snowmass festival Wild Grass Resort ECORESORT $$ (%262085; www.oldassam.com; r 1900) This delightful and slightly rams

5 Eating & Drinking La Galerie INDIAN $$ (Hotel Centrepoint, TSS Rd; mains 150-200) A suave restaurant compartmentalised into booths by photographs of local scenes, it offers excellent Indian food. Cloud 9 is the top-floor bar-restaurant serving dainty Thai dishes, cold beers and cocktails.

RAFTING IN THE LAND OF MILK AND HONEY Another newly opened route is the Pasighat to Tuting road. This route is all about two things: snowmass festival the River Siang and the mysterious Buddhist land of Pemako. Tuting, which sits near the Tibetan border, is the point at which the Tsang Po river having left the Tibetan plateau and burrowed through the Himalaya via a series of spectacular gorges enters the Indian subcontinent and becomes the Siang (once it reaches the plains of Assam it turns into the Brahmaputra). Tuting and the River Siang are starting to gain a reputation as one of the world s most thrilling white-water rafting destinations, but this ain t no amateurs river. The few people who have descended the river have reported that the 180km route is littered with numerous grade 4-5 rapids, strong eddies snowmass festival and inaccessible gorges. For those after adventure of a different kind Tuting also serves snowmass festival as the launch pad for searching out the legendary Buddhist land of Pemako. You will, however, need more than this guidebook and a compass snowmass festival in order to find it. Buddhist belief says that Pemako is a synonym for a hidden earthly paradise and that it s the earthly representation snowmass festival of Dorje Pagmo, a Tibetan goddess. It was said that this land of milk and honey was to be found in the eastern Himalaya and that to reach it you had to pass behind an enormous hidden waterfall. For hundreds of years outsiders knew that the Tsang Po river left Tibet and entered a huge, and utterly impenetrable, gorge before emerging from the Himalaya around Tuting, but what happened to the river inside that gorge was unknown until the 1950s. As it turned out the river did indeed tumble over an enormous waterfall and, what s more, it passed through a rich and fertile valley populated by Memba Buddhists, completely isolated from the rest of the world. Today, this vast region of northern Arunachal Pradesh and parts of south eastern Tibet remains almost utterly unknown to the outside world, but Pemako is out there and for those willing to endure days of incredibly tough hiking (and deal with reams of paperwork) it is possible to visit.

Out of town, and by far the best place to stay, is the new Ziro Valley Resort (%9856910173; Biiri village; r in old wing 1000, tw/d 1200/1500), which has rainbow-coloured rooms in a faux colonial style building. It s halfway between Old and New Ziro and is surrounded by sunburnt fields. It s also known as the Village Tourist Lodge. At the time of research another midrange resort style place was under construction near the Ziro Valley Resort.

Wild Grass Resort ECORESORT $$ (%262085; www.oldassam.com; r 1900) This delightful and slightly ramshackle snowmass festival ecofriendly resort is so justifiably popular that it doesn t bother with a sign but carefully labels all the trees instead. Raj-inspired decor makes you feel that the clock has slowed. The dining room serves tasty Indian food. The entrance is opposite the Km373 marker on National Highway (NH) 37. In season, bookings are essential.