The usual western Arunachal trip is a straight line. It runs from Guwahati to Bhalukpong, up through Bomdila and Dirang, and over Sela Pass to two or three nights in Tawang. Then it takes the same road back.
It is a great trip. It also spends most of its time looking out of a car window at places it never stops in.
This guide is about those places. It covers the villages and valleys on either side of the Tawang road, and the country beyond Tawang. None of them is hard to reach. Each just needs a night, not a glance on the way past.
Go up a different way
A second road into West Kameng gets almost no traffic. It skips Bhalukpong and goes north through Mangaldoi and Rowta to Bhairabkunda. Assam, Arunachal and Bhutan meet there.
From Bhairabkunda it climbs through Kalaktang to Shergaon. The road is quieter and greener. You see different country on the way up and the way down.
We wrote it up here: the back road to Shergaon. For the main road, read Guwahati to Tawang: two days, one pass, and the longest road I know.
Shergaon: the first night
Shergaon is a Sherdukpen village of apple orchards, pine and rhododendron, just off the main Tawang road.
Spend a night or two here in a farm stay. It is the best start to a mountain trip. You arrive somewhere quiet. The next day's drive is shorter. Your body gets a gentler start in the hills.
Tawang, and the border above it
Tawang needs no introduction. It has the great monastery and the war memorial. Urgelling, where the sixth Dalai Lama was born, is here too.
Above it is Bum La, on the India-China border at 15,200 feet. Lakes line the road to it. Everyone wants this day, and most people plan it badly.
Read this before you try: Bum La Pass: what nobody tells you before you go.
Zemithang: the valley beyond
West of Tawang, past Lumla, the road drops to Zemithang in the Pangchen valley. A great white stupa stands in a meadow. A river comes in from Tibet.
The 14th Dalai Lama first entered India here in 1959. It is a long day from Tawang. You must plan it before your permit is issued.
The whole story: Zemithang: the last valley before the border.
Sangti: the last night in the hills
On the way down, turn off at Dirang into the Sangti valley. It is a wide, flat river valley with Monpa villages.
In winter, black-necked cranes come here for the season. It is one of only two places in India where they do.
A night here breaks the long drive back to the plains. The trip ends somewhere quiet, not in a highway hotel. More in Sangti valley: the quietest night in western Arunachal.
Putting it together
Do all of it and you need nine or ten days from Guwahati. Take the back road up to Shergaon, then cross Sela to Tawang and Bum La. Add an optional day to Zemithang, and stop in Sangti on the way down.
Drop Zemithang and it fits in a week.
Start with our Tawang & the Western Passes itinerary. We build the offbeat version around it. For permits, read our permits guide. See the Arunachal Pradesh page for the rest of the state, or tell us what you have in mind.
