Land Slides and River out breaks:

It was about 3.30 in the morning, my alarm started beeping and I had to get up... Oh oooo sorry sorry... I din tell you people why I had to get up right??? Even my family members and many of my friends will be surprised to hear that I woke up so early in the morning. And I did so as I had a reason. That day I had to travel to Parshram kund (Lohit Dt, Arunachal) from Itanagar in order to attend a meeting of forest department the next day. And it takes nearly 10-12 hrs to reach that place from Itanagar. Ok coming to point now. I just got up from my bed very lazily and got ready by 4.15. It was raining heavily that morning. At around 4.20 my mobile rings and it was the call from the person who had to pick me up from my hostel to take me to Parsharm kund. On phone he tells me that “there were few landslides on the way to nirjuli (where I live nearly 18kms south of Itanagar) and will take quite a time to reach there”. So I thought of going back to my bed and did so. Again at around 6.15 I get a call saying that they have reached and were waiting just outside my hostel. So I had to hurry up and finally took my chatri (umbrella) and reached the bolero. We started our journey and hardly would we have travelled 5-8 km where we saw that the road was blocked due to landslide and it was pouring rain even.  So my driver thinks that he can turn back the vehicle and park it so that we can start our journey after the slide is cleared. We just parked the vehicle and few seconds later the slide happens just in front of the vehicle and it was my 1^st xperience of watching a slide in my life… The huge amount soil just rolled down the slope pulling down all the trees and bamboo thickets. It was terrifying scene. Immediately i told the driver to turn back the vehicle to go back to nirjuli as it is a safe place and also it was even raining which may lead to few more slides. The driver turns back the vehicle and starts driving. We reached nirjuli. I just recollected my past travel route to reach that place and told the driver that there is another route to reach Assam (as we had to travel through Assam to reach Parsharm Kund). I just told my driver about the route and we started travelling through that route. In the middle of journey, we saw few cars stopped. We just overtook them and saw water flowing from the mountains onto the road and cars can be easily washed away by the flow. As it was bolero, the driver jus drove very fast and we reached the other end of road quickly without any problem. The travel went on well..

After 10km of travel, we just stopped the vehicle once. Can anyone guess why? Dnn know how many of you can guess, it was another obstacle this time it was a river outbreak. Only trucks could drive across the flow. So we just waited. Slowly all the vehicles behind us disappeared in silence. An army Gypsy somehow crossed it. Looking at it the driver of our bolero got the courage and wanted to cross. But there was another gypsy infront of us and it started moving before we did. So we just waited for our turn to our surprise this time the flow of the water has increased. Gypsy just started drifting and was about to disappear in flow. But the driver of that vehicle jus showed the courage. He managed to break the vehicle put it on a back gear brought it back on to the position and then somehow managed to reach the other side. Looking at this our driver withdrew his decision of crossing it. After few minutes we made our minds and thought let us do it. The driver puts the 1^st gear and drives the vehicle to the other end and it took fraction of seconds for us to realize that we reached the other bank and that too so safely. Anju Bharadwaj who was my co-traveler was much tensed and even we were a bit but never showed it on our (me and the driver) faces.

We travelled quite a good distance and there was another river outbreak. This time a JCB comes for the rescue. It repairs the path and we crossed the river quickly. We reached Assam and were a bit relieved from one tension (because we entered plains and there will be no more problems of slides). The journey went on. It looked like someone cursed are so. This time the connection between the road and the bridge jus cuts down infront of our vehicle. And we had to stop the vehicle. I got down the vehicle and started observing surroundings.  The highway was built a bit high than the surroundings. The level of water on either side of the highway was about 4-6ft high from ground.. Anju Bharadwaj told us that there was some flood problem prevailing in Assam that time. The road looked like as if it was floating on the surface of water.. After some time the road was repaired and the journey went on well.. We reached a place where we had to cross the e river (Short cut) on a ferry and it was such a scenic beauty. It was a good journey then after. We reached Parshram Kund at around 8.30 p.m. and the next day meeting went on well.. That very next day we had to return back to Itanagar so we started our journey. It was a bright sunny day. The journey went on very very well. But the driver who came with us never travelled to Itanagar and was new to Arunachal. We reached Arunachal Gate at around 7.45 p.m. It was dark and it started drizzling. Soon the drizzle changed its phase and started pouring. Look at our bad luck we just reached the road surrounded by hills and it started pouring again. It rained so heavily that even the vehicle high beam lights hardly could focus upto 4-5m. Even the front glass was covered with frost. Though how much ever we cleaned the glass the frost formed again and again. And it was such a dangerous curvy route that even we din had the thought of stopping the vehicle keeping the landslide in mind. . The other tension was about the driver as he was new and dinn had any idea about the route. He might just think that the road is ok and might drive the vehicle down the valley. So I told the driver that I have the idea of the route and jus he has to follow my guidelines. I guided him and finally we reached the final destination very safely. I skipped some more adventures that we did as it takes too much time to xplain. But really to say I had very good xperience.