Adventures in Manipur and Nagaland, North East India

After border crossing at Tamu-Moreh border crossing, I spent one night in Moreh, which is in my opinion very normal border town. Busy, not too clean having a bit shady vibes, but still somehow, I liked it. Originally, I planned to enter India slowly and give myself a day off to get used the new culture, but I woke up early in the morning, so I packed my bicycle, had morning chai on the street and hit the A1 national road. Little I knew that there was some killer hills waiting for me. 

 

The hills started straight from Moreh and fast I figured out that my lower gears did not function. For a moment I continued and thought that maybe I don't need the lowest ones, if the climbings are short and inclinations not that bad. After 15 minutes, I gave up and decided to learn how to fix the gears myself. I had just jumped off from my bike and first kids arrived to watch what the white woman is trying to do. After one hour, I managed to get the gears to work and I waved good byes to the crowed of 30 people. I got my first flashback of India; from now on I will not be alone anymore, there will be always somebody watching.

The inclination of the killer hills between Moreh and Imphal killed my already tired legs. I tried to think these hills are just foothills of Himalaya, and got some extra energy, which always lasted for 100 meters. Even if the climbing was tough for me, it was worth for every drop of sweat. I run out of water after 37km of climbing and stopped in a small village to refill my bottles. The locals pointed out an army camp just above the village on the hilltop, so I cycled there to ask for water. I think I looked quite pink and exhausted, since the person in charge of the camp asked me if I wanted to have lunch with him. It's not hard to quess what was my answer; of course I am always ready to eat. I ended up staying at the army camp overnight. I got my own house, which was furnitured for me by 7 men. Which color of curtains do you want?

Since I didn't know anything about the north east India or state of Manipur before I entered there, i learned a lot about the problems in the area from the army commander ( and later from every villager who I stopped talking to). In general Manipur is having heavy military presence, which can be seen in continuous checkpoints, army camps (naturally the walls of the camps were painted with Indian propaganda- Indian army is a friend of the hill-people) and patrols roaming around the area. I think I have never seen so many guns in my life ( the locals were also carrying guns for hunting). In Manipur, there is over 33 tribal groups with different interests; some of them wanting independence from India, some smuggling guns and drugs etc. The area is mountainous, bordering area with Myanmar and very off the grid, remote without proper infrastructure, running water or electricity.

After spending one night at the army camp and crossed number of checkpoints, I reached Imphal, busy capital of Manipur, where I met Danish cyclist Nikolai. I was lucky with my timing of arrival because the day before the city was closed due to some bombings or risk of bombings. With Nikolai I shared the mountainous road from Imphal to Dimapur.  I was pretty proud of myself after cycling 120km on the mountains (40km of downhill included) in one day. The roads in Nagaland were pumpy, sometimes I tought there was more potholes than actual road. Every second villages seemed to be Nepali village, women carrying wood on the basket, selling memos as chowmain.

Nagaland is state of the Naga people and the Naga people of Manipur are campaigning for independence, or boundary alterations. Manipur state is run by a different distinct tribe than the Nagas which has resulted in the Naga areas of Manipur being left drastically underfunded by corrupt officials. This is the main reason for the violence between the tribals. As the army commander said, the people in the villages are just believing into different things than what Indian government beliefs, both of the opinions are equally good. People have strong need to believe into something, otherwise they are lost.

I was very scared to returns to India by myself with bicycle. I was mostly scared of men and traffic. Once again, I had to face my own beliefs and ideas that I had created in my own mind, and realize that it faraway from the reality. Even if the states of Manipur and Nagaland are heavily armed in sides of Indian army and militants, I never felt unsafe there. In both sides people were saying that nothing bad will happen to me, they were just so happy to see a tourist!  In general, the woman are having higher position in the society than in mainland of India. I found it easy to talk to the women and I never felt that men were staring at me too long. I was not really sure whether I had even entered to India yet, since the local people said that India starts only after Assam, this area is North East. The local people were complaining, that if they travel to Delhi, thy are not recognized as Indians, but more like foreigners. Yet they were themself very proud to have different ethnic background than Indians.

Yet, the traffic is quite crazy in north east of India. Noisy, polluted, and all sorts of moving objects are coming from all the possible directions any time all the time. The noise is the one that drives me crazy the most. Sometimes, I find myself loosing my temper and starting to ring my own bicycle bell when everybody else have pushed their horns on constantly over minute. How much my little bell makes noise in Finland, but in India I cannot even hear it. I have been considering to start cycling with earplugs in the cities and get proper horn for lady princess. Anyways, I believe the traffic looks worse than it actually is, once being inside of it. The drivers are so used to have everything on the road, so they do respect the biker, at least little bit, or at least sometimes. I got a big realization once I was just about to loose my mind in the traffic; no matter what happens around me and how crazy it gets, the peace is only found within myself. But still once entering to the cities I just hope all the horns and noises would quiet down for little moment.

My driving space has slowed down a lot after I almost crashed into a track on 40km serpentine downhill. The driver was drunk and overtook my line on the curve and because of the mountainside I couldn't see the truck coming. I barely manage to turn my bike away and the car, that was just one meter behind me crashed with the truck.

Myanmar: Sister time vol. 2

What happened to lottamobiili after Istanbul? I went home in order to organize myself, apply Visa for Pakistan ( which i was denied), celebrated Christmas with my family and bought tickets to Bangkok, Thailand. My plans changed a bit because of the cold Central Asian winter that I wanted to avoid. Currently, my plan is to cycle through Thailand and Myanmar and from there  cross the border to India. Where I will end up after India will be big surprise, also for myself.

 

After Christmas holidays, i flew to Thailand and now I am heading towards Nagaland in India. My sister joined me for the ride through Myanmar. We got visas for Myanmar from Bangkok and crossed the border in Mae Sot. The border crossing was one of a kind, the clean, rather quiet and organized Thailand changed to more noisy, more smiling, more intense Myanmar. Rarely there is such a big difference on border crossings than we felt in Mae Sot. In our opinion, the change was only for better. Myanmar has opened for tourism only few years ago, so we were looking forward to get off from the tourist crowds in Thailand. Myanmar has been closed for foreign encounters nearly half a decade. Therefore people are extremely friendly and helpful. It is absolutely the people who make the country one of my favorite country to cycle.

From the border of Thailand we climbed some beautiful mountains and headed towards Yangon through Hpa An. We tried to sleep in the monasteries, but without success. Therefore, we ended up sleeping in local people's homes, wild camping and some nights we spent in the guest houses. On our first night we had beautiful experience at Burmese home with two sisters (!), where we were so well taken care off and the whole village came literally to watch us. We got surprised, that the family wanted to host us since we had heard that it is illegal for foreigners to stay with the Burmese families. Well, for us the the adventure through Myanmar could not start any better.

The road to Yangon was in rather good condition and the landscape changed from forested mountains, river valleys to agricultural fields. Neither of us have felt more welcomed to a country as we felt in Myanmar. While cycling, people invited us for coffee, everybody was waving at us and shouting hello! Burmese people are absolutely one of the most friendly people. I had a flat tire after we left from Hpa An towards Yangon and I had 10 men wanting to help me out. The result was twisted inner tube, smiles and laughs.

Yangon, as a former capital of Myanmar, is one of my favorite cities in Asia, even though the food poisoning put us down for several days. I applied the permit to cross the border into India in Tamu-Moreh border crossing from travel agency called Exotic Myanmar. While we were in Yangon it was unsure, whether it will be possible to cross the border at all, since the border was closed due to earthquake and slow official paperwork on Indians side. After getting official paper from Indian Embassy, which allowed me to cross the border, I was able to apply the permit from the travel agency. I did spent some time stressing myself out about the problematic border crossing, but as usual things end up just fine.

After Yangon we decided to take a bus to north, since we missed three cycling days while being sick in Yangon. The north was much cooler and hillier and we were happy for the change. When cycling down from Kalav to Bagan we enjoyed over 40km downhill. The serpentine road which was not on the best condition made us to drive slowly and once again the children were everywhere waving and greeting us. Again, we were just absolutely happy to be in Myanmar. So many smiling faces made us smile even more than we normally do. While being in Finland, I was asked why am I smiling, should have asked back why are you not smiling, are things really that bad in Finland? In Myanmar, country of smiling people, my happiness was never questioned.

We spend 4 days cycling from Kalav to Bagan and met a couple from Germany on bikes. We made adventurous routes together and pushed our bikes on the railways, were bathing next to the roads ( normal in most of south East Asian countries) found some beautiful camping spots in the canyon where small river was running. How beautiful time!

From Bagan started our last stretch together to City called Monywa. How sad it can be to say good byes to such an amazing little sister? I was not sure, if I could continue alone and not have somebody to share the situations. How much easier it is to face new this together than alone? Who would laugh with me from the morning to evening? Even if our parting happened over one week ago, how I miss my own sorkkamuumi!

After Lauriina left, the bicycle touring suddenly changed to bicycle exploring- or adventuring. I must have missed my sister that much that I lost my way while cycling from Moniwa to Kalewa. I had an idea of just making small detour into the jungle, and there I was hoping that the road would take me back into human settlements as soon as possible. The road condition was not that good and the inclination of the mountains made the road  toughest road I have been cycling so far.

The nights I spend in the jungle reminded me how much noise the jungle can make after it gets dark. I thought that in that national park there would not be any big mammals such as tigers and elephants. Later, I heard I was wrong. Well, I slept with earplugs deep in my ears, so I would not hear all the noises. The only animal I saw was barking deer, how loud they can be!

How I ended up into Village called Mingin is still surprise for myself. The roads on the mountains were only loose sand, and I was not able to cycle them up or down. For the first time I was swearing out loud and hoping that there would be traffic to save me from the situation I had put myself into. There was no traffic in a whole day. While I was pushing my bike up, I managed to go only 2km in an hour. As usually, everything turns out well, I managed to get out from the mountains alive with new great memory of mini-adventure. The guest house I slept did not have a bath, so I joined the local people washing themselves and everything else on the river. In middle of my bath I looked over my shoulder and saw 15 people behind me, making sure I know how to clean myself. When did shower become social event? The next day, I took boat to Kalewa which was well worth it. How nice it was to sit down and do nothing else than smile for beautiful old villager women and watch the view of small river villages passing by one by one.

From Kalewa I took the India-Myanmar friendship road. How beautiful the first stretch was, following the river in between green hills, with a proper road! My last night in Myanmar, I spend with a family from Chin state. The girl, who took me in was a teacher of the local school. Her working days sounded long into my ears: from 8am to 11.30am and from 1pm to 5pm and then again evening school from 7pm to 8.30pm. After spending night with the family,  I was sad to get closer to Indian border.

I found Myanmar as a very good country for cycle touring. The roads in between tourist places are in rather good condition, but it is easy to choose rods less traveled. I felt very safe in there, I managed to do wild camping (even if it is not really allowed), had pillow fight with girl of my age, got to drink raw eggs for breakfast, challenged myself with hard roads and the most surprising thing is that my bike, Lady Princess made it, with only two punctures and gear problem, through the tough roads of Myanmar!

And here's a song for this time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NucJk8TxyRg