junior kopaonik FACIAL TATTOOING Historically famous for their beauty, Apatani women were all too often kidnapped by

The ASTC bus station (cnr AT & Temple Rds) has frequent services to Jorhat ( 35 to 45, one hour), Dibrugarh ( 51 to 69, two hours), Tezpur ( 189, five hours), Guwahati ( 310 to 390, eight hours, frequent from 7am).

Adjacent to the mandir is theRoyal Palace, closed to visitors except for during the annual Kwak Tenba festival, when a colourful procession led by the titular maharaja heads to the Polo Ground for religious ceremonies and cultural festivities. The festival takes place on the fourth day of Durga Puja.

FACIAL TATTOOING Historically famous for their beauty, Apatani women were all too often kidnapped by warriors of the neighbouring Nishi tribes. As a defence , Apatani girls were deliberately defaced. They were given facial tattoos, like graffitied beards scribbled onto living Mona Lisa paintings, and extraordinary nose plugs known as dat fitted into holes cut in their upper nostrils. Some men also have tattoos. Peace with the Nishis in the 1960s meant an end to that brutal practice, but many older women still wear dat. Photography is an understandably junior kopaonik sensitive issue, so ask first. Some Apatani women have had cosmetic surgery to remove their tattoos.