Sauvik Biswas

Comics enthusiast, Musician, Programmer and Traveller

  • About
  • Travelogue
  • On Comics
  • Now
Comics enthusiast, Musician, Programmer and Traveller

Day 8: Finding the cheapest and the most comfortable way to Nagaland

Print This Post December 18, 2014 by Sauvik Biswas Leave a Comment

On the move

Staying in Shillong was expensive. We had already decided to move to Dimapur. There were a few buses that could take us from Shillong to Dimapur but we decided to forego them in favour of a more comfortable train journey from Guwahati. For that, we had to leave Shillong early. We bid adieu to Gowri Shankar, took a shared taxi out of Shillong and made our way to Guwahati.

Guwahati-Shillong highway is under construction. For most of the part, it is pretty well made. In another five years time, when the entire stretch of the road will be a four lane highway, it will serve as a lifeline for Meghalaya. Even in its current state, it is doing great service to the two states.

We reached Guwahati at about 2:00 pm and decided to catch the Kamakhya-Dimapur BG Express. The train wasn’t very crowded and we were able to get a seat for the entire 250 km stretch.

Nandy with fellow passengers. The small girl was reading an Assamese to English wordlist.

Nandy with fellow passengers. The small girl was reading an Assamese to English wordlist.

The railroad stretch is, for most part, a single line. As a result, the train stopped at many places with multiple tracks to allow other trains to cross. In one such place, just before Lumding Junction, there was a huge JCB loader loading stone chips in an open ceiling goods train wagon. The systematic, rhythmic sound was loud enough to peak my interest in its source.

For the last few days, the circumstances were such that we did not have our lunch at noon. Instead, we had a heavy meal in the evening. Today was no exception. We tasted some small snacks from the usual vendors that hawk on moving railway coaches. We also had five rotis and sabji for just 20 rupees at Lumding Junction platform. Nandy pointed out that it was cheaper than a 30 rupees fried rice meal the Russian mentioned earlier about having in Myanmar – one he thought was the cheapest full fledged meal he had ever tasted.

It was a good decision to take the train route. 250+ kms of serpentine, hilly roads on a bus comes with some degree of guarantee of motion sickness for people like us, who come from plains.

Dimapur has geared up for Chrismas

Dimapur is the largest city in Nagaland. It has a large Christian population. The festive mood of Dimapur was visible from the train as we approached the station.

Dimapur has geared up for Christmas. Al the buildings have been decorated with  colourful LED bulbs.

Dimapur has geared up for Christmas. Al the buildings have been decorated with colourful LED bulbs.

We had our dinner at a restaurant called Raj Nandini in Naga Shopping Complex near the railway station. The mixed fried rice and the pepper chicken was pretty good.

Raj Nandini restaurant at Dimapur. Surprisingly, it is not listed online.

Raj Nandini restaurant at Dimapur. Surprisingly, it is not listed online.

A group of children came in to the restaurant to seek donations for Christmas celebrations. I felt that it was very similar to kids asking donations for Saraswati Puja in Bengal.

Kids asking for Christmas donations at the restaurant.

Kids asking for Christmas donations at the restaurant.

We ended our dinner with some Bengali style Rasmalai in a sweet shop. There are a lot of Bengalis in Dimapur due to the vicinity of Bangadesh and Tripura. In fact, I heard a lot of Bengali locals in the train. On asking our hotel caretaker at Dimapur (who himself was a Bengali), he said that there are a lot of Bengalis who live in Assam, especially away from Guwahati towards the East (Lanka and beyond).

Bengali style Rasmalai at Dimapur.

Bengali style Rasmalai at Dimapur.

Day 9: From the heat of Dimapur to the darkness of Kohima
Day 7: A tourist trip in Sohra and back to Shillong
Posted in: Travel Tagged: Dimapur, North-East trip '14

Search the Site

Subscribe to my blog

Or use these links for your reader: RSS / Atom

Recent Posts

  • A tryst with B+Trees: Part I March 14, 2024
  • Tintin chases a plot for the first time in The Broken Ear March 5, 2024
  • A naive implementation of file-based storage February 26, 2024
  • YetiDB: an academic exercise February 22, 2024
  • That one time we actually trekked to Goecha-La July 9, 2023
  • Tour de Self: From Udupi to Bangalore January 3, 2023
  • Twenty Twenty-One February 23, 2022
  • Day 16: Back to Guwahati December 20, 2020
  • Day 14-15: Bomdila December 19, 2020
  • Day 12-13: Villages around Dirang December 17, 2020
  • Day 11: Dirang Monastery and Mandala Top December 15, 2020
  • Day 10: Through Sela Pass to Dirang December 14, 2020

Tags

Anime Artwork Bande Dessinée Bangalore Batman Berlin Casterman cycling Dark Project Dehradun Delhi Dharamshala Europe Trip '19 Food Graphic novel Guwahati Hergé Himachal trip '15 Himachal trip '19 Hybrid mod '17 Juda ka Talab Kasol Kerala trip '15 Kodaikanal-Ooty Trip '16 Manali Mandi Manga Munich Music NaNoWriMo North-East trip '14 North-East trip '20 Ooty Poetry Prague python Reckong Peo Rishikesh Tabo Tawang Tintin Tour of Nilgiris '16 Trekking Uttarakhand trip '17 Vietnam trip '15

Copyright © 2025 Sauvik Biswas.

Lifestyle Hack WordPress Theme by Sauvik Biswas modding themehit.com