My Trip to Hornbill Festival, Nagaland

I love traveling and for me it had always been more about where I'm going than who I'm traveling with until i came across Ultimate Frontier Outlands. Traveling to a place I have never been to before is exciting. I go with my instinct, have faith and trust the people I encounter along the way. However traveling with UFO Adventure Travel to a place like Nagaland was a very enriching experience for me as i realized that traveling with a well-seasoned team that goes out of its way to make your trip adventurous and fun is sometimes way better than traveling alone and wasting your time getting lost and figuring things out on your own if you have only limited days for a holiday. So i signed up for the Hornbill Festival Experience in Nagaland!

I traveled with UFO to Nagaland in the year 2017, for the Hornbill festival. I flew from Delhi to Dimapur and had a car waiting for me at the airport to take me to Kohima where I was to stay at the UFO campsite for the next 5 days, which was at a walking distance from the Hornbill Festival. We reached around sunset, left our bags in our tents and walked to the Kisama Heritage village. It was cold in the month of December so we made sure we packed our warm jackets, socks and personal gear before we left. The carnival was fun as we tried some Naga delicacies, walked up and down Kisama Heritage village, around 20 kms from Kohima, where the Hornbill Festival is held. We enjoyed our first glimpse of the festival visiting the different 'morungs' ogf each tribe.

The next day we visited the festival intrigued by the color and sounds of the different tribes of Nagaland. The state is inhabited by 16 tribes — Angami, Ao, Chakhesang, Chang, Kachari, Khiamniungan, Konyak, Kuki, Lotha, Phom, Pochury, Rengma, Sangtam, Sumi, Yimchunger and Zeme-Liangmai (Zeliang). Each tribe is unique in character with its own distinct customs, language and dress. They have their own distinct customs, language and dress. Each tribe represents its own traditions, daily life routine with dance and oral traditions. Just goes to show how unique and diverse North East India is. It is a fascinating cultural experience!! In the night we went for the street carnival to Kohima. There were stalls selling all things Naga from food to woolen caps and clothes. I remember buying a book with short stories about the Naga tribes from one of the book stalls. It was a great evening. We came back and had dinner by the bonfire at the camp site. The food was made with local spices and was amazingly good!

The next day we woke up early and started for our trek to Dzukou Valley. We drove to Vishwema village to the trekking point. I was trekking after a long time and the first hour looked steep but was easy in hindsight. We were advised to walk slowly and keep ourselves hydrated. We reached Dzukou point in an hour and a half where we got a beautiful view of the Kohima Valley. From there we walked through bamboo clad rolling hills of Dzukou Valley. It was stunning and I had never seen a landscape like this!! We reached our guesthouse by the afternoon and had a wonderful view of Dzukou Valley below. We pitched our tents for the night and had some Maggie before going on a small walk to take pictures of one of the most beautiful sunsets that I have ever seen. We came back and I had a splitting headache except the team of UFO was very helpful. They made me rest and kept me hydrated with warm water and soup. They had also carried an extra sleeping bag and got me blankets so i could be comfortable at night.