After days across the plains I reveled in the ride up to the green beautiful clean cool hills of Darjeeling - famous for more that its tea. There I stayed a while biding my time until the rain abated and then kicked off back to the southern plains in a generally eastern direction. I was heading for Assam, a state of India's north east that's all but cut off from what Indians call the ‘mainstream’ - modernity, development, civilisation, those sorts of ideas.

There  was only one clue that I was entering Assam, a rusty sign “Welcome To Assam” and yet more endless miles of half finished broken hot dusty highway.

Assam is mostly flat, that's flat like a pancake, rice paddies, sugar cane, jute - a tall stalky plant that farmers dry on the highway. Jute is woven into tough sacks that carry rice to a billion souls all over India.

Is this a Blog or the purging of countless images flashing past me on the highway. Some snapped on camera, others consigned to the mind’s own movie-hall, personal shows we replay from time to time until we grow old.

And so on to Guwahati, the capital of Assam, sitting on the banks of the Brahmaputra River. I can’t remember ever seeing such a huge river. Its width, even at the ‘narrow bit’, where they built one of the few bridges that spans its murky waters, was nearly a kilometer. Asia’s largest river, it's just huge and I’m told that when I ride further upstream there are no more bridges - beyond Tezpur. Instead the bike goes on a rusty ferry, that’s what I imagine anyway.

Before I lost my reading specs, hundreds of miles behind me, I’d noted down a hotel in Guwahati on the basis of a guidebook description, colourful enough to entice me, though which later proved to be a poor choice for a person with a large motorcycle. Despite that the staff and location have served me well these three nights.

The Hotel Nova, a brave 1960's concrete edifice, sits on the corner of a crossroads that during the day turns in a hugely crowded, buzzing bazar, a landmark in a neighbourhood known as 'Fancy Bazar'. Fancy being the term used by Indians to describe goods of a fashionable and pretty nature, girls bangles, dresses, 'beauty products' etc. I'm staying in midst of a mad market.

My evening arrival, with the market at it's busiest, called for a final spate of courage. I had to ride my huge rig up a 1 foot high curb, though an organic mass of people, ride round the corner, taking care not to crush the leperous beggars, whose outstretched limbs held rusty tins, and glide directly into the front door of the hotel. Eager hotel staff helped me cram the Bullet into a tiny storeroom at the end of a narrow corridor. Clearly they wanted my business.

Guwahati is the main stepping stone for those few and infrequent travellers heading for India's furthest north eastern state, Arunachal Pradesh and after a good night’s, my next challenge was to procure the necessary permit, the so called "Restricted Area Permit".

I wasn't expecting the process to be easy, Delhi based research and the discussions I had with several Tour Operators, together with the comments of a rather aloof Deputy Resident Commissioner for Aurunachal Pradesh, confirmed my worst fears. The general consensus, "Go to Delhi and get your Permit." Delhi, that place I'd left two weeks ago...

"Or" said Toon, a Bulletteer and Tour Operator - whom I found on my last port of call, whilst staving off those horrible thoughts of defeat; "You could call this number.... He's in Itanagar. He may be able to help you." Itanagar is the capital of Arunachal Pradesh, two days ride from here.

Suffice it to say that the permit will come but not for another 5 or 6 days nor is it cheap. In the mean time  I shall head south from here into a small state called Maghalaya whose capital Shillong, a small hill station was once the capital of Assam, until state restructuring a few years back split Maghalaya – a tribal region, from Assam.

I'm heading back to the hills and into an area troubled by tribal and militant unrest. The guide book says don’t stay in Haflong, it’s a hot-bed of militancy, but then how would I ever know what it looked like. After that… I’ll reach one more state, Tripura and hope to stay in an old Raja’s palace overlooking a pretty lake, a stone’s throw from the border with Bangladesh.

Then it’ll be time to hack back north two long days of over 300kms, challenging rides on these rural, broken roads. But I’ve done the training, and my permit will be sitting in my Inbox – won’t it, and if the cyber has something resembling a printer, I’ll be ready for the first day’s ride into Arunachal Pradesh through a place called Bhalukpong, direction Tawang. …and now it’s time for lunch, which I think I shall take on a riverboat restaurant and watch the world float past.