The North East

I knew that June wouldn't be the optimal time for a smash and grab of the North East States, the bit no one visits, but I wasn't anticipating last week's cyclone. It reduced my planned Assam / Meghalaya combo into a Guwahati city break. And no disrespect to Guwahati, but you can tell it's a gateway city that is more used to people passing through than staying.

But still, it offered a taster to the North East States. Here's what I found:

1. Despite the relatively low temperature, I spent a lot of time sweating. "What did you do for the weekend?" "Me? Mainly sweated."

2. The scenery goes from flood plain to hill-jungle with absolutely no transition. Makes the whole package seem proper tropical.

3. They have an impressive amount of squalor. Even by Indian standards. Saw more skinned animal remains in the street this weekend than in maybe forever.

4. They have a temple dedicated to Sati's yoni (look it up. Or just use your imagination - it probably is what you think it is you filthy tinker) where they celebrate the power of the yoni by cutting the heads off goats. Not sure how the two are linked. The goats there were strangely chilled.

As an aside I still find the whole taking your shoes off to go into a temple complex kinda weird. Nothing says religious experience like paddling barefoot through terrified goat wee.

5. The food is different. Although maybe not as different as it was billed - it was like Odishan food; all about the mustard. I did have my first pigeon curry - there's a reason it's not a thing. And, as this is likely to be the closest I get to Nagaland, had some Naga food. Pheweee. The chutneys were the spiciest thing I've eaten in India. Blew my cheeks right off.