We leave at noon towards Guwahati. Here we have an appointment with the Myanmar group and also with Shamir and Avi.
When leaving the hotel in Shillong, we see it’s a bit drizzling. This would be the first time during our trip that we have to drive in the rain. Luckily it stopped after an hour or so and during our first stop we notice that the bike is barely wet.
When we arrive at Guwahati, we call Shamir. He is still on the train and will be a little later but he tells us to call his friend. The guy also comes from Ulupara and we already met him there. He studies in Guwahati and has a house outside the city. We gave him the nickname Hat because he always wears a hat. He comes to pick us up and we follow him to his house. There we wait for Shamir and Avi to show up. When they finally arrive, it’s time for a party. The bottles of whiskey are again set up at the table and we enjoy a nice dinner together. It turns out that we will spend the night here, for a reason that is still not really clear to us, but we have no problems with this.
The next morning Hat is not really talkative, as usual. This is only the case when he’s drunk, but then he really is our best friend. Since we have to wait for Shamir and Avi again, we decide to take a walk in the neighbourhood. Here we see one of the most beautiful villages that we have ever seen.

A Beautiful Village

We are invited into one of the houses, where they suddenly start singing and a priest is saying his prayers to bless their home. The people seem pleased that we are present, but we are having a hard time not to laugh out loud. In the afternoon Avi and Shamir take us to a park along the river but there is nothing special about it. One funny thing here is the motorbike race where they are supposed to travel a certain distance…as slowly as possible. In the evening we dine at a resort and the night ends with the usual party.
The day of the meeting with the Myanmar group, we leave early in the morning. We still need some dollars to pay the Myanmar crossing but this is not as easy as we would have liked: they always ask us for a receipt to prove where our money is coming from. We always withdraw money with our ATM-card and we never keep the receipts. In the hotel where we are meeting the Myanmar group we finally find a man who is able to help us.
On the meeting there are just a few overlanders and the guide can’t tell us anything new. We meet another motorcycle rider (Christian) and his girlfriend (Francessca), travelling on an Africa Twin. We decide to drive together to the border, and we agree to leave the next day in the morning.
In the afternoon we make some small errands and in the evening we go back to Hat’s house where we have a final party with our Indian friends ...with a lot of whiskey of course!

Farewell

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