Dibrugarh
Apart from visiting a tea estate, Dibrigarh does not have much to offer a tourist keen on sightseeing. However, Dibrugarh is a good base from which to visit Nam Phake Village and Digboi oil town.Nam Phake Village
A living heritage, Nam Phake village is home to the last 2,000 Nam Phake people. Originally from China, they migrated to Thailand and Burma a few centuries ago, but finally settled down in the Dibrugarh district.Situated on the banks of Dihing river, the village is clean and picturesque. The Nam Phake people have retained their cultural identity even while welcoming outsiders and travellers. The quaint stilt bamboo houses are clean and still use many age old traditions. The main occupation is agriculture; betel nut, took palms and paddy.
The pride of the Nam Phake village is the Buddhist temple and monastery which regularly sees overseas visitors. Several politicians and diplomats from Thailand, including the Princess have visited it. The monastery has an incredible number of old manuscripts, with some dating back a few centuries or so!
Digboi
Digboi is a famous oil-town, and is Asia's oldest and continuously producing oilfield. Located at the extreme north-eastern corner of India, at the spot of Asia's very first oil well, is now a quaint oil museum. This has life-size statues frozen in the many processes of oil production, with men bent over machines, and even a scene of an early car being filled at a petrol pump, as the European owners look on!Owing to the strong presence of British oil personnel in the history of Digboi, many distinctly styled English bungalows still remain. A drive through this settlement is enough to get lost in a pleasant time-warp, and catch a glimpse of life must have been like.
You can also visit the Digboi War Cemetery, that has 200 graves of different Allied Forces personnel from UK, India, West Africa, Burma, Belgium, USA and Italy who sacrificed their lives during the 1939-1945 War.
