India Guide
The Northeast
India's least explored and arguably most beautiful region, the NORTHEAST is connected to the rest of the country by a narrow stretch of land between Bhutan and Bangladesh, and was all but sealed from the outside world until relatively recently. Arunachal Pradesh shares an extremely sensitive frontier with Chinese-occupied Tibet and, together with Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram, a 1600-kilometre border with Myanmar.
Insurgency has long agitated the region, with tribal groups pushing for autonomy as well as fighting each other. The situation has improved in recent years, although Tripura and Manipur remain unsafe for travel and permits are required for four of the seven states. Tourists are not a target of violence, however.
Until the 1960s the region comprised just two states, the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA), now Arunachal Pradesh, and Assam, but separatist pressures further divided it into seven states. Assam consists of the flat, low-lying Brahmaputra valley. Its capital, Guwahati, boasts two important ancient temples, while a dawn encounter with a one-horned rhino in the magnificent Kaziranga National Park is a highlight of any trip to the Northeast.
The other six states occupy the surrounding hills, and are quite distinct from the rest of India in landscape, climate and peoples. Meghalaya boasts beautiful lakes and is home to the wettest place on earth. Its capital, Shillong, retains some of the colonial atmosphere from its days as East India's summer capital. Remote, majestic Arunachal Pradesh is inhabited by a fascinating range of peoples, many of Tibetan origin. To the south, the lush mountains of Nagaland are home to fourteen major tribal groups, each with a strong sense of identity and history. Mizoram, in the Lushai hills, was the most peaceful state at the time of writing. Predominantly Christian, it has one of the highest literacy rates in India.
The recommended time to visit the Northeast is from November to April, although mountain areas can be extremely cold by December. It rains heavily from May to September. In two weeks you could travel from West Bengal to Guwahati, Shillong and Kaziranga, while three weeks would be enough to cover the main sights of Assam and Meghalaya.