Digboi

Location: 65-km From Dibrugarh, Assam

Popularly Known As: City Of Oil

Significance: The Main Oil Centers In India

Main Attractions: Digboi Golf Course, War Cemetery, and National Oil Park

Digboi boasts of two modern wonders of the world-- a hundred-year-old oil field still producing oil and the world's oldest operating oil refinery. Popularly known as the city of oil, oil was first found over here in 1879, and drilling started off in 1888 and in 1889. Assam Oil Company established the first oil refinery of Asia in Digboi and work in the oil refinery started in 1900.
Still later, being amalgamated with Burma Oil Company, Digboi became the most modern oil refinery. Crude oil is being refined here with 34 varieties of oil byproducts and one of them is Dolls, which are made from wax.
Centering the refinery, this city, founded by the British, is like a painting on a canvas. The place still continues as a tiny island of the colonial culture. The atmosphere is sylvan outside the town, where wild Elephants run amuck. Once following the pressure caused by the wild move of elephants, existence of oil here came to notice. It is not unusual to see tigers & rhinos in the suburb forest.

PRIME ATTRACTIONS

National Oil Park: Digboi oil field is not just an oil field, but also an oil museum and a wildlife sanctuary of unsurpassed beauty. One can stand near the continent's oldest oil well known as the Discovery Well completed in 1889 AD. In the evening one may just come across a herd of elephants grazing lazily at branches of trees or just gazing at one or have a close encounter with a Royal Bengal Tiger, besides some rare species of birds.

War Cemetery: The most dramatic event in Digboi's history took place during the World War II days when the belligerent Japanese got closer and were within three days' marching distance of Digboi. If one knows the history behind the World War and the Japanese invasion, then as one pays obeisance to the war heroes at the cemetery one can well imagine how many young lives were nipped in the bud at battle, how many lives laid down for the country. The horror of war can only be imagined and here in this cemetery one can feel a sense of peace, a sense of worship for lives lost not in vein.

Digboi Golf Course: Digboi has an 18 hole Golf course considered to be the best in the entire upper Assam, where all-important tournaments are held. There are 8 other 9 whole Golf courses with tea estates between Dibrugarh and Doom Dooma too.

Dibru Saikhowa Wildlife Sanctuary: This sanctuary is a safe haven for extremely rare White Winged Wood Duck and many migratory birds. Specialty of Dibru Saikhowa is it's wild horses, called Feral Horses.

Centenary Museum: Among the other landmarks worth seeing in this City of oil is an Oil museum known as Centenary Museum, the only of it's kind in the country?

Centenary Eco Park: Are you among the supporters of Eco tourism, then this Eco park is just the place for you to be visited, presenting a glimpse of the rich diversity of flora and fauna that abounds the state of Assam.

Margarita: 14-km east of Digboi, this place that has such a unique name, sounding like a Spanish girl as well as a heady cocktail, but is actually a centre for the tea gardens, plywood factories and coalmines.

Ledo: 6-km North West of Margarita is Ledo, also known as "the land of coal". During 2nd world war Ledo became a very important place. The British general Vinegar Joe Stillwell constructed the Stillwell highway from Ledo to Myitkyina, North East of Myanmar. Stillwell road, which is 430-km long, was built in 1944 and is known as the costliest road in the world of that time but is closed for transport today.

Naharkatia: An oil well has been discovered at Naharkatia, 32-km from Digboi.

Duliajan: Another oil town is Duliajan, 15-km away from Margherita, a small town, amid beautiful nature, is situated on the border of Assam-Arunachal Pradesh at the foothills of Patkoi range, standing like a wall between India and Myanmar (Burma). Flowing past Tirap River, there are tea gardens all around it.

HOW TO GET THERE

Air: The nearest airport Dibrugarh is 65-km from Digboi.

Rail: On Dibrugarh-Ledo broad gauge rail pass regular train leave for Dibrugarh, New Tinsukia, and Digboi.

Road: National Highway-38 runs through Digboi. In between Dibrugarh and Digboi, there is Tinsukia. From Tinsukia, one can visit may visit Dibrugarh (47-km), Digboi (33-km), Teju in Arunachal Pradesh (108-km), and Parasuram Kunda (129-km).

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