Views  of  W. Arunachal Pradesh

Images (Dirang-Tawang)

 by     Ramana  Athreya

Dirang

The Sangti valley A distant view  from high up on the Mandala ridge. Dirang is a good base for visting Sangti and Mandala.

The Sangti Paddies The black-necked cranes find their winter sustenance on the fallow paddies between the two halves of Sangti village. 0-10 visit the valley between November, when they move away from their summer haunts, and February, when the Sangti folk start their spring operations. The cranes have put in a show regularly for the last 8 years.

The Mandala Ridge Has extensive conifer stands, highly disturbed in patches and excellent in others. The road follows the ridge at about 3600m. There are several large man-made grazing pastures along the road but there are no alpine meadows (too low). Pictured opposite is a pasture in the making - the central patch of conifers have been girdled to death and only await clearing.

Tawang

The Greater Himalayas from Bomdila The Sela ridge divides  W. Kameng from Tawang. The highway winds up to and across this ridge at the Sela Pass at 4200m.  Even this high ridge is dwarfed by the Greater Himalayas beyond; the summits of Gorichen (6540m) and Kangto (7090m) are the highest in the state and sentinels on the border with Tibet.

Sela viewed from the Tawang side The road goes down by easy gradients into Tawang passing through alpine meadows, dwarf treeline vegetation and, of course, extensively deforestation in all easily accessible conifer patches. The heartening sight is the healthy regeneration  of conifers in all areas abandoned and undisturbed by  people for a couple of decades.

Deforested scrub	Treeline Vegetation	Conifer Regeneration

Jaswantgarh A memorial to Jaswant Singh, one of the few Indian soldiers to get a gallantry award in the Chinese disaster of 1962. Located at the mouth of the Sela valley it commands a spectacular view of the Tawang Valley (next image)

The Tawang Valley The dense packed cluster a little left of the centre is the 400 year old Tawang Monastery.  The Dalai Lama used the  ancient Tibet-Tawang route to escape from the Chinese authorities in the 1950s, and spent some time here before moving on to Himachal Pradesh.

The Jang - Rama Spur road The road climbs up from 2400m at Jang to 3850m before climbing down to PanGi below Thingpo, passing through some of the best stands of Fir in that region. Most of the trees below 3000m have been felled to provide fuel to Jang.  One can climb up from the highest point on the road to the alpine zone above.