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

The MTC bus station (Jail Rd) also has a computerised railway-reservation counter (nearest train station is Guwahati). Private buses depart from Dhanketi Point; book tickets from counters around Police wilderness chalets Bazaar, including Network Travels (Shop 44, MUDA Complex, Police Bazaar) and Deep (Ward s Lake Rd).

Bansbari Lodge (%3612602223; www.assam bengalnavigation.com/bansbari.htm; d 2000, jungle package wilderness chalets 7500). Jungle packages cover full board, early morning elephant safari, jeep safari, guide, park entry fee and village and tea garden excursions. Ask about river rafting. Contact Jungle Travels India in Guwahati (p 560 ) for bookings. Access is from Barpeta Rd.

Noisy and polluted it might be, but Imphal, wilderness chalets with its melange of peoples and positioning right on the border lands of India and southeast Asia is undeniably fascinating and travellers who spend any time here are well rewarded. The airport is 9km to the southwest.

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 wilderness chalets throughout the Northeast and in the process have brought huge changes to the region wilderness chalets 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 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 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.