Stretching 600km along the Brahmaputra River Valley, with a spur down to the hilly southeast, Assam is the largest and most accessible of the Northeast States. Well known for its national parks abounding in rhinoceroses, elephants, deer and primates (with respectable tiger numbers too), it welcomes visitors with a subtly flavoured cuisine and a hospitable population with a vibrant artistic heritage. The archetypal Assamese landscape is a golden-green panorama of rice fields and manicured tea estates, framed by the blue mountains of Arunachal Pradesh in the north and the highlands of Meghalaya and Nagaland to the south. The birthplace of Indian tea, Assam has more than 3000 sq km of land carpeted in bright-green tea gardens, and visits to these estates are high on many travellers' itineraries.