Ni Dieu Ni Maitre

The bus to Guwahati left at 2:30 in the afternoon and arrived there at 4:30 AM.We stopped on non-scenic Dimapur for 45 minutes of choking on pollution and milling around the muddy bus stand.

It was a pretty comfortable old bus, with legroom and I actually dozed off for a half hour several times. Got a hotel next to Hotel Assam, as they didn’t open until 8 AM. Slept a lot, then walked down to the market and drank a few beers, ate supper at Hotel Assam and got ready for the doozy of a flight to Delhi, Bangkok and then Chiang Rai, also starting at 2:30 in the afternoon and arriving in Chiang Mai at 6AM.

Here’s a cow eating trash outside the bar near the airport.

Not to knock good old India just because after a lifetime of enjoying 90 day visas, they have pulled the plug on me, a person who has spent over a year mainly bicycling in this country over many decades, meeting the people, enjoying the sights, extolling its virtues in print… Oh, no… The 30 day visa is plenty long for those rich tourists who flock here for a few weeks for sun and fun, throwing their euros around left and right Good luck with that pipe dream. This is actually the sidewalk from my hotel to the market. There is also trash dumped all along it. And the smells! The endless horn honking! A tourist paradise.

Same sidewalk. Wouldn’t want to be wandering along here after dark.

Here’s the new Guwahati airport, not the one I arrived at. Note the faux bamboo decor, both outside and inside. Another triumph for the petrochemical industry currently destroying breathable air for the majority of Indian citizens.