"3 Banjaare" on astonishing expedition into Seven Sisters's Land from Bangalore - 3

March 13, 2017

As the alarms with multiple snoozes were crying hard, Mrs. Tarzan somehow managed to open her eyes by only 8 a.m. and started shaking Mr. Tarzan to get up. Knowing that they were already late yet the day started with a different kind of happy mood as in their subconscious they knew that from here their anticipated saaga was going to start. Siliguri itself was like the farthest point for someone traveling from southern India and it was a never-had-been-to place far far away, so it added to the adventure of Mr. and Mrs. Tarzan and their Cheetah which they were going to start from here !!

They both started the day with a “Happy Holi” greeting to each other. It was Holi that day which is one of the major north Indian festival and their personal favorite. As Mr. Tarzan was getting rid of his sleep with tea he was realizing about the time and that they were running behind his planned schedule though it was only by a couple of minutes. Mrs. Tarzan this time insisted on having breakfast as she knew the chances of missing lunch and breakfast are higher which she learned from last two days journey.

The clock was already striking 9 when they finished the breakfast where Mrs. Tarzan tried almost everything on the buffet to store as much as possible, who knows she will be getting lunch or not. While watching her, Mr. Tarzan noticed that Mrs. Tarzan had woken up with a mild eye infection owing to previous day’s adventure making him feeling sorry for her.

After checking out, Mrs. Tarzan went back on her job of navigation and guided about the turns in the streets. Interestingly, at one point during merger on highway there was a right turn and then an extreme right turn which induced confusion leaving Mr. Tarzan take a wrong right turn and eventually ending up going round and round at same place but he later took the correct right turn leading to the highway, this was the highway to Guwahati. There were two routes to move on, one heading to Darjeeling via NH10 later diverting towards Hasimara on NH17 which goes towards Guwahati being close to Bhutan while the other one was NH27 going parallel in the lower half of the state via Jalpaiguri and then towards Guwahati, both crossing the Brahmaputra river. After few initial thoughts Mrs. Tarzan declared they will be going by the first one and probably return after the adventure by the other one as she knew he would be interested in viewing the other side of the state traversing the other highway as well.

The highway was moving on slopes and curves surrounded by the green vegetation which Mrs. Tarzan was capturing occasionally until Mr. Tarzan had pressurized on brakes noticing congestion ahead. There was better management of traffic at this place near small railway crossing and a bunch of shops which seemed to be usually crowded causing jams, so all the vehicles were in a single line. Had it been other popular hilly region, some idiot would have formed another lane of vehicles obstructing the traffic on the other side. See, this is the sensibility in north eastern part of India.  Mr. Tarzan was happy and also relaxed today, and it was then he got chance to have a look at Mrs. Tarzan who was sliding down the sunroof, and think about tea. Sensing that, Mrs. Tarzan reminded him, “It’s Holi today but when we are going to play Holi as you did not let buy colors the previous day. I want to play Holi”. Mr. Tarzan smiled as usual and asked to sit back and relax, “It is going to happen. Have patience.” Listening to this she kept quiet but inside she could not trust him fully because she knew him very well. And then one train had started crossing a few vehicles ahead in front of them which brought her back to the moment and enjoy watching the train, after which they could resume their journey.

Siliguri itself seemed to be have qualified tourism opportunities. As they were leaving the city they could adore its crooked turns down the valley and up in the hills. There was river Teesta flowing below the highway surrounded by hills on another side, finding its way between two hills. After a certain turn they could see that the highway was leading to the other hill through a bridge on this river making her excited again and she was up to climb over the sunroof but still keeping low. Watching all this circus made Mr. Tarzan laugh, “Why I spent money for the sunroof when you don't use it”, making Mrs. Tarzan wear an annoying look but she turned up and enjoyed the bridge. There also a small Kali mandir nearby at the junction. The straight highway goes to Darjeeling via Kalimpong but they were going to Guwahati which was far far away at the other side of the bridge.

They had only traveled 25 kms while enjoying the greenery of Siliguri and were already crossing the bridge when Mrs. Tarzan demanded a picture at the middle of the bridge. Quickly Mr. Tarzan took a couple of nice shots and let her take one picture of him and then moved on only to stop a few meters beyond that bridge to let Mrs. Tarzan capture full view of the bridge. She got down and moved few steps and then another few to locate the best view and returned with grin and the picture.

This road got them a glimpse of what was waiting ahead as they were moving among the tea plantations, the long queue of trees in the woods, the green valleys. Mrs. Tarzan went crazy seeing the tea plantation in a flattened land for the first time as she was used to the hilly tea plantations of South India, and tried to capture it from left, right, front every angle until she noticed a signboard reading road to Bhutan. That was perhaps not so popular route as there were not enough intimations hence she could not enjoy the thought of it and sighed for missing it.

It was already noon by then and she also felt a bit hungry to which Mr. Tarzan didn’t entertain much until he was convinced of a good halt as he was planning to cross Assam border first which Mrs. Tarzan also certified to be within reach of a few kilometers. And in few minutes Mr. Tarzan noticed a long pale bridge over the Brahmaputra river also equipped with good security deployed over it. As they approached near, it was clear that it was a check post guarded by forces. They were ready and waiting for any signal to stop at the check post and when they were a few meters away they were signaled to stop. Mrs. Tarzan had already stopped dash-cam recording for security and privacy and was ready with bag of documents. The brothers were nice and dutiful, after carefully examining the documents they informed Mr. and Mrs. Tarzan that there will be another check post for entrance into Assam as this one was marking the exit of West Bengal, they can go ahead and don’t need to stop if no one asks them to stop. They followed exactly what was said and went pass at slow steady pace over the long bridge to enter the land of Rhinos and were not asked to stop as well. However their joy turned into worry as the highway was in very bad condition for about 20 kms, which felt like several portion of the road was missing. At one time there was this road which ended up into deep cavity, looked like whole chunk of road was razed away. Thoughtfully they came to conclude it could be due to last year’s flood. There were several such small instances and then the road was blocked with boulders, sometimes even making traffic diverted to the opposite lane. Every now and then Cheetah had to zoom in a hurdle race. Now Mrs. Tarzan and Cheetah started feeling hungry, leaving Mr. Tarzan to quickly feed his darlings and his hawk eyes get into the action but eventually he ended up taking a quick tea break .

By then Holi celebration had reached to its peak and at every few meters there were colors of Holi spread over, be it friends zooming on the bikes one face as  red other as green and another as yellow, shouting merrily...or the lazy guy riding on his scooter sitting green faced who might have been colored well by an enthusiastic gang...or the sibling aging 3-4 years giggling and running behind each other with a pichkaari in front of their home being supervised by their mother….or a few aged friends gossiping around with pinch of colours….the fervour of colour was so well spread to one of the farthest corner of the land !!

Mr and Mr. Tarzan were overwhelmed witnessing Holi celebrated in countryside, by the strangers, yet their own people. On the way, they crossed few national parks like Jaldapara National Park and then Buxa Wildlife Sanctuary and later there was a connecting road to famous Manas National Park. All of these were reserved by Mr. Tarzan for the next visit.

At some distance they read another signboard depicting road to Bhutan. In couple of kilometers there were more milestones reading about it. This time Mrs. Tarzan was ready with her camera to capture the road but as soon it came, it passed on like some small street without much of evidence. Probably best to capture that would be a soon trip to Bhutan itself !!!

There are 2 routes to Bhutan, the first one is not much popular but the second one is the major route which is followed by anyone visiting Bhutan from India. There is third route as well, which is still hidden :). One can notice several tempos and trucks with Bhutan number plates roaming freely on this highway.

Very soon they stopped by a petrol pump which also had a small dhaba, but realized that there was no diesel/petrol in it so they decided to move further hoping to hit the bird’s eye as the range for fuel was way under a hundred . They stopped at another, and then another fuel station but none of them had any fuel. Mr. Tarzan’s uneasiness was increasing as the fuel was decreasing as his plan was to reach Shillong by evening which can't be done without fuel. In the stress, he took another tea break with an hour.

There were petrol pumps, both big and small, in every couple of kilometers that hardly any highway possess in this country but they all wore a deserted look. What so ever Mr. Tarzan predicted while choosing a petrol pump, he was always getting disappointment and returned bare handed. He was applying his tricks to enhance the average mileage which would add up to the current range, would slow and accelerate back and forth. As Guwahati was approaching they forgot their hunger and only focussed on getting Cheetah remain alive. The scale was dropping to 70-60-50-30-20 kms as they were moving on Saraighat bridge on Brahmaputra and entered Guwahati. In the hunt for fuel they had stopped paying much attention to the scenery around and gave random glance to IIT Guwahati which was only a few km before the bridge.  In fact, they didn’t even realize they could not enjoy the bliss on the bridge. Mrs. Tarzan was trying to support and locate nearby stations which they could predict to be reliable being always equipped with surplus supply, say a petrol pump near railway or bus station in the city, or where there is a bunch a petrol pumps in a couple of km radius, so she took all of them into the Guwahati city.

It was about to strike 5 in the evening while they were crawling in the deserted city when they saw first station which was closed, then next was also closed, then next was having a couple of people but also a small note stick out saying there is no fuel. They moved on to next station in vicinity which also had a couple of people but Mr. Tarzan at once knew this also had no fuel and no station is having fuel for sure that day, leaving him furious and red. Mrs. Tarzan on the other hand tried to balance out him by remaining calm and started thinking and asked him, “How much range?” Mr. Tarzan replied, “11 km”. She suggested to look for a decent hotel in couple of km radius to which he nodded helplessly leaving next course of action on her. She then booked a hotel nearby on GS Road and guided him to it that they finally halted at the hotel parking with a fuel range of 5 km. As they were checking in it was 5:30 pm, she curiously inquired with the staff why there is no fuel in this city, to which she got the reply that it was due to Holi. They both were like, WTF.

They never saw such deserted evening in their place which remains so eventful even in the night and specially Holi or Diwali is like festive fever that should go on past days and nights. They both were gloomy and tired and had a sigh that they couldn’t celebrate Holi and neither reach their planned destination nor they can roam around in Guwahati itself as that place was looking like a curfew with mostly police spotted on the road. Mrs. Tarzan asked for snacks and tea immediately as they both were more furious with empty stomach which took up another hour when they were done with it. While Mr. Tarzan went out on walk, Mrs. Tarzan was trying to console herself with faag songs being played on the TVand also getting angry on Mr. Tarzan who she believes never listens to her. Actually, if he follows her advice then it always turns out to be good but if he ignores it definitely doesn’t happen as expected, not sure why Mr. Tarzan doesn’t understand it.

Anyways, she planned to celebrate the festival with feast and called up to the restaurant to order something nice. To her surprise the chef himself was over the call and they both chatted about various cuisines and finalized few of them specially for her beloved Mr. Tarzan. When Mr. Tarzan arrived and got fresh, the food was in the room with Mrs. Tarzan wearing both smile and anger.  She wanted to party but also wanted to fight with Mr. Tarzan why he didn't listen to her and play Holi. Squealing she complained making Mr. Tarzan also getting gloomy and realize his mistake making her anger replaced with disappointment but quickly they both recovered and celebrated Holi with token of water followed by feast. The feast which she was explaining him in her own quirky accent with her usual childlike face and narrated about everything happened in the meantime he was out. Mr. Tarzan fall in love with her again.

Celebrating a festival in traditional way is not that important. Festivity comes if you are with your beloved and celebrating your moments with happiness which Mr and Mrs Tarzan were celebrating in their own way !!
Route Map :

Distance : 468 KM

Toll : INR 35

Diesel : 

Hotel : INR 1724 - Hotel S J International (OYO)

Part 2 Part 4