5 HANDPICKED HOLIDAY IDEAS to explore in Northeast India
With its challenging topography and often wet weather, the hilly Northeast region of India is the least visited part of the country. Comparatively, few tourists venture much beyond Kaziranga National Park, where tigers and one-horned rhinos are sighted. Known as the Seven Sister States, each State has its own distinct identity and history, deriving in part from the mix of indigenous people who live within its borders. This cultural richness tends to provide the focus for most tours to the region. Travelers could explore the region for a lifetime, and still only scrape the surface of the region’s unique offerings. My personal favorites are the below five.
Manas National Park, Assam
Manas National Park in Assam is a UNESCO Natural World Heritage site. This beautiful national park located in the Assam Bhutan border is divided in two countries India & Bhutan and is contiguous with the Royal Manas National Park of Bhutan. It is a project tiger reserve, elephant reserve, and biosphere reserve.
Manas is only three hours’ drive from Guwahati, the major city and point of embarkation in Northeast India for most travelers. The drive itself is quite picturesque going through small towns, neat villages, paddy fields, tea gardens, roadside weekly markets, etc. On reaching Manas, apart from the lush greenery, one is also greeted by the many peacocks that live here. For accommodation, there are some resorts and camps on the periphery of the park. Manas remains open for visitors from November to April and partially open in October and May.
Three main activities can be done in Manas – Elephant Safari, Jeep Safari, and Rafting on the Manas River. The Elephant Safari takes place early in the morning and the Jeep Safari a bit later in the morning. Manas is mostly dense forests with very tall trees and some grasslands. Manas is famous for its unique scenic beauty and to quote the UNESCO World Heritage Tag declaration – Manas contains superlative natural phenomena/ areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance. The Big Five animals of Manas are - One-horned Rhino, Swamp Deer, Wild Buffalo, Tiger,
and Elephant apart from many other animals including 22 endangered species and about 500 species of Birds.
Apart from the animals and the forest, the beauty of the turquoise blue waters of the Manas River against the backdrop of the Bhutan hills looks like straight out of a fairy tale. This park has undergone tremendous transformation in recent years from the verge of destruction due to insurgency. There was mass deforestation, and many animals died a few decades back. When peace returned to the area, the forest also started healing and soon regained its beauty and magnificence.