Siang Serenity: Finding Peace in the Wilderness of Arunachal Pradesh

Arunachal Pradesh, which is at least three thousand kilometers from Gujarat and Maharashtra, is blessed with many natural and cultural beauties, but is still out of the radar of the average population of the country. This state is worth knowing and enjoying. Let’s have some fun information about the Arunachal Pradesh and its one of the popular places in Upper Siang in this article.

Exploring Arunachal Pradesh: Jewel of the Seven Sisters

Arunachal Pradesh is the largest state with a vast spread of about 84,000 square kilometers among the states of Aruna Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura and Mizoram, situated in the north-eastern corner of the country and collectively called the ‘Seven Sisters’. About 82 percent of its geographical area is covered with perennial forests, which have over 5,000 varieties of trees, shrubs and flowering plants. At least 500 medicinal plants and a total of 500 varieties of orchids bloom.

Harmony with Nature: Sustainable Practices of the Apatani Tribe in Arunachal Pradesh

* The people of Arunachal Pradesh are very skilled in preserving the natural wealth and using it in a disciplined manner. For example, the Apatani tribe, living in a valley called Zero Valley, collects rainwater and diverts it to the fields. Apart from the cultivation of paddy in the water of the square farm, they also raise fish, and millet is grown on the earthen embankment around the farm.

Zero Valley: Sustainable Farming Practices Recognized by UNESCO

After harvesting both grains, their husks are mixed with the soil of the field. So that it acts like organic fertilizers and increases the fertility of soil. Zero Valley has been included in UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites due to the people’s resourcefulness to maximize yield in minimum space instead of destroying forests for arable land.

Not only in India, Arunachal Pradesh is the only place with the highest (28) tribes and their (100) sub-castes in the whole of Asia. In all, 30 languages ​​and dialects are in daily use there—and yet the official state language is English!

Trading Traditions: The Barter Economy of Thembang Village

Without cash, credit cards and digital currencies, the world’s business cannot function. But in Arunachal’s Thembeng village, all those currencies are useless. Even today, there is a barter system. Maize and corn kernels are the official currencies of Thembang, with which goods are traded.

Thembang: A Timeless Community’s Lesson in Environmental Stewardship

With a population of a handful of people, human life has been throbbing in Thembang for nearly 800 years. The world has reached the 21st century, but in terms of financial transactions, Thembang is still living in the 12th century. Yet what the improved man of the 21st century has not learned (and probably will not learn) is in the nature of the ‘premitive’ people of Thembeng: the preservation of the environment!

The residents of Thembang have shown great restraint in using natural resources. They have declared the forest area around the village as a protected zone, where it is strictly forbidden to pluck even a single leaf of any tree.

Dawn in Arunachal Pradesh: Embracing the Earliest Sunrise in India

Arunachal Pradesh enjoys the earliest mornings in all of India. At 4:30 in the morning, the Sun rises in Dong Valley, which is located in the eastern part of the state. On other hand, in Gujarat, which is in the most western part of the country, the first ray of the sun breaks out after another two hours, during which the residents of the Dong Valley have settled down for breakfast and water and got down to work.

Discovering Upper Siang: Nature’s Masterpiece Unveiled

After getting so much background about Arunachal, now let’s talk about Upper Siang, the northern province of the state, which has been in the public eye of late, after years of obscurity. In the Upper Siang district, spread over seven thousand square kilometers, the ‘interior decoration’ done by the invisible hand of the architect called Nature is truly spectacular.

Traversing to Upper Siang: Navigating Challenges on the Road to Natural Beauty

The main difficulty is to reaching Upper Siang to see the decorations. From the state capital, Itanagar, the district headquarters in Yingkiang are about 250 Kilometers away. Getting there by highway is a challenge in itself, as the paved road network is still not as rich as it should be. Even the interior roads of Upper Siang are not smooth. Rather, they are rough and muddy.

The reason for this is the torrential rains here, which wash away the paved roads in no time. The amount of dust-soil-rocks thrown down from the mountain slopes is also instrumental in spoiling the road surface. It takes about twenty hours to reach Yingkiong from Itanagar by government bus or by private taxi. It is physically tiring, but once you reach Yingkiong , Upper Siang has no shortage of places to visit.

Gilling: Gateway to the Siang River’s Majestic Journey

A picturesque place here is Gilling. The Tsang-Po River, which travels about 1,700 kilometers from its origin near Mount Kailash in Tibet, is first known as the Siang and later as the Brahmaputra after entering India. The Indian entrance to this river is near Gilling, the last village on the Indo-Tibetan border in Upper Siang.

Here, the Siang river spread out in numerous tributaries, fertilizing the plains over a large area. Even though it is divided into small and big tributaries, the extent of the Siang water body can be understood from the fact that the mega project of constructing 44 small and big hydroelectric dams on the main river and the tributaries is going to be carried out.

The region of Gilling is adorned with dense forest cover. While on a jungle trekking tour with a local guide, one can feel like moving into the Amazon rainforests of South America.

On the trek, one can see numerous springs, mountain caves, flowers, birds, and also numerous waterfalls. An impressive waterfall falls from a height of 300 feet.

Upper Siang: Where Verdant Valleys Meet Majestic Mountains

Upper Siang has the eye-searing greenery on one side, and the mind-calming Himalayan Ako Dumbing range, whose snow-capped peaks crown Upper Siang’s head like a crown. 108 lakes like Yeonchep, Tsitapuri, Dempo Tso are all formed due to melting of snow on high mountain ridges, whose water is as clear as glass if seen!

Ako Dumbing: Revered Peaks and Heavenly Beauty

The long-sweeping Ako Dumbing mountain range is believed by Buddhists to be the abode of the Avalokitesvara form of Lord Buddha, so His Holiness the Dalai Lama has described the Eko Dumbing mountain range as heaven on earth. Not only religiously, but also from the point of view of beauty, the entire region is heavenly. Some time ago, a team of local mountaineers had scaled the 14,000-foot-high icy peak of Ako Dumbing. The common people first realized the heavenly beauty of Ako Dumbing when the pictures taken by the team during the trip hit social media.

Exploring Moling National Park: A Haven for Wildlife in Upper Siang

Moling National Park is spread over 483 square kilometers in Upper Siang, where you can enjoy forest and wildlife. It is a natural habitat for animals like tigers, leopards, red pandas, barking deer, goral goats, monal, etc.

Conclusion

Who knows how many other gems of nature are still hidden in Upper Siang. The trail of suspense that has been closed for years has not yet fully opened. If the roads and facilities develop in the near future, the till now unknown country of Siang will come to the knowledge of the traveling public.

Good to Know for a Perfect Trip…………

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