Nagaland — Dec 2021

And one more trip to the beautiful exotic North East. After our trip to Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh in February, it was a case of “lahu mooh lag gaya”. Sometime in October, there were murmurs about planning one more trip — anywhere — and we were lucky to meet Nishikant Das @ Anvayins, who is a die-hard lover of the North East. We asked him to plan a 10-day itinerary around the Hornbill Festival in Nagaland, and as per him, the right-sized group would be 8. Unlike the February trip, we were fairly confident of pulling in a group of eight people (should I name us the “Ëffervescent Eight”?) — we asked Nishi to go ahead with the bookings and started putting the group together — Jm Trivedi (JM) (was very anxious about the trip, don’t know if it was because he was not sure of the region, or because he knew some of us too well!), Ganapati Rathinam (GR), Hemant Ayyappan, Kumar GV (GV), Nitin Jain, Sandeep Daga and me — there was an eighth person who had to cancel because of some conflicting schedules, and was replaced by Abhijit Desai (the only non-finance guy in the group, though with an IITB and IIMB background). It would be an interesting exercise to draw a Venn diagram to see where all we intersect as a group (IIMB, IITB, Actis, ICICI Venture, Private Equity, Kandivali, and maybe something more which I am missing!)

Nishi had the itinerary set out with various elements thrown in — culture, nature, meeting a real-world hero, luxury, festival, trek, etc… He also had Mrinmoy Kalita accompany us throughout the trip so that we would not need to bother about anything on the way or during the trip. We had Amen Lemtür, who was the local Anvayins representative in Kohima to guide us through Nagaland, and Kevin who accompanied us to the Hornbill Festival and Dzukou Valley. We also had Ali, our TT driver, who must have been an F1 racer in some other avatar.

We flew to Dibrugarh via Delhi (7 of us were flying out from Mumbai) and met GV at Dibrugarh, and got into our Tempo Traveller to head to Majuli — the largest inhabited riverine island (a population of 200,000!!!). It was a longish ride and we reached our hotel past darkness hitting us (it gets dark in NE by 5ish). The rooms were spacious and gave a rustic feeling.

Majuli

The next day was our excursion in Majuli. Majuli has a large Vaishnavite culture and has some 65 “satras” (can be roughly translated to monasteries) where people across age groups live a celibate life, with an open exit policy to go and lead a family life if they want to at any point of time. We had our own “Raju Guide” leading us to 3 satras — one of them had mastered the art of making exquisite and intricate bamboo fans, the other had a group of monks performing a trance-inducing dance for us and the third satra had Dr. Hemchandra Goswami who makes absolutely amazing masks. We headed to another homestay in Majuli for authentic local cuisine. and then went to see a settlement where they make pots (without using any wheels). We also saw how the Brahmaputra’s force is eroding the banks. and then headed to see a lovely sunset on the river banks. Some of us were lucky to see a river dolphin while waiting for the sunset. In the evening, at the hotel, we had a bonfire and a (hoarse) singing session followed by dinner. It was interesting to hear Hemant sing for the first time (he was not part of the hoarse category — it was an exclusive club of I, me, and myself).

The next morning we left for Jorhat.

Molai Forest

We had to take a RoRo ferry to Jorhat. It was packed to the brim, and after reaching the other side of the river, we had an hour’s ride to visit the Molai forest (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molai_forest). This is a man-made forest, about 550 acres in size, the fruits of the effort of a single man, Mr. Jadav Payang (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jadav_Payeng), who was awarded the Padma Shri in 2015. We visited the forest (did not go too deep as there is wildlife living in the forest), and then came back and spent about 45 minutes with Mr. Payang himself. It was a real privilege to meet this hero, who was very down to earth and had an unassuming personality.

Jorhat

We then proceeded to our luxurious stay at a colonial bungalow amidst the tea estates of Jorhat. We were the only occupants in the property and it was sheer opulence. GR and I went for a walk the next day morning, with tea estates on both sides of the trail. Then we went to a tea factory owned by the same estate to see how tea is made from the tea leaves, had a tea tasting session, and then proceeded to another resort of theirs — Kaziranga Golf Resort. GV was thrilled as he got a chance to demonstrate his skills in driving the golf ball, and for some of us, it was the chance to display our ineptness in doing the same. Hemant also tried his hand at fishing and when he could not net any, he asked the guys to get one fish from the kitchen, but to his bad luck, the kitchen staff has no whole fish in their inventory

. We had nice lunch over there and then went back to our resort in the afternoon. This is a nice place for someone who may want to learn golf, as per our resident expert GV! We had to proceed to Kohima the next day from Jorhat.

Kohima

It was a longish ride to Kohima. We were lucky to spot an old lady selling pineapples by the roadside, and they were juicily juicy. We gobbled some 5 or 6 pineapples between the 8 of us. We reached our hotel before it was dark and then after checking in, went for a walk and saw the setting up of one of the sites of the night carnival. There were about 10 Harley-Davidsons in the parking area of the hotel and the next day morning, we found out that the riders hailed from Siliguri. The bikes were intimidating and when I tried to seat on one of them to get a photograph clicked, I was politely asked by the owner not to do so as the bikes are very sensitive! The owner runs a youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/TheHighwayRider) and it was more than a fully loaded bike, with a bunch of cameras on the bike and the helmet for live vlogging, a top of the line speaker, and whatnot. I was lucky to get a photo standing next to the bike

. We had planned to go to Dzukou Valley after a couple of days in Kohima but one of us found out that the weather forecast showed rain on the day we were supposed to travel, so we asked Amen to shuffle the itinerary and she immediately agreed to do so. On the second day in Kohima, we went to the Hornbill Festival (the highlight of the trip) and it was a delight to see the various participants and tribes walking into the festival in their traditional attire and carrying their trademark weapons on them. Before their performances started in a center court, we visited Morungs (a traditional youth dormitory) of various tribes and had fun getting ourselves photographed. We sampled the famous local rice beer (in bamboo mugs, an interesting collectible item) at a couple of morungs before securing our place at the center court to see the performances. The performances of the tribes were electrifying to say the least. They demonstrated various scenes like the sowing of the fields, festive dances, war scenarios (with some of the tribesmen fully charged up!). Post the performances, we went for a bit of shopping, more rice beer, and then lunch. There was a second session of performances post-lunch, and we saw part of it and then again went for some rice beer, and then visited their handicraft stalls. Some of us got ourselves clicked in the traditional Naga attire and passed time before it was time for the evening rock show. I don’t understand English music or rock bands etc. but the atmosphere was completely charged up. The stage was lit with psychedelic lights and once the band was on stage, the crowd went crazy (including us — I don’t think any of us, barring Abhijit, understood what was playing, but we danced to the music, with the rice beer acting as a catalyst:) ). We were quite tired by the time we reached our hotel, and the next day was the trek to Dzukou Valley.

Dzukou Valley

As Nishi had already told us before our trip, we were reasonably prepared for the trek to the Dzukou Valley. It was a moderate (difficult for some of us) trek for almost an hour and a half, and then we had to walk for about a couple of hours on the mountain ridges to reach our campsite. We made a few “transitory” friends along the trek, and at one point, got a backhanded compliment for a techie girl who said, “S**t, these guys made it!”

The views of the valley were incredible and after reaching the campsite, we layered up before it got dark and cold. There were quite a few youngsters at the campsite — our group stood out like a sore thumb, and post darkness and our dinner, we again got into the singing mode and some of the guys also filmed us and have uploaded the video on YT! Nishi had told us that the sky is lit up with a zillion stars at night, but to our bad luck, the sky was overcast so we could not witness any stars (though we had great dark starlit nights in Majuli and Jorhat). The next morning, six of us (barring Hemant and GV) went on a trek down the valley and again saw beautiful sights and sky and had nice pictures taken. I made an unsuccessful attempt to do a headstand but was able to get a picture that looks impressive!! We came back to our basecamp after 2 ½ hours of starting and started our trek back after having some noodles. The walk on the ridges again took about 2 hours, and then the climb down started, JM, Nitin, and I were the last ones in the group and got down to our where our vehicle was about 30 minutes after the early finishers. JM got loads of compliments on the way down (and though Nitin and I are also on the wrong side of 50, no one paid even the least attention to us!!). By the time we reached our hotel, we got to know about the tragic event in Mon village of Nagaland. We had decided to reconvene in the evening but some of us were so tired from the trek, that they went off to sleep by 6 pm and missed their dinner. Hemant and Nitin thought that they will take a short nap for an hour or so, and only woke up hungry at around midnight to realize that it was too late for dinner!

Late evening we got a message from Amen that there was a lockdown announced in the whole of Nagaland till noon. Some other guests of Nishi left for their destinations around 3 or 4 am to avoid any disturbance. Interestingly, though there was a lockdown and there were zero movements visible on the roads, the school kids were happily going to the school. We were to visit Hornbill Festival again that day but got to know that the festival was being called off. The town opened up partially post noon, and we could then visit the war cemetery. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Tennis_Court). We had nice lunch at another hotel before heading back to our hotel.

Khonoma

The next day, we were to visit Khonoma, also known as the green village. It was a bumpy ride and a bit of a disappointment as it was raining and we could not see any of the beautiful views from the village that it is famous for. We had a wonderful guide in Vibhu who showed us around the village. Some of us shopped for some local handmade fabric (shawls, skirts, stoles). We also met a group of youngsters who were solo traveling and had met others at some homestay. One of them had driven down to Nagaland from Bangalore over 3 months! Quite inspiring for me to attempt solo travel, though don’t know how to do it!! We then went to a local homestay where Amen had organized authentic local cuisine for us. It was a great place amidst the wilderness and the owner of the place was a hunter himself and knew of the flora and fauna around the place. We met two IITians from Mumbai who had come there for bird watching and they were swearing by the hospitality of the owner. Post our lunch, we headed for Dimapur.

Dimapur

Amen had arranged for our stay at the Longchen Homestay, and it turned out to be a great property. Amen and Kevin left for Kohima after reaching us safely at Dimapur. The rooms at the homestay were tastefully decorated with local relics and the hospitality was also amazing. Some of us felt that this place deserves at least a couple of days to relish the place itself as well as the hospitality. The next day we left for our respective destinations.

All in all, it was a wonderful trip. North East India is a region which all of us must visit once and one would need at least 3 months cumulative to enjoy a sample of all the states. I visited Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, and Nagaland in 2021, and Manipur, Tripura, and Mizoram are on the to-do list, which again we will lean on Nishi to plan a trip to these regions for us.

Hopefully, some or all of us from this “Effervescent Eight” bunch will soon have another vacation planned soon!

FB Post: https://tinyurl.com/3r8rrtdr