Welcome  FAQs
Links  News

SevenUp 2023

An unusual trip to the Indian subcontinent for two months in Spring 2023 starting and ending in Kolkata.

We toured six of the so-called Seven Sisters, the seven states of northeast India: Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh.

Read on to learn how we fared.

Full map of all SevenUp 2023 pages

Other Things

Translate & Share

Path: Blog > The Joys of Public Transport in North East India
Tags: India  SevenUp  2023  News

The Joys of Public Transport in North East India

 

(vero;2023-July-15)

Getting to north east India is not difficult but it is so far away from the rest of the country that many people come by plane, a quick and not so expensive solution if you stick to low-cost airlines once in India. We preferred taking a night train from Kolkata to Guwahati: it is even cheaper and a good way of starting the trip (or so we think). It must be said that we are fans of Indian Railways although contrary to what we wrote back in 2016, we now avoid sleeper class for overnight trips, it is simply too crowded and chaotic, we stick to 3A and it is so far perfect for us. The journey is long: 17 hours, but we did not get (too) bored. We had lower berths and for once it was a good point because this meant that we had window seats during the day and could watch the scenery, something to remember next time we travel such long distances involving a good chunk of daytime travel.

Our companions on the train journey to Guwahati. Our companions on the train journey to Guwahati.Travelling through the north east is a mixed bag and depends a lot on where you are. Tripura and Assam are good for train travel, but it is road transport for the other states and the distances are such and the roads sometimes so bad that many tourists chose to take the plane to move from one state capital to the other, the only exception being the mountains of Arunachal Pradesh which are only reachable by road. For information, we always booked trains online, an easy procedure once you have an account with Indian Railways (we use an AMEX credit card to pay).

While travelling by road in the north east, you will have to deal with buses, tuk-tuks, Wingers and Sumos, we even travelled in a Force. So what is what?

The names of Winger and Sumo, although specific to TATA are in fact used by extension for all minibuses and SUV-Transporters roaming the roads of the region. Indeed, as our Itanagar-bound Sumo arrived we had the nice surprise to see that it was in fact a "Force", a SUV manufactured by the eponymous Indian company; it is much more comfortable than a TATA-Sumo, with one passenger seat in the front, three distinct seats (and headrests) in a middle row, plus ours had been modified to allow a back row seating two more people, there was plenty of space for our rucksacks inside.


We have described below the transport and connections we used to move around in the north east with prices, duration and our impressions. They are sorted by state following our itinerary.

Meghalaya Tripura Manipur Nagaland Assam Arunachal Pradesh

Meghalaya

[Go to Top]

Tripura

In the train on the way to Khongsang, Second Seating. In the train on the way to Khongsang, Second Seating.Tripura was pure bliss in comparison with good bus and train connections. We made day trips south of the capital using a mix of relatively good buses and mini-buses. A few prices (per person): Agartala - Matabari (for Sundari Temple): 55 Rs / Udaipur - Agartala: 50 Rs / Agartala - Melagahr (for Neermahal): 45 Rs.

From Dharmanagar to Unakoti, we took a Kailasahar bound Winger which we left at the junction to the site. We paid the full fare to Kailashahar (35 Rs per person), which is normal. Going back was a bit tricky but we were very lucky, click here to read how we managed.

[Go to Top]

Manipur

Wingers and Sumos waiting for passengers at the end of line in Khongsang. Wingers and Sumos waiting for passengers at the end of line in Khongsang.Except for the road from Imphal to Moirang (for Loktak Lake) which has been recently resurfaced thanks to India hosting the G20 in 2023 and a meeting with some international big wigs taking place there in February, the roads in Manipur range from bad to utterly atrocious. We made only one day-trip from Imphal: to Thangka on the shores of Loktak Lake. It involved first a Winger to Moirang (100 Rs) followed by a shared tuk-tuk to Thanga (30 Rs). Prices are per person.

[Go to Top]

Nagaland

Inside the Nagaland state bus which took us from Imphal to Kohima. Inside the Nagaland state bus which took us from Imphal to Kohima. Arriving in Kohima with our Winger from Imphal, we had to be very forceful for the driver to stop in the southern half of the city (P.R. Hill) instead of driving to the ISBT some five km further north, in the middle of nowhere on the road to Dimapur. To be honest, Kohima has a very strict parking and traffic management which we did not realise at the time and stopping at the curb for us to go out was indeed not regular. Fortunately nothing bad came out of it for the driver. A characteristic of Kohima is that there are absolutely NO tuk-tuks in town. Thomas was the first to notice their absence and indeed: no exhaust fumes, no honking, no engine noise, it made such a huge difference. On the other hand, Dimapur is plagued by them, it seemed as all Kohima tuk-tuks had ended down there, a real nightmare.

[Go to Top]

Assam

Assam has the advantage of having a quite extensive railway network, which we experienced first thing when we took the train from Dimapur to Jorhat. The rest of our journeys in this state were made by bus (and a ferry to Majuli). We did a lot of walking while on Majuli; leaving the island was a bit of an adventure…

We were back in Guwahati for a few days at the end of our trip, waiting to catch our night train to Kolkota. As usual we did a lot of walking in the city, and we recommend a trip to North Guwahati on the other side of the Brahmaputra. We took the ropeway to get there (300 Rs per person one way), explored the Govida Krishna Temple and walked west to the Ashwaklanta Mandir from where we took a ferry back to the other side (much cheaper: 5 Rs per person!)

[Go to Top]

Arunachal Pradesh

And then came Arunachal Pradesh, the state of which we had heard so many awful reports. Well, we were expecting much worse: the roads were good, the only drawback was the length of time involved to reach destinations and the uncomfortable Sumos.

[Go to Top]

Want to read more? Go back to Some Planning Links or go on to Why India needs a big BRO or go up to Blog


$ updated from: Blog.htxt Fri 16 Aug 2024 15:40:09 trvl2 — Copyright © 2024 Vero and Thomas Lauer unless otherwise stated | All rights reserved $