From Right Under Our Nose!!

Valley of Flowers in Tawang

Location: A hotel in Tawang.

Early morning at 5:00 a.m., someone knocked at our door. The knock got louder and louder to finally knock me out of my deep slumber. Assuming it was the tour driver for a wake-up call,  I dragged my sheepy 'zzzzzzz' legs to the door hardly noticing it wasn't bolted. Much too drowsy to even realize the 'unusual', I opened the door to find two quizzical faces staring at me. One of them I recognized as the hotel owner and the other a complete stranger.

"Yes?"I asked, trying hard to open my eyes.

"Is that your bag?" said the guy pointing at a few things near the staircase.

I glanced in the said direction. There was my bag, my camera, my friend's bag, my friend's camera, and her phone. Hmm! Where is my phone? I wondered!! Oh! yes! it's safe under my pillow - answers why, it didn't quite make its way up there.

"Yes, those are our things, but why are they outside our room?" I asked the obviously silly question, still trying to figure out if it was real or some weird dream. Flummoxed, I pinched myself - Ouch!!! It's definitely happening. Reality had started to dawn, gradually!!

SHOCK eventually replaced SLEEP!! Seriously? Did this actually happen!! I vividly remembered, switching off the idiot box around 3ish, and checking the door bolt before hitting the sack. How and when did someone enter our room! ?? This was unbelievably absurd!!

The commotion had woken my friend as well. Confused and shaken, she scanned through the stuff frantically!! "Kay all the money is gone!!!" I keep money in parts, in all possible pockets of my bags including the camera pouch when traveling. The thief had ransacked our bags thoroughly to not leave a single penny! He was clever enough to not take the mobile phones and our cameras. My camera is pretty outdated and antique for anyone's taste but my friend's was a pricey brand new slr !!! Some nerve he had to escape that temptation!!!. Hmmm!! An educated thief knows where to draw the line!! He was probably, somewhere very close, hence, chose to loot only the cash, intelligently ignoring anything that could get him caught easily.

The scary part was, the thief had opened our door, entered our room somewhere around 4am and taken all our stuff out and we heard nothing!!!! Instincts suggested it had to be a hotel staff. Most likely, our dinner was drugged which had us sleeping so soundly. Most disconcerting was the thought that worse could have actually happened!!!

We lodged an FIR at a local police station but to no great benefit. The officer in charge and his aide did a routine investigation quite nonchalantly and left us a note that if they come across any clues, we will be informed. Of course, that never quite transpired.

Disheartened, we decided to leave Tawang the next day. As the day moved on and the sun suddenly showed up all bright and warm after two days of non-stop cold rains, we reluctantly changed our minds. We had made it this far after a very rough journey, bad roads, two big landslides, an annoying travel mate, and 18 hours of continuous downpour.  Going back without exploring the place would be such a shame. Bad experiences happen but that shouldn't make us change our course. With that thought, we urged ourselves to the lakes early next morning. It was a decision well made! The enchanting beauty of the valley of flowers totally wooed us.

Shungetsar Lake

Arunachal is definitely a not-to-miss destination but it's wise to be cautious. Locals mentioned such things were not very uncommon. Hmmm!!

Disclaimer: We do not want to discourage anyone from visiting Arunachal. Just a forewarning for fellow travelers to be aware and alert!  We were robbed in Miami and Rome as well :P Happens everywhere !!!