Heinous/Hellacious/Atrocious/Bodacious: The Roads of Arunachal Pradesh

As life gets longer,

awful feels softer.

Well, it feels pretty soft to me.

If it takes shit

to make bliss

then I feel pretty blissfully.

Modest Mouse, “The View”

Questions to ask oneself before cycling on a given road:

1) Is it in India?

2) Is it in Arunachal Pradesh (one of India’s most remote and mountainous states)?

3) Is it in monsoon season?

4) Are there “danger” or “road closed” or other foreboding signs?

5) Have your more experienced cyclist friends abandoned you?

6) Have more than 50% of locals scoffed or told you that it’s impossible?

7) Do the switchbacks on the map look like seismometer readouts?

If 2-3 “Yes” responses, not going would probably be the prudent choice.

If 4-5 “Yes” responses, it’s probably a really stupid idea to go.

If 6-7 “Yes” responses, you and your bike will both break, and you deserve it.

Then again, there might be other questions to consider, such as:

8)  Do you have either an inferiority complex or slightly masochistic tendencies?  Maybe both?

9)  Have you been looking forward to Yak cheese, Salt Butter Tea, and Barley Flour?

10)  Do you wanna see old women with face tattoos?

11)  Wouldn’t cycling up to the little pocket where Tibet, India, and Bhutan converge give you serious bragging rights?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes!  Let’s go!  It couldn’t possibly be as bad as they say.

OR COULD IT?!?!?

On with the photos!

Control: A Standard Road in Assam

The sort of road that makes you wish the day would never end.

Arunachal, Part 1: Kimin to Ziro

(89km, max altitude 1773m, total gain 6400m, two full days)

This is clearly a road, and so is better than I had expected.

Sure there are some potholes, but “if it’s like this the whole way, we’re in pretty good shape.”

Famous last words!

  

Hold breath, cross fingers, say prayer, knock on…any wood except that tree.

 

Shaky, with his superior grimacing skills, managed to zip right on through this mud slick.

But only because I and a few cars had gone through just before him, spraying the calf-deep mud out of the way.

Oh, my poor rim and brakes!

Part 2 – Backtrack to Potin, then to Itanagar and Gophur

(151km, max altitude 1773m, total gain 6970m, 1.5 riding days)

Whatever, cars and trucks and even scooters are coming in and going out.   How bad could it be?

Even the most perfect roads must have looked like this once.

 

 

Good thing I learned how to fishtail properly in Myanmar.

The landslides start before the roads have even been completed.

This is about where we lost faith that there would actually be more road up ahead.

Part 3 – Bhalukpong to Tawang

(280km, 20,800m total altitude gain[!], max altitude 4,200m)

[6 riding days, 2 voluntary rest days, 2 forced rest days because of a general strike]

Day one of who knows how many.

 

How I learned to stop worrying and love switchbacks.*

From a sign on the side of the road

“BRO [Boarder Roads Organization]

Making Broader Roads…

Until Tenga”

 

After Tenga.

Altitude: 100m —>up to 1800m—>down to 1000m—>up to 2600m—>down to 1400m—>up to 4200m (!)—> down to 2000m—> up to 3000m —> turn around and do it again backwards.

The start of the climb up to Sela Pass, the highest mountain pass road in the Northeast and possibly among the top 5 in India.

 

Distance from base to top, as the crow flies: 7km.

Distance via road: 40km.

 

In Manipur, we met a grandpa who had been with the army engineers working on this road…in the 1960s.  It’s still not done.

 

 

 

Fog, another natural hazard.  One of the few times I’ve ever felt grateful for Indian airhorns.

The road had clearly been paved at one point.

 

A brief reprieve from the mud.

Pictured right: Monpa rock-breaking ladies taking a nap on the side of the road.

As the elevation hit 4000 and above, I started to get a little lightheaded and woozy.  Just gotta hold out for a few more kilometers…

The last are generally the worst.

 

 

The final approach

Booya!*

Personal altitude record!

(rabbit glove picked up off the street in Vietnam.)

Left to Bhutan, Right to China.

Congrats, you did it!  Here’s a view of a Yak.

*Photos of me and others marked with an * courtesy of Chris Buchman at http://www.fromatobe.com.