SPECIAL FEATURE: INDIA DIAMOND TRAILSo far, the India Diamond Trail was hassle-free, but
now a problem loomed ahead. To enter Arunachal
Pradesh, you need the Inner Line Permit. While getting
the ILP from a local tourist office is quite easy, we
were banking on our online application, which hadn’t
garnered any response yet. After painstakingly locating
a Tourist Liaison Officer in Dibrugarh, we finally got our
ILP done. The same evening the Renault KWID entered
the land of the dawn-lit mountains and the north-
easternmost state in India via the Namsai checkpost.
With bright daylight at 4am in Tezu, we were up and
ready early. It was now time to delve into a different
world altogether, as we had entered one of the remotest
and most scarcely-inhabited parts of India. Initially,
the Border Roads Organisation’s roads seemed smooth
and the scenery awash with dense forests, gigantic
mountains and old-fashioned suspension bridges
across the sprawling streams and tributaries of the
Brahmaputra, and no traffic except a few Army vehicles,
which meant the crew could finally shoot in peace with
no cattle or pedestrians spoiling our happiness.
After a few hours, decent roads turned into terrifying
terrain. The entire journey to Kibithoo is via a severely
landslide-prone area, and we had to tread with extreme
care. However, with the KWID’s 180mm high ground
clearance and added safety features like the driver
airbag and new Seat Belt Reminder, there was little to
worry about. We even gathered courage to go water
fording with the KWID and the car just soldiered on.
The treacherous roads, though, increased our travel
time by a couple of hours and reaching Kibithoo was
now possible only the following morning. That night,
we halted at the Inspection Bungalow in Walong, about
20km south of Kibithoo.
The next morning, after a drive through some
sweeping corners and mind-boggling unadulterated
landscapes, we reached Kibithoo. A magnificent Indo-
China transboundary valley lay in front of us and we
just couldn’t get enough of this view. Standing at the
easternmost tip of India, I found it hard to believe we
had made it. This moment seemed so distant, 8500km
and 21 days ago when we set off from Pune. Yet, here
I was, with three of the four checkpoints of the drive
done and dusted. Yet again, the KWID proves it is fully
capable of such gigantic adventures. We ticked off the
third ‘K’ (after Koteshwar and Kanyakumari) from
our list of extreme corners of India and that instilled a
sense of pride in our crew. Speaking of pride, the Indian
Army’s Field Unit had a large base here in Kibithoo and
just a few hundred metres away was the international
LAC (Line of Actual Control), beyond which we could
see the Himalayas in China.
Thanks to the KWID, we did pass this endurance
test. Koteshwar, Kanyakumari and Kibithoo were now
ticked off the list. But the story isn’t over yet as my
colleague, Afzal drove the KWID to the last ‘K’: Kargil.