December 7 – Green Village of Khonoma

On our way out of town we stopped to take a few pictures of Kohima.  The city is on several hills with the houses and buildings covering the hillsides.  The town reminds us very much of Simla, a former British hill station that we visited on our second trip to India.

We had another fairly long, very dusty and very bumpy ride up through the hills and through some beautiful mountain areas.

Our main stop today is the town of Khonoma.  It has been named the first Green village in India.  By “green”, they have implemented several projects to reduce trash, control tourism (you have to hire a local guide to walk through the village), and generally build a sustainable lifestyle.  We saw many small trash cans around the town…something we don’t often find in India.  The children empty the trash cans daily as part of their contribution to the community.  And the community is looking to add solar panels to provide electricity to the village.

We had a very good guide who walked us through the hilltop village and talked about the history of the tribe and village and also the various British actions that happened around and in the village.  There were some battles fought in and around the village between the British and the local tribes.

As a hilltop town we faced many steps…got our work out today.

The entrance gate to the village was at the original village wall.  Originally the gate was wood but they now have a carved stone gate.

The hillsides were covered with yellow flowers that are locally called wild sunflowers (although don’t really look like what we think of as sunflowers).

The village was very similar to the others we have seen in the area.

One of the squares was set up for Christmas.  It had a Santa Claus and a Christmas. 

There are three forts in the town that date back several hundred years although most have been rebuilt in recent years.  They were quite small and simple.

An old shield made of elephant hide.

We visited some women who were doing weaving.  They do weaving when they are not working in the fields.  Many of the tribal fabrics that they weave are sold as tourist souvenirs and they do the weaving to supplement their income.

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Video of weaver
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There was a lot of rice drying on mats in the squares and we also saw a man working with some sort of leaves.  These strips of leaves will be used to weave baskets.

We stopped by a building that was sort of a cultural school.  It had beds for the boys who studied there (a long hard wooden bed with a wood beam along one side to function as a "pillow".  Looked pretty uncomfortable to us.  The school had a "kitchen" that had a lot of implements on display...

as well as corn and millet.

Millet

From the top of the hill we could see down into the valley where the village had many step fields or terrace.  The villages grow both rice and all types of vegetables and grains in the terraces.

And there were views of the hills beyond.

We ran into a massive traffic jam on our way back into Kohima.  (To quote a sign we saw somewhere…”You aren’t stuck in traffic, you are traffic”).  We got to the war cemetery (our next sightseeing site) just as they were closing.  In Tara’s usual style she was able to talk her way in and we had a very quick walk (run) through the cemetery. 

The cemetery is for those who fell during a battle against the Japanese on the site in 1944.  The battle was actually centered around a tennis court and the cemetery has the original tennis court laid out so that you could see it in relation to the battle site. 

We had a light dinner at our hotel and were in bed quite early.  It is sort of cold in the room and we are a bit tired from the constant traveling and sightseeing.