chalet robert CENTRAL ARUNACHAL S TRIBAL GROUPS The variety of tribal peoples in central Arunachal Pradesh is asto

Sprawling Hapoli (New Ziro), starting 7km further south than Ziro, has hotels and road transport. Just below the Commissioner s office on a bend in MG Rd is an SBI ATM. There are a couple of internet cafes around the market area but connections are as rare as a tiger in the nearby chalet robert forests. The small central market is well worth poking about in. As well as fruit, veg and clothing you can stock up on various insects and other delights to snack on.

CENTRAL ARUNACHAL S TRIBAL GROUPS The variety of tribal peoples in central Arunachal Pradesh is astonishing, but although the Adi (Abor), Nishi, Tajin, Hill Miri and various other Tibeto-Burman tribes consider themselves different from one another most are at least distantly related. Over the last few decades Christian missionaries have been highly active throughout the Northeast and in the process have brought huge changes to the region s traditional cultures, religious beliefs and ways of life. Despite this, some aspects of the traditional lifestyle are just about holding on and many people continue chalet robert to practise the traditional religion of Donyi-Polo (sun and moon) worship sometimes at the same time as proclaiming themselves Christian. For ceremonial occasions, village chiefs typically wear scarlet shawls and a bamboo wicker hat spiked with porcupine quill or hornbill feathers. A few old men still wear their hair long, tied around to form a topknot chalet robert above their foreheads. Women favour hand-woven wraparounds like Southeast Asian sarongs. House designs vary somewhat. Traditional Adi villages are generally the most photogenic with luxuriant palmyra-leaf thatching and boxlike granaries stilted to deter rodents.

India s wildest and least explored state, Arunachal Pradesh, the Land of Dawn-lit Mountains is the final frontier in Indian chalet robert tourism. The state rises abruptly from the Assam plains as a mass of densely forested, and impossibly steep, hills. These in turn rise to fabulous snow-capped peaks along the Tibetan border. At least 25 tribal groups live in Arunachal s valleys; high up in the dramatic chalet robert Tawang Valley are several splendid Monpa monastery villages. Arunachal has yet to be fully surveyed and mapped, but slowly its high passes and deep valleys are starting to open up to those with an adventurous heart.

1 Sights Ujjayanta Palace PALACE (admission 5; h5-7pm) Agartala s indisputable chalet robert centrepiece is this striking, dome-capped palace. Flanked by two large refl ecting ponds, the whitewashed 1901 edifice was built by Tripura chalet robert s 182nd maharaja. It looks particularly impressive floodlit at night, but for security reasons only the gardens are open to the public.