We headed with A to Mizoram, since he was going for a work trip. Mizoram is off the beaten path to say the least. It's a short 90 minute flight from Calcutta over Bangladesh. Although its part of India, it's bordered by Bangladesh to the west and Burma to the east. The people there originated from several different Mizo tribes. Mizo means hill person or highlander. The origin of the Mizos is unknown, although people speculate they are from China. Some Mizos think they are from one of the lost tribes of Israel.
When we flew into the airport, A described it as flying to Jurassic Park. The area is very hilly and jungle like. Based on our descent, I couldn't believe there was an area flat enough to land. It turns out it took about 10 years to flatten one of the hills enough to make a small airport. When you land, you walk past a nice flower garden into the terminal.
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| Joel and Matt at the Aizawl airport |
After landing, we took a jeep to our hotel. The car ride there was about an hour to the city of Aizawl through really beautiful terrain. The area is all mountains (there are no flat areas I saw) and full of waterfalls.
Due to the large number of British missionaries, almost all Mizos are Christian. Most being Presbyterian. Women and men are equal there, and you'll often see women driving cars and motorcycles which I never saw in "mainland" India. People do not stop to harass you or try to sell you things. The air is very clean and actually blue, unlike the rest of India.
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| Cross on a goods truck in Aizawl. |
We were staying at the only three star hotel in the state of Mizoram. That means that every other hotel was 2 stars or lower. Our hotel was new, but I wouldn't call it nice really. Our room was quite spacious and nice, but the bathroom was another story. It was sort of smelly and the shower was in the middle of it. Meaning, if you took a shower, there was water everywhere. And the toilet was past the shower. The hotel staff was well meaning, but really incompetent.
The town of Aizawl (eye-zole) is completely vertical. We took a walk, but it was really challenging given the narrow streets and traffic. People were very startled by the white people.
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| View of Aizawl from our hotel. |
The next day we were fortunate enough to have a great local guide. Mizoram has almost zero tourists and the government does a terrible job promoting tourism. One of the challenges of traveling around the state is that it's so hilly. It takes a long time to really get anywhere, and the major sites are a days drive from the airport. Our hotel was also completely unprepared to recommend anything to do. We asked them if there were hikes we could do and they just said there was nowhere we could do that. Fortunately our guide drove us to Reiek, which is a mountain with a 360 degree view of the area. The drive from Aizawl to Reiek is about 2-3 hours (even though they are only 7.5 miles apart), but its a very beautiful drive.
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| Tlawng River |
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| Tlawng River |
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| This hotel is made of bamboo |
We drove up the hill to Reiek. The road wasn't great, so we hiked up the rest of the way to the summit.
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| View from Reiek |
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| Part of the trail at Reiek |
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| Buildings in the distance |
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| The jeep we took from Aizawl to Reiek |
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| A rock feature on the hike |
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| Matt and I under the rock |
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| Reiek trail |
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| Matt on the trail |
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| Me on the trail |
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| View from the top. No guardrails here... |
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| Matt and Joel at the top |
After our hike, we stopped by a staged Mizo village. The village was broken up into the chiefs house, the bachelor house, and the married villagers' houses. All the houses are made out of bamboo and sit on stilts.
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| Bachelor hut |
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| Traditional woven baskets |
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| House on stilts |
After that we had lunch at the nearby tourist lodge. You can stay at the lodge here very cheaply. This is probably a better option than staying at the terrible 3 star hotel in Aizawl.
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| Lunch room at the tourist lodge |
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| Traditional Mizo vegetables, including bitter gourd |
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| Traditional Mizo lunch - chicken with rice cooked in broth |
After the tourist lodge, we visited a flower plantation. On the way we saw banana trees, a papaya farm, and a pineapple farm.
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| They were weighing this tree down at the flower farm to get it to grow this way |
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| Flower buds |
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| Flowers |
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| One of the many waterfalls on the side of the road |
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| View from the car on the drive back to Aizawl |
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| Obligatory work photo - a substation in Aizawl with what looks like a bamboo control room |
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| One of the many beautiful trees on the road |
