Duster border challenge – China gate

The one thing you are not prepared for is the cold – the mind-numbing, icy windblast kind of cold that seeps through five layers of warm clothes and bites your bones. We are in Hawai, spending the night here before a dash to the easternmost border of India and don’t let the name fool you – there are no girls in grass skirts or white sand beaches here. No sir. In this Hawai, I am next to Vikrant, huddled up closer than I’d like to confess, in a log cabin on top of a mountain, in the cold! And I’m contemplating looking for a matchstick to burn this log cabin down for fire and warmth.

Where to?
We are in Arunachal Pradesh and having had a mind-altering experience at the Orange festival in Dambuk, we have one more challenge to complete. We need to get to the easternmost point in India. Why? Because, well, this is the Border Challenge and we have the Renault Duster AWD. Yes, the very same Duster with 33,000 kilometres on its clock, ninety per cent of which was spent crossing terrain that would have jeeps breaking into a sweat. And we did all of it without a single squeak or rattle, not even a puncture! Even to get here, the Duster has crossed half of India, more than 2,600km from our home base in Pune. And when I get behind the wheel, our Duster still feels as good as the first time I drove it. That’s the mark of solid engineering.

Our departure from Dambuk is delayed thanks to me fighting off a deadline in the middle of the night, with a thunderstorm threatening to blow the straw roof off our log hut. Luckily the roof holds and I am able to send the story in time and we are off. And lost. Well, we aren’t. Our only means of navigation is the Duster’s in-built GPS that’s pointing us in the direction of the river and that can’t be right, can it? A couple of villagers also point us towards the river and perplexed, we carry on to find out that the Duster’s navigation is indeed correct. The bridge, however, is still to be built and so cars, trucks and buses use the ferry to cross the river.

Now by ferry I mean three boats fastened side by side and wooden planks tied across to make a makeshift platform, just about enough to accommodate four cars. While the barge runs on a small diesel motor and a prayer, I can’t help but worry about our beloved Duster, its rear wheels on the edge. One jolt and that would be curtains for our adventure. Maybe standing outside is a good idea. The funk is shortlived as the crossing is just a hundred feet across. I did feel that we were overcharged at `300 for such a short crossing, but then it’s the simple laws of economics at play here – if you are the only one offering an essential service, you can charge the moon and get away with it.

It takes us another thirty minutes to drive across the mighty riverbed, some streams crossed by makeshift wooden bridges and the shallow ones forded through. For most part of the year, Dambuk is inaccessible thanks to the Brahmaputra filling up, with rainwater from the mountains inundating it. We seem to be here at the right time and thankfully in the right vehicle. Crossing the river, we come across an island which has a six-lane road running across a forest with impossibly large trees. It is stunning and looks like a frame from the Redwood National Park in California, but then 5km later we are back on the riverbed and are thankful that our Duster has all-wheel-drive.

With 60 per cent of the state covered in dense forests, this sets the tone for the rest of the trip. The best part about this terrain is the foliage that keeps changing according to the region and it’s always green. It is soothing; it is peaceful. This might be the best time to visit Arunachal, while it is on the cusp of a major turn around on the tourism front. The government is working swiftly to connect the state by building bridges across the Brahmaputra. The result is that the roads here are absolutely glorious – super smooth surfaces, minimal, well-behaved traffic that makes this part of the country a great driving destination. It’s just that the bridges connecting those lovely roads are yet to come up. While national media will have you believe this area is a conflict-ridden warzone, nothing could be farther from the truth. Arunachal is one of the most tourism friendly states that I have been to.
The smooth stretch of tarmac takes us to Tezpur and after a brief stop for fuel and breakfast, we hang a right after the city, on to a road that leads in to the mountains and to our destination, some 230 kilometres away. As we pass houses and orchards, the simplicity of life hits. The people here thrive on nature and what nature provides. The houses are built mainly from wood while rice is the staple crop thanks to the abundance of water. As we whiz past verdant meadows and quaint homes, snow-clad peaks loom in the distance. This is turning out to be a good day.

At this point, we are closer to Beijing than New Delhi (as the crow flies) and this distance shows in the features of the locals. They have their own culture, attire and way of life and they are all the better for it. The young folk are impossibly pretty and musically gifted. Have a conversation with them and they have this peculiar way of speaking, in a sing-song manner and with their sweet voices, you feel you are part of a symphony. No wonder music is big here. Everyone is a singer. Aniruddha and I were caught swooning over a couple of pretty dames more than once while Vikrant was swooning over equally pretty birds (of the feathered kind). He loves shooting birds and according to him, Arunachal is chock-full of interesting species. Aniruddha and I nod sagely.

The road leading up the mountains is well surfaced but narrow, which means we have to get two wheels off the road to let oncoming vehicles pass. And then there are patches destroyed by landslides that let us make full use of the Duster’s all-wheel-drive capability. The Duster’s compact dimensions mean that not a lot of time is spent tackling mountain roads and most of the kilometres are dusted off easily, though soon it begins to get dark. Here’s another fun fact – in this part of the country, the sun rises by 4am and sets by 4:30pm, which means we have to get off the road and find a place to spend the night. These areas are too remote to drive late in the night and even though we are just 70km from the border, we decide to visit it the next day.

Which brings us to the start of this story. A few locals point us to the direction of Hawai, a few kilometres off the road. The few kilometres turns out to be a solitary road, bathed in a moonless night that crosses a bridge and goes between two mountains before climbing over a third, for about seven kilometres. Everyone in the car is silent through those thirty minutes. We breathe a sigh of relief after seeing lights in the distance; signs of civilisation. The breath is punched out of us as soon as we alight from the vehicle.

The warm, comfy interiors of the Duster are a far cry from the icy winds that hit us. The outside temperature is registering at two degrees and it is just eight at night! The IRB guest house we are staying in is a wooden structure that keeps the wind at bay but not the cold. While I try desperately to gather warmth from a flickering candle, Aniruddha and Vikrant try to contact their loved ones. Connectivity has been a problem the whole day, though that seems to be the least of our worries. Warmth comes in the form of piping hot black tea with honey which is quickly gulped down. Dinner is a simple affair of rice, dal and potato curry and we retire for the night under two layers of blankets and four layers of clothes. As the night passes and the temperature dips below zero, I find it harder to sleep. The howling wind manages to wake me on more than one occasion and I spend the time wondering which of my toes I’m going to lose to frostbite.

The next morning we wake up to a beautiful view and ice on the Duster. We down multiple cups of honey tea while waiting for the ice to thaw, but that gives us time to sit back, breathe in the crisp air and feel at peace with the world. No wonder the people here look so happy and content. Leaving Hawai, we check out the local market that seems to sell everything and the helipad points at how remote this place actually is.

Back on the road we cross what we think are tunnels but is actually the tree cover that is so dense, it blocks out all sunlight, and then you crack open the windows and you will be reminded of the source of life flowing nearby. If you are driving in Arunachal, you will come across the mighty Brahmaputra river more than once. The life-giver of Arunachal is more than 8 kilometres wide at some places and provides sustenance to the villages bordering its banks and we are heading towards its source, well the place where it enters India from the Himalayas.

The roads get treacherous as we get closer to the border. The mountains here have the consistency of clay that threatens to get the Duster stranded but the shorter gearing helps it punch through the clay pits. Recent landslides have decimated most of the roads and the BRO guys have been working round the clock to carve new paths into the mountain. Our final hurdle crossed, we soon reach Kibithu.

Kibithu is the borderline village here and if you wish to travel to China, you will have to trek 20 more kilometres from here. The last village accessible by road has a couple of houses and a small shop. Because it is an army outpost, photography is prohibited so we take a long look at a snow-clad mountain that lies in Chinese territory, while I feel warm and fuzzy feelings for the Duster. In the last couple of months, it has been to Ladakh twice and also to the Rann of Kutch and now it is here, at the easternmost tip of India. One more mission complete, one more star on its shoulders.

On the way back, we pass by a line of orange orchards. Vikrant begs us to stop. He wants to buy some oranges and off he goes. As we wait, shrieks of laughter catch our attention. It appears Vikrant went upto a few ladies inside the orchard and asked if he could buy oranges. Plied with an armful of oranges, he wanted to know how much to pay for them but the ladies started laughing. Baffled, Vikrant asked again only to be met by more laughter. It then it dawned on him that the ladies would not accept any money from him. For them, he was a guest and in these parts, a guest is considered a deity. Well that’s Arunachal for you. Untainted, unexplored and absolutely welcoming. Just make sure you’re carrying enough warm gear.