Kalatang

KALAKTANG

Day two: pretty long journey which had transitions from plains to mountains and warm weather to chilling cold. google maps told us we were very close to Bhutan-India border, hence we planned to stop over there and see if we could enter Bhutan? :)

Yes! They let us in. officials did not let the traveler (vehicle) in, but they permitted us to walk around. we spent about 20 minutes, despite seeing couple of hotels, we did not eat in Bhutan as they failed to understand the word vegetarian!

Two and a half hours of lush greenery, hairpin bends and total shift in weather dropped us in Kalaktang. we pulled out all our jackets and caps, stepped down from the vehicle to see a pretty huge Tibetan refugee camp in the shadow of Gyuto Monestry and our stay was right opposite to it.

A little about India and Tibetans!!!

History of Tibetan settlements roots from 1960 when Dalaiama fled to India, and Nehru accepted him as refugee,resulted in the mass influx of Tibetan refugees into India that continues today. Since which we are in state of war with China. slowly refugee camps were set up all around India. 39-40000 Tibetans came and each Tibetan adult was given an acre land to start livelihood and and they have a organisation called CTA (central Tibetan academy ) which runs from funds all over the world including Govt. of India. Despite this, govt. of India faces charges of unsatisfactory polices on improper security and facilities for refugees. seriously! those refugees have life better than many of Indian citizens.

In conversation with the owner of home stay, we asked her, its more than 50 years,and why did they not try and get Indian citizenship. she said she is proud of preserving her culture and Tibetan identity!!

yup! getting back to our story!!

Chogyal homestay : simple place with basic amenities, 10 rooms and common bath! without hot water, it was so cold, we weren't thinking of taking bath, even if they had ten bathrooms in there! This place was owned by a Tibetan family, who were very kind and nice to us. There was old wood heater in the terrace, we all sat around the warm, speaking about the history of Gyuto, and kalaktang. They do not serve food here, but they offered us tea, next day morning which gave a great start for day 3.

The bamboo selfies... i call it.

Once we reached choegyal's, we had to walk 600 m to a nearby restaurant, the 'hotel highway inn'. A lonely road, only us, walking with our hands deep inside pockets, Bamboo plantation on one side and cabbage farms to the other. Restaurant had good food, they served us hot rice, dal and sabzi ( here starts the saga of rice, dal and nothing else. ), it was unlimited thali, we can ask for a second serving :)

We require ILP ( Inner line permit ) to visit Arunachal, it is to be applied online at https://www.arunachalilp.com/index.jsp. our application took 48 hours to be processed. It is always safer to apply before a week or two.

There are not much options to stay in kalaktang. Choegyal and Kesang or Pema home stay are two decent places. Kesang homestay, which is rite next to choegyal's is better, as it has attached bathrooms and geyser for hot water.

Kalaktang, best place to stopover en route Tawang!

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