Diwali night and Final Trek days

The Bamboos in that place were cut and our tents were made out of plastic shee

ts and looked like a blue tent. This ca

mpsi

te was supposed to be constructed in a typical Mizo style. Due to rain, YH

AI changed the p

lan. There were tables and benches made out of the fresh cut bamboo trees. The ca

I went in the stream and struggled to find a place to bath. There wasnt ampsite

was located along a

small stream downhill from the village. Even to cross the stream there was a tempo

rary bamboo bridge built by YHAI. The toilets were of remote style constructed of bamboo and wood with a pit down.

place where it wa

s upto my chest feet. Finally I found a small bathtub like place made of rocks and filled with water slightly up the stream and campsite. Again our Sand

eep da mentioned it :-) . When we were having dinner , few of the bamboo benches broke because of our weight. By finishing dinner we had nothing else to do and we started our Diwali celebrations.

Lav Singh and many other friends bought candles from the village. T

hey lit up the small place above our tents with candles. Then people started singing Bhajans. Lav, Nisha started with few Bhajans and everyone joined. Vikram from Pune was singing Bhajan "Radha Shyam Sita Ram" and everyone followed it up. Gautam from Kochi sung very nice songs and he had gifted voice. Without any practise his voice was so pleasant.

Few other guys joined this song

party group and wanted

to show their singing skil

ls. Particularly some people joined to show off. Manjunath from Bangalore was singing a old kannada song which had dialogue which might have disturbed the few birds in the

forest. Sandeep da wasnt getting sleep in the tent and was making funny comments from inside the tent. Bikas joined our group and started singing Rabindranath Tagore songs which was very sweet. How many Indians know Tagore's poems? I didnt know except National Anthem and I felt why dont our school curriculum include such songs along with Keates

, Shakespeare. Later I came to know from my Bengali colleague in my office th

at Bengali mothers use

d to play Tagore songs with Harmonium and the kids hear them from their young age. It was a different diwa

li with candles around and singing

.

Day 4

Next day morning when we were having hot tea, the guy working there fixed all the broken benches in quite short time and we saw a bird hunter crossing our tents.

The next day, Sandip was mentioning his sl

eepless night becau

lking. The snoring uncle woke up and asked them why are you not getting sleep?se

of snoring. He named a person as Snoring uncle. In the middle of the night, when others werent able to get sleep because of his snoring and all were ta

Sandip named him immediately from that time. Morning after our breakfast we packed pooris for lunch and started our trek.

Manasi was trying to grab the cap from me and it tore again in the

mess. She didnt know that it was already torn and didnt worried of tearing the cap again.

The trek path initially was towards the valley down and later climb up to

the last campsite. We reached down the valley an

d we crossed a river. We spent quite lot of time at that place as it had nice flowing water down the valley. There were few locals cooking near the river and spending the time. Sandip got pan from them and was very h

appy. The main river was flowing down the valley and another stream joined from the left side of the river. I went ahead of the joining stream and found a jacuzzi kind of flow which had massage effect.

Later we were required to climb up the valley to reach the campsite. It was about 5 KM uphill and it was steep climb up. Sun joined our party and was giving us a tough time to climb up. There were few streams all along the way and we were trekking on a sm

all trail up along the valley. This was a testing time a

By 1 PM first few set of trekkers reached the top of the hill and hit a village near to Lepung airport. We were taking rest in front of a house and they were very warm. T

he kids in that house were shy and w

e didnt get much pictures.nd found everyone were getting tired and drenched by the hot sun above. We were always walking facing the sun uphill. There was a family with their 18+ old kid and gave their backpacks to one of our guides and were boasting them as trekkers. They didnt had sense of littering and still these kind of people come for yhai treks.

After waiting for quite a long time our guides

asked us to proceed towards the campsite which was few kms away from the village. Slowly we moved down the village towards campsite. We had lunch on our way on the roads. By 3 PM we reached the campsite and it was a proper tent accomodation. The Yhai manager was welcoming there and taking videos of

our trekkers. The camp leader for this last day camp is an Archery coach for India. He and Limba Ram w

ere excellent in Archery an

d now he is coaching Indian archers. They go for talent search and coach the

m. Mizos because of their hunting skills are good in Archery.

We had nice tea after reaching campsite and we went to take bath down the campsite where a small stream flowing from a high place and made a natural shower

. The tents were bigger when compared to earlier places. The people at back had a testing time as some people were slow and fully tired. They reached the campsite just

before sunset at 5. Biplap and few others as per their earlier plan were taking vehicles to reach Aizawl town and end the trek. Since the next day was Sunday they were leaving us on that day night.

The night dinner was a typical mizo food with rice and curries. Eve

ryone smelt some burning smell and the curry were not to their liking. It was the similar kind of dishes which me and Sudanshu tasted on the way back from Ridhil lake on Sumo. Later we came to know about a vegetable which gives the burnt rice odor when cooked. It was looking like tomatoes but their shape was similar to garlic. After dinner Bikas, Sandip and Sudanshu joined me for a short walk. Later Kavitha wanted to walk till the village and come back. I joined her and we were walking with torches switched off on tar road. We found lot of small catterpillar which were emitting light. I thought it was due to fi

re flies and Kavitha explained how those caterpillars emit light. She was explaining about the constellations and stars and it was a nice walk.

When we were returning we could hear our other trekkers enjoying in campsite with music. Moses was playing guitar and singing songs. All other guides were singing songs and everyone enjoying the warm night. When we reached the camp the campleader asked all to get back to sleep as it was getting late.

Day 5

Next day morning after tea I went to the stream to take bath. It was cold and nice. Everyone were hungry because of the earlier night dinner. Sandip was explaining in

a funny way how we were taking food the day before. Everyone smelt something burnt and were smelling their plates. He was also explaining why there were few birds in Mizo because "People Sab Khaa liya". We were taking ph

We reached the point of interest on the way, the Hanging bridge. It was a hanging bridge for people and it was shaking. It was strong and it was in the valley connecting two hills. There was a river flowing with high current which made this bridge useful. We were taking lot of pictures before we left that bridge. We were supposed to reach the main road which connected airport to city. There were cabs waiting for us when we reached the road. The trek ended there.otos with the archery guide and the guides. Zira took me and Lav sing to get few pieces of bamboos as a gift to remember him. His full name was ... Zira which meant a person who learnt the meaning of life. We were the last to leave the campsite and it was a nice walk down the hill. We reached a village on the way and waited there to group up.

On the way back to youth hostel we were discussing about the Tajmahal which we were able to see from the road. We reached the hostel around 2 PM and everyone were hungry. We assembled in the main hall and were given certificates. After that I had a bath before having lunch. The lunch was almost over and they cooked us special dal after everything got over.

After lunch the cap story started again. First our trek leader came to me and asked in a high voice that I was having Mansi's cap. I said it is illogical that the cap is hers and declined. He was mentioning Mansi as his sister. Within a trek she had made 2 brothers. After 10 minutes there were 3 more people who were in the group came and they literally insane. They were asking not to think logic and the cap is hers. All were mentioning Mansi as sister. I got frustrated of these constant troubles with the newly born brothers from sky and decided to give back the cap. I gave the cap to Kavitha as I hated all those guys and girls.

Within another few minutes, those two girls Mansi and her friend came to my hostel room and enquiring about the cap. Very disgusting girls and the newly sky jumped brothers of her. There was the final batch to depart the next day and there were lot of elders. We shoot some good pictures of sunset after tea. We thanked all the guides of our trek. After finishing tea in the evening we wanted to kill time till dinner. Sudanshu, Bikas, Sandip went out to check out the cemetry near our hostel.

We went to the church and the prayer was on. Everyone sighed us and we tried to get some peace there. The church was small and there were lot of kids and women in the prayer. Very few men in the prayer hall like in other places in Mizoram. The prayer songs were sung along with the drum and it was the first time for me to see a church with drums. Sandip told that it is the part of the music in Tibetian churches. All were singing chorus and my thoughts went to search of analysing these prayers. I couldnt remember of a cinema house or parks in Aizawl. People spend most of the time with family and in churches. They were looked satisfied of their life and were happy. We got information that the cemetry would be opened every day from morning 9AM.

After returning from Church all our group were the first ones to start dinner. After finishing dinner we all (no brothers/sisters) went to walk in the roads. We were discussing about the funny moments in the trek. We got back to sleep after finalizing the next day cab arrangement to airport. Sudanshu's flight was at 8:30 AM and he left early around 6:30 AM with few others.

Sandip, Bikas , Praichi, her friend and me went to see the Cemetry after our breakfast. The cemetry is a memorial for the mizo who fought and died during the conflict with India till 1983 India Mizo agreement. It was very peaceful and maintained well. We found board informing that Cemetry closed for visitors on Sunday. In Mizo Sunday is strictly for prayers and family and nothing other works.

We got cab after returning from cemetry and left to airport. We had food and good omlette inside the airport campus before we boarded back to Kolkatta. Inside the airport in the waiting hall, some Korean channel was going on in TV.

I am finishing this treklog with lot of thanks to all my friends in the trek. It was eye opener for me in understanding north east and it brought internal peace in me. Am still feeling the peace and calmness. I would finally thank my friends Priyanka, Sreelaja, Cavitha and mizohican for their constant motivation in completing this mizo blog. The world is small and hopeful to visit Mizo again. Photos courtesy : Cavitha, Senthil Subramaniam