Travel Guide

The least explored, most mysterious, and arguably the most beautiful region of India, the Northeast, known as the Seven Sisters and now its eight including Sikkim, is connected to the rest of the country by a narrow stretch of land between Bhutan and Bangladesh, and was all but sealed off from the outside world until relatively recently. Arunachal Pradesh shares an extremely sensitive frontier with Chinese-occupied Tibet and, together with Nagaland, Manipur, and Mizoram, a 1600 km-long border with Myanmar.

Permits are required for travel in certain regions, notably Arunachal Pradesh, while some other areas, such as the Manipur hills and Nagaland eastern fringes. Tourists. One of the world’s wettest monsoon belts, the area also boasts an astounding array of flora and fauna, estimated to represent fifty percent of India’s entire biodiversity. Until the 1960s the region comprised just two states, the North East Frontier Agency, now Arunachal Pradesh, and Assam, but separatist pressures further divided it into seven states, now officially joined by an eighth “Sikkim. Assam consists of the flat, low-lying Brahmaputra valley. Its capital, Guwahati, boasts two of India’s most important ancient temples and is the gateway to the region, while an encounter with a one-horned rhino in the magnificent Kaziranga National Park is a highlight of any trip to the Northeast.