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Ghuga and Jia Bhorelli rivers North East India 2002 |
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An amazing place |
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The year
following the first Amazon trip I looked around for an alternative
for 2002. I found someone who would organise angling in Assam. Not many people go to Assam. There are a few terrorist groups operating in the area: United
Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA)
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| MEGHALAYA | |||||||||
Our first
destination was the Ghuga River in the Garo hills of Meghalaya. We
set off from Guwahati and picked up our escort of Paramilitary
Police. All
black headscarves and AK47s, reassuring but scary at first.
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It was an
'interesting' drive, several hours on a dirt track. We had to dig
the Jeeps out of the mud on a couple of times, and had many Log
Bridges to cross, carefully! We
finally arrived at the government bungalow in village of Ukium. We
were the first foreigners there since partition in 1948. Everything
was made from Bamboo, houses, furniture, vessels.
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From
Ukium we trekked to the Ghuga river
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We camped
on a sandbank by the river, the porters that we hired quickly built
a bamboo kitchen. We were soon joined by another platoon of
paramilitary police, this time from the State of Meghalaya. They
camped between us and Ukium. We now had 13 armed guards!!
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Fishing the Ghuga was not easy. Heavy
rains the week before had turned the river the colour of coffee. In
fact we caught NOTHING, bar one very large tadpole (which was
foul-hooked!)
We tried three different beats on the river, wherever
we needed to cross the river the guides would build a bamboo raft in
about 20 minutes
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| After 3 days on the river, fishless, we gave up. An amazing spot, green lush bamboo forests, its such a pity that the water conditions were not conducive! We started off as a party of 6 anglers, 2 guides, 2 local 'fixers'. By the time we returned to Ukium with our armed guard, porters, camp attendants we were quite a crowd! |
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| Assam | |||||||||
| We departed from Meghalaya and went north near the border with Arunachal Pradesh to the Nameri National Park, to the 'Eco Camp' set up by the local fishing club |
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We spent the next week fishing the Jia Bhorelli,
taking the jeeps upstream, then floating down in rubber dinghies,
casting all the way down. We saw wild elephants, and fresh tiger
tracks, but the TWATs saw very few fish. Still we did get some small
Mahseer, Goonch, Bokar, Hill Trout and the scenery of the Himalayan
foothills was spectacular
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| URUNACHAL PRADESH | |||||||||
We then moved the fishing into
Arunachal Pradesh, only recently opened up to limited tourism, known
as 'Little Tibet'. The scenery was even more spectacular. Pity our
fishing wasn't!
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Whilst we were here, we decided to do some
sightseeing and travelled up the Kamang valley to the monastery site
at
Bomdilla
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We returned to Assam for some more
sightseeing, a private trip round a Tea Plantation, and Factory.
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Then a private trip around Kaziranga
national park, to see the white rhino's
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The fishing was difficult - we
calculated 1 fish for every 3000 casts (honest). The scenery, the
colour, the people were totally amazing.
And finally a big thank you to Bob Newbury |
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