"You are going to the Northeast; you must go to Mechukha." We were told. "The Northeast" is seven states with generally bad roads, relentless rain, and mountainous terrain, mainly ensuring that the travel window is small and closes fast. But when the feeling of carpe diem seizes you, you just need to push that window open, even when the rain is about to start pattering on the panes literally. The weather app predicted a 90 per cent chance of rain on the days we were to head into the furthest folds of Arunachal Pradesh, but I took the opportunity of it not being 90 per cent of the time. Still, we wouldn't get that helicopter ride to this valley so close to the McMohan Line, which would put us there in hours instead of the winding two-day road trip we would now have to make. Google showed a nine-hour journey. Google is an armchair traveller, but being on the road, the journey sometimes becomes a wayside destination.