NORTH-EAST : THE NEW
DESTINATION FOR TOURISTS
The magnificent
seven States of the North East are now poised to welcome tourists
as never before.
With peace returning
in most of them, tourists have gradually begun visiting popular
spots like Shillong in Meghalaya and Kaziranga in Assam. Many
are using the Assam corridor to sojourn in Arunachal Pradesh,
a State unaffected by insurgency.
In the past few
years the tourism scenario in India has got a massive boost. Infrastructural
development has progressed well with better highways, airports
and the opening up of comfortable hotels. New, sprawling airports
have replaced the outdated structures at Imphal, Aizawl, Silchar
and Dimapur. In Nagaland where the people in the recent past would
not dare drive alone in the interiors, have no such fear now.
Night buses are plying daily without any incident. Mizoram is
now the most peaceful State in the North-East. So is Nagaland
where peace is now being given a chance after decades of unrest.
All these developments
have undoubtedly given a fillip to tourism in north-eastern India.
An enquiry at the Arunachal and Nagaland Houses in Kolkata has
revealed that every year more and more inner line permits were
issued to the tourists. If they take up a massive tourism promotion
campaign, a larger number of tourists will definitely overcome
their diffidence to visit the North-Eastern States.
Domestic tourists
by and large have lost the charm of visiting conventional destinations
like Darjeeling, Kulu, Manali, Dharmashala and Ooty. For them
the North-East would be a good change - a new, unexplored destination.
The North-Eastern
hill stations like Aizawl, Shillong, Kohima, Haflong and Tawang
unfold to the tourists the varieties of landscape, leaving no
room for boredom. The land is picturesque and lush green. They
bring a soothing effect on anyone who has been confined to a city
for long. The atmosphere is breathtaking. It strikes the visitor
the moment he or she enters the region. Nature unfolds a strange
ambience in many North-Eastern sites as they are still largely
free from pollution. What a bliss that such a vast area is still
open for tourists to discover! There are interesting varieties
of flora and fauna awaiting the first full view by nature lovers.
Guwahati, Imphal
and Aizawl are ideally suited for weekend tours from Kolkata.
Just an hour’s flight will take one to Aizawl or Imphal or Silchar.
Aizawl is a picturesque hill station with all modern amenities.
In Imphal a weekend trip will take a tourist to Moirang, 45 km.
away from the capital of Manipur where one can visit the INA museum.
In April, 1944 Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose led his INA soldiers
upto this point. The museum possesses some valuable documents
of the INA. Five kilometres from the museum lies the Loktak Lake,
the largest fresh water natural reservoir in the North-East.
Assam is the
most charming place so far as tourism is concerned. The State
has much to offer. They include a huge national park, Kaziranga,
near Jorhat, to several holy Hindu shrines such as Kamrup Kamakhya
in Guwahati, the Shiv temple at Sibsagar and a beautiful hill
station, Haflong.
A fascinating
trip through the North-East comprises a number of options. One
can reach Guwahati from Kolkata or Delhi either by train or by
air. From Guwahati one may go to Kaziranga by bus. From the Kaziranga
Sanctuary tourists can go to Jorhat and from there either they
can catch a bus or plane for Dimapur. From Dimapur one can take
a bus to Kohima and from Kohima one may take another bus to Imphal.
From Imphal the tourist can fly back to Kolkata or Delhi. For
visiting Arunachal Pradesh, tourists have to go to Tejpur by bus.
It is the gateway to the picturesque destinations of Bomdila,
Tawang and Itanagar. The tourist season in the North-East starts
from October and winter is the best time. Barring some places
at high altitude, the temperature never drops below ten degrees
celsius.
Tura is another
tourist spot in Meghalaya, a magnificent small town dotted with
springs and streamlets. The serene beauty of the place gives a
feeling of pre-history to the visitors. Tura could be reached
from Guwahati by bus. The adventurous traveller can reach Shillong
by bus from Tura and after a day’s halt over there one can take
another bus for either Karimganj on the Bangladesh border or Silchar
on the Barak river. The Barak is known as a ‘Valley of Peace’.
From Silchar, there is a bus for Agartala via Dharmanagar. Buses
for Imphal and Aizawl leave daily. Imphal could be reached by
air, a mere fifteen-minute flight from Silchar.
Another memorable
experience is to board the Barak Valley Express at Silchar for
Haflong and then catch the same train for Lamding to get into
a Howrah-bound train. Barak Valley Express, the meter gauge train,
passes through numerous ridges and valleys going up and down.
It passes through several tunnels, creating an eerie feeling.
The North-Eastern
States have a tremendous scope for developing adventure tourism.
Trekking and mountaineering can attract tourists from all over
the country. It is safe everywhere.
Being the most
peaceful region, the Barak Valley has a tremendous potential for
tourism. The Valley at the moment has bad road conditions and
there is no decent place to stay outside Silchar. A beautiful
place, Haflong, once adored by Rabindranath Tagore, presently
does not have any graded hotel. There are also no proper hotels
at Aizawl, the capital of Mizoram, which is getting more and more
commercial traffic after being airlinked to Kolkata and Imphal.
The International
Tourism Day observed every year aims at establishing peace and
friendship through tourism. It is the only way to break the barriers
among the States and develop people-to-people contacts. From this
point of view the realization of the North-East’s tourism potential
assumes significance.
A special promotion
campaign showcasing the positive sides of the North-East such
as its cultural heritage, tremendous progress in education and
the local people’s yearning for change needs to be projected on
a grand scale all over India and abroad. (PIB Features)
Inputs
by Partha Chattopadhya, Senior Journalist, Kolkata.
27th
September is World Tourism Day.
