Русский‘Wild’ North-East India feels dearer to my heart with each time I go there. The people are absolutely wonderful. The nature’s beauty is fascinating. This relatively small territory encompasses unbelievably different realities, sometimes even contradicting to each other, but the most amazing aspect about this region is how it has very little in common with the general image most of us might have of India. That is what I like most about it; that is what I admire — India allows people to be the way they are. These people are ‘tribal’ aboriginal people, but they were never moved to special reservations. No one tried to eradicate them, which was generally the case historically of some ‘civilized’ countries. They were allowed to remain as themselves, having been given a special status in the constitution of India. Of course, today’s progress and economic development can be seen everywhere and globalization is slowly penetrating this region as well, but, nonetheless…I’m happy to see them going their way all by themselves.
And, meanwhile, we go our way! This trip was important for me as I was presenting these places to someone else for the first time, and I am especially pleased that my first guests for the new tour were real men who tolerated all minor difficulties as they presented themselves. Many Thanks to Vladimir and Dmitry and because of them there were no worries and no fears even when we discovered a couple of human scalps on the wall in our guest house ;).
Here is our team at the beginning of the trip — blessed with the traditional Assamese towel scarves.
Early morning rhinos at the Kaziranga National Park. Sometimes it was not clear who was more surprised — we seeing them or they seeing us?
A must to have photo with elephants.
India is not India if there are no monkeys! — the guys kept saying and they found them! Although the monkeys didn’t behave the same as in other parts of India so we ended up eating the bananas ourselves.
Oh… there were plenty of similar pics…
While Vladimir was enjoying extra sleep at the guesthouse the rest of us with Dmitry went exploring Majuli Island with scooties. We were invited to a house by one of the families.
Frightful reincarnation! That is how we were introduced to a traditional theatre art on Majuli.
Visit to a mud brick factory celebrating the beginning of the brick burning cycle.
Our neighbors traveling on the roof of the ferry on Brahmaputra River were…a couple dozen piglets.
From the Brahmaputra river valley we moved into the hills of Nagaland.
It was cold! We enjoyed a bonfire inside a traditional bamboo hut.
That’s what we found hanging on the wall among other stuff. It felt very weird but we had nowhere to run late at night…
Hornbill festival in Nagaland was a pure pleasure for photo-lovers…and not only for them, of course. That is how they greeted the winner of the pig fat covered bamboo climbing competition.
Naga people can be very friendly and they love to pose for photos.
After all the adventures in Nagaland and long dusty roads, we were welcomed with very tasty food in Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya.
A photo with the hosts of the place who were very kind to us.
Meghalaya was yet another world. Its beauty was very difficult to perceive with the mind but very easy to get lost in…
We started our way down to the canyon…We will remember those steps for a long time.
Absolutely marvelous — living root bridges… I could feel with my body the excitement others felt experiencing this wonder for the first time.
These boulders in the riverbed are really huge. We tried to imagine how they could have ended up here…The most wonderful thing about the place is that we were alone there, face to face with the grandeur of the nature.
We enjoyed swimming in the natural pools — explored 4 of them within 2 days we spent there. Locals say: ‘People come here for the bridges but stay for the pools’.
Morning fresh-up at the common water place in the village.
Entering the bridge. ’In the claws of the jungles’.