Day 14: Along - (North Lakhimpur) - Itanagar

Finally, clean clothes!! After 2 weeks of wearing the same clothes, we were finally able to get our clothes washed! Dave still smells, but not as bad!
We'd gone out for dinner the previous night to a traditional tribal home, arranged by a unscrupulous guide who had got our contact details from the hotel. It was a really good night and we were served the local brew 'Apong' made from rice, along with rice and veggies on banana leaf. The guide then turned up at 7:30am complaining that we hadn't tipped him!
After getting rid of him, we set off with the intention of staying the night at North Lakhimpur (Assam)... maybe we had been spoilt by the scenery so far, as there was nothing special to see on the way. We did stop at an archaeological site en route where remains of an old mandir have been excavated, but were very disappointed, as clearly the government/state has not spent any money on maintenance.

We finally got to Assam, only to find out that there was going to be a strike on tomorrow, so all major roads would be closed. Therefore, we had to drive on to Itanagar (Arunachal Pradesh) the same night. We stopped off at North Lakhimpur briefly to check out a hotel and continued on to Itanagar. We finally made it to Itanagar 14 hours later!
We've been really lucky with our driver, Ratul (not a typo and no relation!), as he drove the whole day, never complained and was always polite. He's definitely someone we'd like to use on future tours.
We were left with food for thought, as we may need to change the order of our itinerary because in 2 days time we leave on the next leg of our journey to Bomdila which is also going to be a day's drive.

I'm knackered, so more later!

- Rahul