North East Odyssey: Part Fifteen

Day Twelve (05.12.2021): Goodbye Guwahati

Today was the final day in North East. We got up early morning, kept our luggage outside the room and went for breakfast. Post breakfast, the luggage was loaded in the bus, and we drove to our last sightseeing in Guwahati. We were going to visit the Umananda Temple at the Umananda Island (Peacock island), the very same island which we passed by yesterday through the river cruise. We had to take the govt. ferry from the Umananda Ghat to the island. The bus was parked at a distance from the ferry point. We boarded the MV Meghna ferry and left the shore at 09:30AM. We had to compulsorily wear the life jacket. We reached the island in 10 minutes. The ferry was docked at the island. At 10.30 AM the very same ferry would take us back.

Umananda Temple

The legend goes that it is the very same place where Lord Kamdev was burnt into ashes by the third eye of Lord Shiva when the former tried to disrupt his meditation thereby giving it its alternative name Bhasmchal. We had to climb several steps to reach the temple base. There were shops and a shoe stand. We removed our shoes and climbed the stairs to reach the main entrance door. First, there is a Ganesh temple with mushakraj at its entrance. The main temple had shivlinga. Behind the shivlinga, there was another room in which we had to walk downstairs to worship the idol. On the right side, we had Maa Annapurna. Post worshipping all the gods, we descended towards the shoe stand and had a washroom break. On the way back to the ferry, we bought pineapple slices and jhalmuri from the stalls.

We got back to our bus and drove to our last lunch restaurant in Guwahati, Maa Kamakhya Hyderabad Kitchen. We had lunch and gave the collected contribution as a token of gratitude to Bhushan, Tapan, Jayanta, Babul and Chote. Our travel vehicle has also been very supportive throughout this journey from convoluted roads to steep lanes.

Flying back to Mumbai

The bus dropped us at the LGBIA (Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport) at 01:15PM. The luggage was unloaded, and we queued up at the departure gates. Aadhar card and vaccination certificate was checked, and we further queued up at the Indigo Baggage security counter. The check in bags were screened and locked. We went ahead to the check in counter and loaded our check in bags by 2PM. Christmas celebrations were on at the airport. 

We further queued up at the Security Counter and must go through cabin bag and physical security check. Done with all this, we were waiting at Gate no 3. At last, the boarding started at 4PM. The Aadhar card was checked and ticket was scanned. We boarded the bus which took us to the plane. 

My seat was 14F (window seat!!), fellow traveller Maithili Nagle was on 14E. Safety instructions were explained. The 6E 433 Indigo flight took off at 04:30 PM. I was watching the clouds outside the plane until sunset and thinking on a lot of topics. Post sunset, I slept for good two hours. We landed in Mumbai at 07:30PM. It is always a happy feeling to watch the sparkling Mumbai while landing. We alighted the flight and got into the bus. The bus dropped us at the baggage belt. For the first time in forever, I had to spend an hour waiting for my duffle trolley. We hugged goodbye to each other and wished good luck for the future. Here is the last group photo. 

The current North East Odyssey completes here. Looking ahead to complete the remaining four sisters. And also, to start blogging after one and a half year.