Page 339 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - India

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0 Namdapha
National Park
Changlang district. 380 km (236 miles)
NE of Itanagar. @ Margherita, 64 km
(40 miles) SW of Miao, the entry point.
n Director, Project Tiger, Miao, (03807)
222 253. Open Oct–Mar. & Travel
permits: required (see p734–5).
This superb park in remote
eastern Arunachal Pradesh,
bordering Myanmar, covers
1,985 sq km (766 sq miles).
Rising from the plains to 4,500 m
Apatani woman in the rice fields near Ziro (14,764 ft) in the Himalayas,
it covers a variety of habitats,
largest among the 26 major Plateau, is the home of the and is the only reserve in India
tribes that inhabit the state. A prosperous Apatani tribe who where all the four big cats of
few traditional Nishi longhouses practise a unique system of the Himalayas – tiger, leopard,
still remain, now all but swamped cultivation that combines rice- clouded leopard and the rare
by Itanagar’s newly constructed growing with pisciculture. The snow leopard are found. It was
government buildings. The Nishis flooded paddy fields are stocked declared a Tiger Reserve in
are easily recognizable – they with fingerlings, the two staples 1983. Other wildlife includes
sport black-and-white hornbill of Apatani diet thus coming from the great Indian hornbill, the
feathers in their cane headgear, the same plot of land. Like the red panda (see p303), and the
wear their hair in a bun on their Nishis, the Apatanis wear their hoolock gibbon (see p335).
foreheads and often carry hair in a bun on their foreheads,
bearskin bags. held with a brass skewer, and the Environs
The Jawaharlal Nehru women sport noseplugs. The legendary Burma Road
Museum, near the On a hilltop in Ziro sits (or Stilwell Road) begins at
Secretariat, offers Gompa Buddhist Ledo, 60 km (37 miles) south-
a com prehensive Temple with its west of Miao. This 1,700-km
look at the arts yellow-roofed (1,056-mile) road, of great
and crafts of shrine and a strategic importance in World
all the tribes Adi longhouse near Along tree planted by War II, connected Ledo, via
of Arunachal the Dalai Lama. the forbidding jungles and
Pradesh. Cane and bamboo Northeast of Ziro, three other mountains of Arunachal
artifacts, textiles, jewellery and areas – Daporijo, Along and Pradesh and Northern Myanmar,
totem objects are on display Pasighat – are open to foreigners to Kunming in China’s Yunnan
here. A pretty but bumpy 6-km (with permits). The latter two are province. Supervised by the
(4-mile) drive north from Itanagar situated on the Brahma putra American General Joseph
leads to the lovely, emerald-green river and are inhabited by the Adi Stilwell and built in two years
Gyakar Sinyi Lake, surrounded tribe (see p340). The drive from Ziro at enormous human cost, it
by dense forests. Many of the tall to Pasighat (300 km/186 miles) is has now fallen into disrepair,
trees are festooned with orchids. wonderfully scenic, through dense but is still used by locals
virgin forest and tribal villages. travelling on foot.
E Jawaharlal Nehru Museum
Siddharth Vihar. Tel (0360) 221 2276.
Open Sun–Thu. & Extra charges
for photography.

9 Ziro
Lower Subansiri district. 150 km
(93 miles) NE of Itanagar. * 12,800.
@ n Deputy Commissioner’s Office,
(03788) 224 255. Travel permits:
required (see p734).
The picturesque town of Ziro, in
central Arunachal Pradesh, lies
in a large, flat valley, surrounded
by low pine-covered hills. This
area, better known as the Apatani Tribal people of eastern Arunachal Pradesh on the Burma Road

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