Of Water Falls and Gentle Guides: Why You Never Want to Leave Ziro
You never want to leave Ziro Valley, a little-known place in Arunachal which will soon be overtaken by civilisation.
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Our trip to Ziro is almost at an end.
But not before a fitting swan song.
One day before my friend and I are to return, we embark on a trek to the Hakhe-Tari waterfall. There are several trekking routes to choose from and we choose Hakhe-Tari since, by all accounts, it is one of the easiest. It involves a long walk through a forest in the mountains and offers us a chance to reflect upon all that we’ve seen in Ziro.
The Trek to the Hakhe-Tari Waterfall
We start early in the morning. A bank of clouds has settled overhead during the night and the smell of fog is mixed with the sweet smell of nearby rain. The trail starts near Siro, a town about 4-5 kilometres from Ziro.
We meet our guide Hibu Tani there. He carries a homemade rucksack on his back and a knife in a sheath around his waist and walks with a light but assured footing.
The trail weaves through the Apatani settlement for a while – before entering a forest. From this point onwards, the entire trek lasts six hours, and at no point do we encounter another human being.
The closest whiff of civilisation we get is the sound of motors and the crunching sounds of trees falling somewhere in the forest.
(Tree cutting is illegal in the region of course, but there is a thriving ecosystem of bribes and reprimands.)
How Life in the Village is Welcoming to Tourists
We ask Hibu about his life in the village and the fascinating tribal festival of Myoko and he responds to our questions with great enthusiasm.
He tells us of his family and his house in the village, in which he offers ‘home-stays’ to tourists – like many other families in the region do. We promise to stay with him the next time we visit. He appears genuinely pleased and suggests we come back after the rains, when the paddy fields are at their prettiest.
Hakhe-Tari – when we finally reach it – turns out to be an old abandoned settlement on a gorgeous lush prairie enclosed by the forest and hills.
Big sturdy cows graze unhurriedly in the open and call out to each other.
Their calls echo back and forth off the hills and we hear them long after we have left Hakhe-Tari behind...
Even as we are an hour away from the waterfall, we hear the sound of gurgling water somewhere below us. The sound stays with us for the rest of the way. The trail gets trickier – and we scramble over loose pebbles and giant boulders.
At one point, I brush my face against foliage and my glasses are flung off!
I see them trace a shiny arc in the air and disappear. I am almost resigned to wait for a rescue mission till my friend discovers them under a rock.
We spend an hour at the narrow waterfall, allowing the water to gently lap against our legs. As we prepare to head back, Hibu suggests an alternate route and we are thrilled – not wanting to face loose pebbles and giant boulders a second time.
We soon regret the decision though, as we find ourselves on a vertical climb straight up a hill. Halfway up, we decide to turn back and take our chances with the old route.
Suffice to say that by the time we’ve reached our hotel at night, we are thanking our stars for being alive.
Holding On: Our Fitting Swan Song to Ziro Valley
The next morning, we take a stroll around Ziro before boarding the Sumo back to Lakhimpur.
Having seen us every day for a week, the men at the tea-stalls in the centre of town now recognise us and wish us warm goodbyes. There is isn’t enough time to take one last walk through the paddy fields and Apatani villages and so – as we get into the Sumo – much like at the end of any trip, we think less of the wonderful week we have had and instead wonder what it might have been like if we had had more time.
On the Sumo, we hear the same songs (Kumar Sanu) as we did on the way up.
We stop for lunch at the same place.
We cross the same deep green waters and settlements of the Subansiri Dam project –and when we finally enter Assam, the tea estates and the whiff of tea leaves are just as we had left them.
But the trip has ended. In time, the dam will completely alter life around it. The Apatanis will gradually disappear.
And the songs will one day no longer be Kumar Sanu’s.
It is nice to imagine though, that it will all remain just so forever.
(Kushal is a Bengali, brought up in Ahmedabad, and earning his daily bread in Mumbai. He travels and writes when he finds time away from selling SIM cards. He has also published for The Mint and rediff.com)
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