In the month of September 2017, we planned our trip to Nagaland. It was Durga Puja vacations and that is the only time during the year when we can spare some time out of work and take a break. So, in order to utilize our time effectively, we booked our Guwahati – Jorhat Jan Shatabdi Express. The Train leaves Guwahati station at 06:00 hrs and arrives Dimapur, Nagaland at 10:00 am. It’s a convenient time as we get the whole day to ourselves. The train is an air-conditioned chaired car and the journey was very comfortable. Our driver was waiting for us at the Dimapur train station and picked us from there and we headed to Khonoma Village. We booked a Toyota Innova for the trip and we were lucky to get the top model and our driver was also quite cheerful.

At the Nagaland Gate

Since it was September end, we faced some bits of monsoon rains on the way to Khonoma. After we crossed Dimapur, we were hungry and stopped at a local restaurant for lunch. It was not a fancy place but one can’t expect much in the region. So, we quickly had our lunch and moved on with the journey. On the way, we stopped at the Nagaland Gate. It was a huge gate saying Welcome to Nagaland. We took some photos of our memory. Finally, after about 3-4 hours we arrived at Khonoma village where we stayed at the only guest house in the village. The village is surrounded by hills and it itself is located at a high altitude making it look beautiful. There was no noise pollution like the city life we come from, utter silence. No television, no movements of people. People sleep by dark and wake up by sunrise. No internet, no link to the outside world except for the telephone. We had early dinner and slept early.

Enjoying a cuppa at Khonoma

We woke up early along with the rising sun which shone in our room through the window which overlooked the mountains. We can see the clouds from our window. I came out to see everyone was awake, the guest house people along with other people in the village at about 5ish which for me was very early to wake up. So I asked if we can get some tea and they readily said yes of course. We enjoyed some tea in our balcony at the Khonoma guesthouse.

After some breakfast, our driver also arrived early. Apparently, according to locals, everyone wakes up early and goes to bed early unlike city dwellers. So we headed for some sightseeing. Some of
Sightseeing Spot at Dzuleki
the roads were horrible but our skilled driver manoeuvred through it and we managed to see beautiful places which we never saw earlier. My wife was busy taking photos. And we were very lucky to get beautiful clear weather for some good photographs. Then we visited Dzuleki, another beautiful location on the way. A unique thing we saw was a small bird comes in front of our car keeps flying ahead of us like a tour guide and when the car reaches too closes it flies off. It happened several times. Never seen this kind of trait in a bird before. Maybe this is a local bird found only in this region.

On the way to Kohima

We had lunch at a local place and we shifted to another hotel at Kohima. Since it was a holiday season, it was not an easy thing to do. All the hotels across the country are usually sold out during puja season. But being a tour operator helps. I managed to get some help from my office (My Voyage) back in Guwahati while I was doing the sightseeing and when we returned I saw a text message that hotel booking was confirmed. I had a sigh of relief. On the way back to Kohima, we stopped a few places to take photographs again as we couldn’t do in on while coming due to the rains. Checked-in at the hotel at around 15:00 and realised all markets close by 15:30 – 16:00 hrs and we don’t have much to do. It was absolutely a holiday where we have nothing else to think about. Made few calls to home, spoke briefly and spent time watching T.V and went to bed early. Tomorrow is going to be the last day at Nagaland I wondered.

Kisama Village – Hornbill Festival

Today we went to see the Kohima War Cemetery, which is one of the popular sightseeing places in Kohima. It is big and has a lot of history from World War – II. It is fascinating to see how bravely soldiers fought against their enemies and some of them were very young when they died fighting for their pride. Then we visited the Horn Bill Festival site known as the Kisama village. We clicked some photos there and stored our memories. It is one of the most popular festivals in North East India and many people around the world visits during this festival for the month of December. Then we moved on to Dimapur where we had food at the local KFC and spent some time at the Hong Kong Market. Obviously, wife bought some stuff what else do you expect from wives. Anyways, the trip is coming to an end. We departed to the train station with happy memories of our short but memorable trip to Nagaland.