BREAKING NEW GROUND

Leading what was Triumph Motorcycles' first ever official ride in the relatively unexplored state of Arunachal Pradesh was a refreshing change!

- ARJUN PARMAR

I woke up with a start – the room filled with sunlight. Damn, I must’ve missed my alarm. I scrambled for my phone and lo and behold – 4:07 AM. Arunachal is very much India’s version of the ‘Land of the rising sun’. The day begins jarringly early – the situation is akin almost to travelling to Malaysia but working Indian hours, which definitely takes some getting used to. Grumbling away, I shuffled off to get ready and make my way to the 22 Triumph motorcycles parked on the other side of the roaring Nyamjang Chu and get them ready for the long day ahead.

Arunachal is a magical place to ride a motorcycle. With Xplorearth curating the Northeast Adventure for Triumph India, this gave me the perfect opportunity to try and decode just what it was that makes this destination so special.

Let me start by saying that a ride in Arunachal is painfully difficult to plan and execute for a large group – sometimes feeling almost intentionally impractical! This is largely due to its geographical position, being India’s eastern-most edge, sharing borders with Bhutan, China and Burma. In fact, if DJI’s latest maps are to be believed, we were bang in the middle of Chinese territory throughout, which pretty much says it all when it comes to some of our neighbours on this front! As you drive further East past Siliguri, you can see the definite change in the genetic features of the locals. Once in Arunachal, you would be hard pressed to distinguish between a local and someone from the border areas of any of the aforementioned nations.