The Northeast Explorernational parks to tribal villages.

Day by day

The unfolding.

1. Day 01

   Dibrugarh → Namdapha (Deban)

   Received at Dibrugarh airport and driven about seven hours east to Deban, the forest rest-house compound on the banks of the Nao-Dihing river inside Namdapha National Park — India's largest protected rainforest and the only park on earth that has tiger, leopard, snow leopard and clouded leopard recorded inside it. Evening at the riverbank watching hornbills cross from the canopy to roost.

2. Day 02

   Namdapha — Haldibari & Hornbill

   Cross the Nao-Dihing by country boat with the forest department guards and spend the day walking the Haldibari and Hornbill camps' jungle trails in pristine lowland evergreen forest — wreathed and great hornbill flyovers, capped langur troupes in the canopy, white-winged duck on the quieter pools. Picnic lunch in the forest. Return to Deban by evening.

3. Day 03

   Namdapha → Duliajan · Singpho tea ritual

   Long drive (about seven hours) back west out of the rainforest with two cultural halts: a Singpho tribal household at Margherita for the classic 'phalap' bamboo-tube tea ritual (the Singpho are credited with introducing tea to Assam centuries before the British), and the Digboi oil museum and centenary refinery — Asia's oldest operating oilfield, still producing since 1889. Overnight at Duliajan oil-town guesthouse.

4. Day 04

   Duliajan → Mon (Konyak country)

   Drive (about six hours) east across the Brahmaputra and steeply up into the northern Naga hills to Mon. Evening orientation walk through the Konyak bazaar with its tattooed-faced elders selling local honey and chillies.

5. Day 05

   Mon · Longwa · Hangphoi

   Full-day excursion to Longwa, the largest Konyak village, where the chief's longhouse straddles the India–Myanmar border. You sit with the Angh and his tattooed warriors, see the brass-skull necklaces worn for headhunts taken in their youth, visit the village blacksmith and the morung. Stop at Hangphoi village on the return to meet a small group of the last surviving headhunter elders.

6. Day 06

   Mon → Jorhat · Sibsagar Ahom monuments

   Descend out of Nagaland and stop at Sibsagar, the old capital of the Ahom kingdom that ruled Assam for 600 years — the Ranghar amphitheatre (Asia's oldest), the seven-storey Talatal Ghar palace and Kareng Ghar. Continue to a Jorhat tea-planter's bungalow by evening.

7. Day 07

   Jorhat → Majuli

   Short drive to Nimati Ghat and the public ferry across the Brahmaputra to Majuli, the world's largest river island. Afternoon at Uttar Kamalabari and Auniati satras for sattriya dance rehearsals by the celibate bhakat monks, and Shamaguri for its master bhaona mask-makers. Overnight in a bamboo cottage on stilts.

8. Day 08

   Majuli → Kaziranga

   Morning Mishing tribal village visit with apong rice beer, then return ferry and a three-hour drive to Kaziranga. Afternoon Western (Bagori) range jeep safari with rhino, wild buffalo and a tower sundowner.

9. Day 09

   Kaziranga — Central range

   Pre-dawn jeep safari in the Central (Kohora) range — the classic rhino-and-tiger country with hog deer, swamp deer and Pallas's fish eagle. Rest in the heat. A second afternoon safari in a quieter zone, or an Eastern-range birding drive for Bengal florican and the wintering pelican colonies.

10. Day 10

    Kaziranga → Guwahati · Departure

    Four-hour drive to Guwahati airport for the onward flight.