flight home three days later, choose somewhere else and come back for Anini when you have a week.
Why bother
Because there is almost nowhere left in India where you can drive for hours and see nobody, and because the Dibang gorges are on the scale of things people fly to South America for.
It is the most remote place we will take you, and the one we are proudest of being able to run properly.
