"We live in the present, the past and the future does not concern us." Paplav serves us spiced milk tea. He works as a teacher in Seppa and has invited us in his home. "I belong to the Nyishi, the largest cultural group of Arunachal Pradesh. Our people live only in the present, in the moment. Therefore I am so happy, that you are now drinking tea with me. That you have found the way into my home, you who are traveled from so far away."

It seems, that past, present and future are not splitted up in different time lines, but are existing side by side here in Arunachal. Like on a multilane road a traveller can change between the times, he can be moving in the past, the present and the future at the same time. The local people are used to this multilane life. Like an experienced driver they barely note the change of lanes or when the road merges to a one single track. For them, past and future are not existing. All times are one. Everything is now.

In Arunachal a highway is been built. It is wide, far to wide for the steep slopes and narrow canyons. Diggers are eating through the mountains, leaveing a torn wound behind which will not heal until the next monsoon. The rain will start and the hills will bleed. Already now we have to bypass landslides and the water in the rivers is brown from erosion. A sign stands at the roadside, black letters on a yellow font: "We connect people to the mainstream". The highway will be faster, straighter - modern. It brings the future. And then, as if someone would have compounded an image wrongly in photoshop, the construction side ends. The thicket around us moves closer. We are cycling on a winding, narrow and holey jungle path further into the valley. We have changed the track. We are cycling in the past.

In a dark blue the evening descends over the deep valleys and green wooded hills. Last light breaks through the branches, whirled dust from a car paints sunbeams in the shadows. Only a few minutes are left and then the surroundings will lose the colors at the night. A short twilight, typical for this latitude. We need to find a place for the night in the next minutes. And as always, it comes when we need it. A few bamboo huts on stalks and a concrete building with a horde of children and a couple of adults on the dry forecourt. A school? That would be ideal. We stop in front of the adults who welcome us surprised.

Tourists are still a rare sight in the northeasternmost state of India. And then even on a bicycle! The effort to get the special permit, the lack of infrastructure and little information make Arunachal Pradesh to a white spot on the tourist map. Here, we can experience how it was to travel fifty years ago. We introduce us to the head of school and get quickly the permission to camp in the small classroom. The school is a boarding school, where the children between four and ten years, girls and boys separated, sleep in a longhouse on the floor and only return once in a month for a weekend with a several hours walk to the small mountain villages and their families. Hundreds of eyes follow us when we pitch up the tent. The faces have no similarity to Indian ones anymore. High cheek bones, almond eyes, dark, smooth hair, olive skin. Jungle faces. Faces of the Nyishi tribe.

Arunachal is home of twenty-six different tribes. Their languages, their traditions, yes even their bamboo huts differ from tribe to tribe. They are impressive, those people who have lived since centuries in and from the jungle. But the encounters with older people, who are still wearing the original headdress, or like the Atapani women have tattooed the marks of their tribe in their faces, are rare. In the everyday life a young generation resembles more and more the "mainstream". They try to fit and to belong into the image of modern people. And so it happens also here, that the times are mixing up, that teenagers are wearing fancy military leggings on the Republic Day, but at the same time are showing proudly the jewelry of their grandmothers. That they draw the old tattoos with eyeliner on nose and chin, but dance no longer the traditional steps but new creations to the latest Bollywood hit. So is Arunachal's present. Caught between tradition and modernity. What predominates when the time flows further? What will be created newly and what goes lost?

In Sagalee we ask at the Don Bosco mission for a place to stay. A group of boys plays football in front of the school. When they spot us, they forget their ball immediately and run to the gate. A few meters before us they slow down their pace and welcome us politely and well educated. One of the boys gets the priest. It is a dark-skinned man, obviously origin from South-India. He welcomes us and offers us one of the guestrooms. It is spotlessly clean, has two beds and an own bathroom with hot water. We enjoy it. At dinner, the brothers tell us proudly the catholic mission's successful story. Rising student numbers, new churches in the remote jungle villages, new schools in all major towns.

In the next days we meet several newly converted christians, who are embarrassed by their traditions and ashamed of their ancestors. "We belong now to the enlightened side of the world and have left the darkness behind us", says a young man on the road. Missionary work is always difficult to judge, at least for us. We understand, that people are longing for better education, health care and a fairer change in the modern world and that the church and their modern schools (at least in comparison to the governmental run ones) are offering a way. But must these developments really go on cost of ancient believes and traditions? Must the identity of a people really be extinguished and replaced by western interpreted Bible stories and christian songs? Glad, that there are stars hanging on the houses and not crosses. They fit to the flags of the sun, the symbol of the old faith, which in some parts are still fluttering in the villages. The sun, the origin of all life. And the stars, the modified symbol of christianity. Is this also a try to unite past and future in the present?

The fire patters, awakens spirits of light and shadow on the braided walls of the bamboo kitchen we are sitting in. We are invited for dinner by the family of John Taniang. We eat rice with spicy bamboo chutney, cooked banana flowers, water spinach and paneer curry - a banquet. We would like to preserve this evening, the laughing around us, the dancing flames and the cozy reunion in this foreign place. As soon as we take out the camera, on the opposite side mobile phones are made ready. Of course, despite all we are still in India. We are part of the modern world, part of the "mainstream". But yet in the same breath, when the accessories of the present have invaded the room, our host ask us for a typical song of our homeland, a traditional song. We need a moment to think about. And in these silence, John's father starts to sing. An old melody of his people. First a bit shaky and uncertain, accompanied by the disconcerted looks of his sons. But then strong and clear: a story of a butterfly, which finds a fragrant flower. Which falls under the spell of the beauty and sweetness of this blossom. Which forgets what happens around, which cares no more what was before it landed nor what will be afterwards. Which only lives in the moment, in the present.

We feel a strong connection to the Nyishi people. Like they, we are no longer worried about the past, nor the future. Not a long time ago, someone asked us, when we would come back to Switzerland and whether we are not loosing our life perspective with our restless travels. We think the contrary is true. Each day of our travels is an enrichment and opens us new sights of the world. We have learned to live in the moment, in the present, and we love it. Because the present is the life itself.