04 Khonoma
Khonoma, Nagaland
3rd Dec 2011: We had decided to skip the Hornbill Festival today and instead visit Khonoma an Angami-Naga village about 20Kms west of Kohima . We booked Binod's Maruti-Van Taxi for the day-trip and started out at 9-00AM.
We had the contact of a lady, named Ms Rovina, who runs a Homestay in Khonoma. Yesterday, we had called her and asked if she could arrange for a guide to take us on a tour of the village, as well as provide us vegetarian lunch. She had said Ok to both. And so we were all set for this day-trip.
We reached Khonoma's welcome sign at 10 AM and drove on the Parking Lot just below Khonoma Baptist Church at 10:00AM. Rovina said her Dad (R-dad) will be our Guide and is already walking down to the parking lot to meet us; being old with a walking stick will take 5 mins to reach. He arrived pretty soon and proved to be an excellent guide with 'historical' knowledge about Khonoma and its environs.
The newer stone gate of Khonoma - kept open permanently as too heavy to move daily!
Binod, our driver, too joins for the guided tour
The elderly white haired gentleman is 'R-Dad'. He first took us up the steps to the Ridge-top and there show us the Memorial (1879) and explained the landmarks and the layout of the village below, from that vantage point.
R-dad explains the memorial with names of British & Nagas who died fighting each other
Pumpkins on roof of a home in Khonoma
Ladies weaving typical Naga color textile
Mr Anguilo, at his home - he had won a national award for basket weaving Govt of India
Entry Welcome-Arch of Khonoma
The Baptist Church, Khonoma
A memorial to Khonoma villagers who gave their lives for vision of Free Naga Nation
Looking back down the steps to the entry arch
The Valley and the Catholic Church
Me & SK (R) and the terraced fields of Khonoma
Shy local girl and her dad; with a foreign visitor
President Sharma giving the National Award to Mr Aguilo .... and his son too a basket-weaver!
Khonoma Fort at Semoma; a signboard lists the 4 historical events (1825-1990) that saw this fort destroyed and reconstructed each time
Mr Aguilo's (basket-weaver) Home
Mr Aguilo's shy grandson
Ms Rovino who arranged the lunch (behind us) with SK(L) & KS(R)
The community kitchen where lunch had been prepared by Ms Rovino's help group
Binod and his Maruti-Van Taxi
BTW: This young taxi-driver, Binod, turned out to be a very interesting & knowledgeable guy! Read my detailed "comments" under this Flickr-Pic.
The detailed travel stories, with pictures, are in following sub-pages 47-01 to 47-20:
All the pictures of this North-East Tour in 23+ Flickr Albums are available in this Collection: North East -Dec-2011