The paperwork comes before the road does
Tawang is one of the few places in India where you cannot simply buy a ticket and go. Arunachal Pradesh requires an Inner Line Permit for every Indian citizen who is not from the state. Foreign nationals need a Protected Area Permit on top of that, and getting one is a separate bureaucratic exercise that can take weeks. The ILP itself is relatively straightforward, you can apply online through the Arunachal Pradesh government portal, but it must be in your possession before any checkpoint, and checkpoints appear with some frequency on the road north from Tezpur. Forget it, and you turn back. There is no workaround.
