In Kohima on the morning of the 28th I watched the second half of the Warriors game, after the hotel's electricity was restored about 8, and went back to the war cemetery one more time about 9:30. The sun was out, but not for long. I looked around and talked with a Spaniard traveling on a bike until about 11, and then had another momo lunch before taking a bus to a chaotic sumo stand near Kohima's south end.
At noon I left on a sumo heading south to the little town of Mao, just beyond the Nagaland-Manipur border. The scenic drive wrapped around Mt. Japvo, 10,000 feet high, just south of Kohima. We had great views over the green hills to the east. The 20 mile trip took less than an hour. From Mao, at about 5500 feet elevation, I soon left on another sumo heading 25 miles further south to the town of Senapati, at about 3200 feet. On the way we passed rice terraces, at first planted on hillsides and later, nearing Senapati, in a narrow, almost flat valley just to the east of the road.
In both Mao and Senapati I saw posters for the NPF (Naga People's Party), the dominant political party in Nagaland with a strong presence in northern Manipur, where many Nagas live. In fact, some Nagas want an independent Greater Nagaland including not only the present state of Nagaland, but also portions of Manipur, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and Burma.
No sumos were going from Senapati further south to Imphal, the Manipur state capital, apparently because they all had been hired for electioneering. Elections for ADCs (autonomous district councils) in the minority areas in the hills were scheduled for a few days later. About 3:30 I finally left with eight others crammed into an auto rickshaw for the final 35 miles to Imphal. The rickshaw was slow and afforded poor views. I could see the rice terraces in the narrow flat valley just to the east. The valley expanded just before we reached Imphal, at about 2500 feet elevation in Manipur's central basin, ringed by hills. The sun was shining, with some clouds in the sky. I noticed the hills were much higher to the west than to the east. About 5:15 we arrived in the sprawling, not particularly attractive city of Imphal, with about a quarter of a million people. I checked into a relatively fancy hotel, with a room, after a discount, at 1370 rupees, almost $22, a night.
Manipur's dominant tribe is the Meithei, who look far more southeast Asian than Indian, but adopted Hinduism relatively recently, in the 18th century I think. There are many other tribes, including the Naga, Kuki (apparently the same people as the Chin in Burma and the Mizo in Mizoram), Tangkhul, and Kabul. Insurgencies have raged over the decades against India and the dominant Meitheis, and apparently even between Manipur's minority tribes. I've read that the Nagas and Kukis fought against each other. As recently as 2009 there were four hundred militancy-related deaths in Manipur and until just recently tourists, usually flying rather than driving to Imphal, were restricted to Imphal and nearby areas. It was considered by far India's most dangerous northeastern state.
I was glad to make it to Manipur, something I couldn't have counted on when I first started extensive travels in India in 2010. Arriving in Manipur also meant that I now had been to all of India's 29 states, though Telangana, the newest state, formed out of Andhra Pradesh in 2014, wasn't yet a state when I was there.
About 7 the next morning I walked along wet streets but under sunny skies to Khwairamband, a huge market, both indoor and outdoor, run by 3000 Meithei women. Almost all the vendors are women (I remember one man holding up a goose that was for sale when I was trying to take a photo of it), and very friendly. I didn't see any other tourists there. Fruit, vegetables, fish, and flowers were on sale, along with household items. fabric, pottery, and much else. The flower sellers had heaps of flowers in front of them. Some of the sellers were stringing flowers together into garlands. The women selling flowers were particularly friendly, wanting me to include them in the photos I was taking of the flowers, which I was more than happy to do, and wanting to see the results. They gave me some flowers, jasmine, champak, and a small marigold, and insisted that I wedge them behind my ears, which seemed to please other vendors as I walked through the market. Many of the vendors asked me for photos. The market spreads out through newly constructed market buildings, streets, and vacant lots. I wandered around until about 9:30, when I returned to my hotel for the breakfast included in the room price. The hotel breakfast was a little odd, with a chocolate flavored cereal served with hot milk, hard boiled eggs, potato wedges, fruit, and juice.
After breakfast I walked to the Kangla, a huge fortified compound, the former palace and grounds of the maharajas of Manipur until British conquest in 1891. Five Britons were beheaded in the Kangla in 1891, which prompted the British to retaliate. The grounds are very pretty, with big lawns, including a polo field, ponds, and lots of trees and flowers. Flame trees full of orange-red blossoms and other trees, some with yellow blossoms and others with blue-violet blossoms, add lots of color. Almost all the buildings are new or restored. They include small palace buildings, temples, and a few colonial bungalows, including the Slim Bungalow, the house of Field Marshal Slim, the British commander in Imphal during the battle in 1944. Until only about ten years before, the Assam Rifles were resident in the Kangla. One pavilion, glassed in, contains a very long boat formerly paddled on nearby Loktak Lake. Quite a few school children in groups were on the grounds on a hot and humid day.
I left the Kangla and walked to the very interesting Manipur State Museum, with weapons, jewelry, paintings of the Manipuri maharajas, mannequins of Manipuri warriors, two stuffed sloth bears, two stuffed leopards, a huge stuffed tiger, and much else. The musical instrument section classified the instruments as chordophones (stringed), membranophones (drums), aerophones (wind), and idiophones (gongs, cymbals)! Outside a 1962 Chevrolet Biscayne Impala was parked under a shelter. A sign said it was the government car of the Lieutenant Governor and then the Governor from 1966 to 1984. (Manipur had a Lieutenant Governor when it was a territory. When it became a state in 1972, he was replaced by a Governor.) I spent about two hours in the museum and left about 4.
I walked to the nearby Shaheed Minar, a modern monument in a little park next to a polo ground. (Manipuris claim to have invented polo.) The monument commemorates Manipuri resistance to the British on the site where the Manipuri generals who had executed the five Britons were themselves executed, by hanging, by the British in 1891. I sat in the crowded little park for a while and later stopped by the women's market on the way back to my hotel. The market was still very busy. I watched the crowds and the vendors, especially the fish sellers. A light rain began to fall.
The next morning I took a short walk through the women's market around 8. The morning was sunny and already hot. Fewer vendors were selling their wares, perhaps because it was a Saturday. I went back to my hotel for breakfast (more chocolate cereal with hot milk) and to read the newspapers.
About 11 I took an auto rickshaw to the Imphal's war cemetery. Unlike the war cemetery in Kohima, this one is not terraced, but flat, as Imphal is in the middle of a flat valley. All the graves are in one big plot. It is like the cemetery in Kohima in all other respects, with flowers at the headstones and several flowering trees, It was hot there under the sun. There are over 1600 graves, mostly British, but also including 220 Indian Christian soldiers, three Chinese soldiers, and 80 Commonwealth air force personnel. One hundred forty graves contained unidentified bodies. A white cross stood over the graves and a white block of stone was inscribed "Their name liveth forevermore."
A plaque described the battle of Imphal and included a photo of British and Indian troops, some from Imphal and some from Kohima, meeting at Kilometer 109 on the Imphal-Kohima road in late June 1944. Kohima had been besieged by the Japanese starting in late March 1944. The British and Indian troops were encircled, but unlike in Kohima they had an airport and could receive supplies and reinforcements by air. The plaque said the Japanese began their retreat in late May and ultimately 30,000 of their 85,000 troops were killed.
I walked southeast from the war cemetery to another war cemetery, also maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and called the Indian Army War Cemetery. It is similarly designed and maintained, with 820 graves of Indians and Africans. A cenotaph lists the names of more than 860 Indian Hindus and Sikhs whose bodies had been cremated. I read that the two separate cemeteries had been started during the battle. There were fewer flowers planted at the headstones and the neighboring area wasn't as nice as that around the other war cemetery. In fact, just outside the fence were a few ragged gravesites of local people. No one but me was at the cemetery. A plaque said that at the end of the war the Indian Army consisted of 2.5 million troops, including 34,500 British officers and 8300 Indian officers. About 3 I took an auto rickshaw back to my hotel.
The sun was out the next morning as I took an auto rickshaw to the bus stand for Ukhrul, a town to the northeast in the hills. No buses were going to Ukhrul because of the ADC elections the next day, so I took an auto rickshaw to the bus stand for Moirang. I left on a bus for Moirang, less than 30 miles south of Imphal, after 11. The route to Moirang is flat, passing the airport and eventually the western shore of Loktak Lake, a large lake at the southern end of Manipur's central basin. High hills rise to the west. I arrived about noon and got a decent hotel in that small town.
I walked under the hot sun to the town's INA museum. The INA (Indian National Army) was formed out of Indian Army prisoners of war (captured in Singapore, Malaya, and Burma) recruited by the Japanese during World War II to fight against Britain, ostensively for the independence of India. It seems they were more of a propaganda effort than an important fighting force, though they did participate in the 1944 Japanese invasion of Manipur. In April 1944 they raised their flag in Moirang, which is what the museum celebrates. Although less than 50,000 Indians served in the INA, while 2.5 million served with the British in the Indian Army, it is the INA that modern India celebrates. The museum itself is more about the INA's leader, Subhas Chandra Bose, a somewhat comical looking figure: pudgy, with round horn rimmed glasses, but dressed in a khaki uniform. A statue of Bose stands outside the museum. Inside are interesting artifacts, photographs, letters, and proclamations. After I had looked around, the director of the museum invited me into his office for tea.
From the museum I walked to the Thangjing temple, devoted to a pre-Hindu deity. The temple, new and unfinished, was nothing special, but in front of it rose approximately 30 very high bamboo poles dangling colorful spiral pennants. I looked around and watched the worshippers, one of which gave me some bananas. Eventually I sat behind some older women, who sat all on one side, by seniority. Older men did the same on the other side.
A guy sitting next to me, the son of one of the women, proposed to take me in his car to Sendra Island in Lake Loktak, with views out over the lake. We left about 4 on the short drive, reaching Sendra via a causeway. The island, looking like a hill over the lake, was full of people. The views out over the lake, filled with clumps of vegetation, were great. I saw a few boats being paddled on the lake, perhaps fishermen. The sun, behind clouds, emitted visible rays of sunshine onto the lake. We drove to a bar on the causeway for beer and chicken and then drove back to the temple as the post-sunset sky was filled with red clouds.
Darkness had fallen and the temple now was much more active, with dancing (a sort of marching dance) and music. The dancers had great costumes. This was the last day of a 41 day festival honoring the pre-Hindu god Thangjing. A teenage guy helped me get close to take photos, through the dancers and musicians were rarely in any good light. He also warned me when not to get too close! Lots of candles were lit all around the temple grounds. While I wandered around, two tourism officials spotted me (I was the only foreigner there) and took photos of me for some newspaper or tourist publication. I was told the festival finale would be sometime after 11, but I left about 7. It took almost a half hour to walk back to my hotel. On the way I passed lots of candles that had been lit and set on the ground in places. Back at the hotel I talked with a man, from Imphal I think, who was headed into the hills of southwestern Manipur the next day to serve as an election official. He was an interesting guy and told me Hinduism had been introduced into Manipur only in the 18th century.
I didn't do much the next day after having had stomach troubles the night before. I spent the day at the hotel, reading and relaxing. The morning was sunny and hot, but in the afternoon the wind blew and rain fell, a welcome respite from the heat, before the sun came out again.
Before 8 the next morning I caught the bus coming through Moirang and heading to Imphal. The sun was out as we headed north to Imphal, with good views of the hills to the west. We arrived in Imphal about 9 and I took an auto rickshaw to the Ukhrul bus stand and about 9:30 left on a van for Ukhrul, about 50 miles away in the hills to the northeast. Ukhrul is the first town Stillwell reached during his retreat from Burma in 1942. The road was good in the valley, but much poorer as we rose into the hills. Lots of military buses and other military vehicles that had been on election duty the day before passed us. One vehicle had a manned machine gun on top. The hills were not as scenic as I hoped.
We reached Ukhrul, a dusty town on hilltops at about 6100 feet elevation, at about 12:30. I checked into a nice hotel and looked around town. The townspeople are mostly Naga and I saw lots of election posters for the NPF and independent Naga candidates. I saw one poster of a Naga running under the banner of the BJP, India's ruling party. I walked through town from hilltop to hilltop, with views out to the hills outside town, as far as a church with a yard full of many varieties of bright colored flowers. As I looked around the pastor came over to say hello. With the power out, I ate a candlelight dinner in a small restaurant where I was the only customer. My room at the hotel had a Gideon Bible.
Under cloudy skies I left Ukhrul the next morning at 10:30 on a van bound for Imphal, arriving about 1. By then it was sunny and warm. I spent the afternoon doing errands, including buying a plane ticket from Calcutta to Bangkok from a friendly and helpful travel agent, from whom I later bought a train ticket from New Jalpaiguri to Calcutta.
The next day was sunny all day. I had decided to take a day trip to Moreh on the border with Burma, 70 miles southeast of Imphal. I had hoped to cross via that border post from Burma to India earlier in the year, but obtaining a permit from the Burmese proved too difficult and expensive. The van to Moreh left at 7:30. The first half of the trip was flat, in the valley, but the second half was in the hills, rising to about 5000 feet elevation. The paved road is in good condition and there were good, but hazy, views over the scenic green hills.
On the way the van was stopped twice at army checkpoints, each time for about ten minutes, while soldiers fairly thoroughly checked the van. They pulled out the driver seat and checked the spare tire. They probed the van's doors and sides with thin metal wires.
The day was hot and got hotter as we descended to Moreh, at only about 900 feet elevation, according to my altimeter. We had good views over the plains of Burma to the east just before we reached Moreh, arriving there about 11. I spent only about half an hour in that hot, ugly town. The border is about two miles east of town.
I headed back to Imphal in another van, with extensive vehicle checks again on the way back. The next morning I read in the newspaper, the Imphal Free Press, that earlier on the morning I had traveled to Moreh an ambush had killed 17 soldiers and injured 16 on a road just a little south of the road we had traveled. The fighting was reported to have started at 6 in the morning and to have lasted three or four hours. Responsibility for the attack was claimed, the newspaper reported, by "the NSCN/GPRN, KYKL and the KCP," without explaining what those acronyms stood for. I got back to Imphal about 3 and spent some more time at the women's market.
At noon I left on a sumo heading south to the little town of Mao, just beyond the Nagaland-Manipur border. The scenic drive wrapped around Mt. Japvo, 10,000 feet high, just south of Kohima. We had great views over the green hills to the east. The 20 mile trip took less than an hour. From Mao, at about 5500 feet elevation, I soon left on another sumo heading 25 miles further south to the town of Senapati, at about 3200 feet. On the way we passed rice terraces, at first planted on hillsides and later, nearing Senapati, in a narrow, almost flat valley just to the east of the road.
In both Mao and Senapati I saw posters for the NPF (Naga People's Party), the dominant political party in Nagaland with a strong presence in northern Manipur, where many Nagas live. In fact, some Nagas want an independent Greater Nagaland including not only the present state of Nagaland, but also portions of Manipur, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and Burma.
No sumos were going from Senapati further south to Imphal, the Manipur state capital, apparently because they all had been hired for electioneering. Elections for ADCs (autonomous district councils) in the minority areas in the hills were scheduled for a few days later. About 3:30 I finally left with eight others crammed into an auto rickshaw for the final 35 miles to Imphal. The rickshaw was slow and afforded poor views. I could see the rice terraces in the narrow flat valley just to the east. The valley expanded just before we reached Imphal, at about 2500 feet elevation in Manipur's central basin, ringed by hills. The sun was shining, with some clouds in the sky. I noticed the hills were much higher to the west than to the east. About 5:15 we arrived in the sprawling, not particularly attractive city of Imphal, with about a quarter of a million people. I checked into a relatively fancy hotel, with a room, after a discount, at 1370 rupees, almost $22, a night.
Manipur's dominant tribe is the Meithei, who look far more southeast Asian than Indian, but adopted Hinduism relatively recently, in the 18th century I think. There are many other tribes, including the Naga, Kuki (apparently the same people as the Chin in Burma and the Mizo in Mizoram), Tangkhul, and Kabul. Insurgencies have raged over the decades against India and the dominant Meitheis, and apparently even between Manipur's minority tribes. I've read that the Nagas and Kukis fought against each other. As recently as 2009 there were four hundred militancy-related deaths in Manipur and until just recently tourists, usually flying rather than driving to Imphal, were restricted to Imphal and nearby areas. It was considered by far India's most dangerous northeastern state.
I was glad to make it to Manipur, something I couldn't have counted on when I first started extensive travels in India in 2010. Arriving in Manipur also meant that I now had been to all of India's 29 states, though Telangana, the newest state, formed out of Andhra Pradesh in 2014, wasn't yet a state when I was there.
About 7 the next morning I walked along wet streets but under sunny skies to Khwairamband, a huge market, both indoor and outdoor, run by 3000 Meithei women. Almost all the vendors are women (I remember one man holding up a goose that was for sale when I was trying to take a photo of it), and very friendly. I didn't see any other tourists there. Fruit, vegetables, fish, and flowers were on sale, along with household items. fabric, pottery, and much else. The flower sellers had heaps of flowers in front of them. Some of the sellers were stringing flowers together into garlands. The women selling flowers were particularly friendly, wanting me to include them in the photos I was taking of the flowers, which I was more than happy to do, and wanting to see the results. They gave me some flowers, jasmine, champak, and a small marigold, and insisted that I wedge them behind my ears, which seemed to please other vendors as I walked through the market. Many of the vendors asked me for photos. The market spreads out through newly constructed market buildings, streets, and vacant lots. I wandered around until about 9:30, when I returned to my hotel for the breakfast included in the room price. The hotel breakfast was a little odd, with a chocolate flavored cereal served with hot milk, hard boiled eggs, potato wedges, fruit, and juice.
After breakfast I walked to the Kangla, a huge fortified compound, the former palace and grounds of the maharajas of Manipur until British conquest in 1891. Five Britons were beheaded in the Kangla in 1891, which prompted the British to retaliate. The grounds are very pretty, with big lawns, including a polo field, ponds, and lots of trees and flowers. Flame trees full of orange-red blossoms and other trees, some with yellow blossoms and others with blue-violet blossoms, add lots of color. Almost all the buildings are new or restored. They include small palace buildings, temples, and a few colonial bungalows, including the Slim Bungalow, the house of Field Marshal Slim, the British commander in Imphal during the battle in 1944. Until only about ten years before, the Assam Rifles were resident in the Kangla. One pavilion, glassed in, contains a very long boat formerly paddled on nearby Loktak Lake. Quite a few school children in groups were on the grounds on a hot and humid day.
I left the Kangla and walked to the very interesting Manipur State Museum, with weapons, jewelry, paintings of the Manipuri maharajas, mannequins of Manipuri warriors, two stuffed sloth bears, two stuffed leopards, a huge stuffed tiger, and much else. The musical instrument section classified the instruments as chordophones (stringed), membranophones (drums), aerophones (wind), and idiophones (gongs, cymbals)! Outside a 1962 Chevrolet Biscayne Impala was parked under a shelter. A sign said it was the government car of the Lieutenant Governor and then the Governor from 1966 to 1984. (Manipur had a Lieutenant Governor when it was a territory. When it became a state in 1972, he was replaced by a Governor.) I spent about two hours in the museum and left about 4.
I walked to the nearby Shaheed Minar, a modern monument in a little park next to a polo ground. (Manipuris claim to have invented polo.) The monument commemorates Manipuri resistance to the British on the site where the Manipuri generals who had executed the five Britons were themselves executed, by hanging, by the British in 1891. I sat in the crowded little park for a while and later stopped by the women's market on the way back to my hotel. The market was still very busy. I watched the crowds and the vendors, especially the fish sellers. A light rain began to fall.
The next morning I took a short walk through the women's market around 8. The morning was sunny and already hot. Fewer vendors were selling their wares, perhaps because it was a Saturday. I went back to my hotel for breakfast (more chocolate cereal with hot milk) and to read the newspapers.
About 11 I took an auto rickshaw to the Imphal's war cemetery. Unlike the war cemetery in Kohima, this one is not terraced, but flat, as Imphal is in the middle of a flat valley. All the graves are in one big plot. It is like the cemetery in Kohima in all other respects, with flowers at the headstones and several flowering trees, It was hot there under the sun. There are over 1600 graves, mostly British, but also including 220 Indian Christian soldiers, three Chinese soldiers, and 80 Commonwealth air force personnel. One hundred forty graves contained unidentified bodies. A white cross stood over the graves and a white block of stone was inscribed "Their name liveth forevermore."
A plaque described the battle of Imphal and included a photo of British and Indian troops, some from Imphal and some from Kohima, meeting at Kilometer 109 on the Imphal-Kohima road in late June 1944. Kohima had been besieged by the Japanese starting in late March 1944. The British and Indian troops were encircled, but unlike in Kohima they had an airport and could receive supplies and reinforcements by air. The plaque said the Japanese began their retreat in late May and ultimately 30,000 of their 85,000 troops were killed.
I walked southeast from the war cemetery to another war cemetery, also maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and called the Indian Army War Cemetery. It is similarly designed and maintained, with 820 graves of Indians and Africans. A cenotaph lists the names of more than 860 Indian Hindus and Sikhs whose bodies had been cremated. I read that the two separate cemeteries had been started during the battle. There were fewer flowers planted at the headstones and the neighboring area wasn't as nice as that around the other war cemetery. In fact, just outside the fence were a few ragged gravesites of local people. No one but me was at the cemetery. A plaque said that at the end of the war the Indian Army consisted of 2.5 million troops, including 34,500 British officers and 8300 Indian officers. About 3 I took an auto rickshaw back to my hotel.
The sun was out the next morning as I took an auto rickshaw to the bus stand for Ukhrul, a town to the northeast in the hills. No buses were going to Ukhrul because of the ADC elections the next day, so I took an auto rickshaw to the bus stand for Moirang. I left on a bus for Moirang, less than 30 miles south of Imphal, after 11. The route to Moirang is flat, passing the airport and eventually the western shore of Loktak Lake, a large lake at the southern end of Manipur's central basin. High hills rise to the west. I arrived about noon and got a decent hotel in that small town.
I walked under the hot sun to the town's INA museum. The INA (Indian National Army) was formed out of Indian Army prisoners of war (captured in Singapore, Malaya, and Burma) recruited by the Japanese during World War II to fight against Britain, ostensively for the independence of India. It seems they were more of a propaganda effort than an important fighting force, though they did participate in the 1944 Japanese invasion of Manipur. In April 1944 they raised their flag in Moirang, which is what the museum celebrates. Although less than 50,000 Indians served in the INA, while 2.5 million served with the British in the Indian Army, it is the INA that modern India celebrates. The museum itself is more about the INA's leader, Subhas Chandra Bose, a somewhat comical looking figure: pudgy, with round horn rimmed glasses, but dressed in a khaki uniform. A statue of Bose stands outside the museum. Inside are interesting artifacts, photographs, letters, and proclamations. After I had looked around, the director of the museum invited me into his office for tea.
From the museum I walked to the Thangjing temple, devoted to a pre-Hindu deity. The temple, new and unfinished, was nothing special, but in front of it rose approximately 30 very high bamboo poles dangling colorful spiral pennants. I looked around and watched the worshippers, one of which gave me some bananas. Eventually I sat behind some older women, who sat all on one side, by seniority. Older men did the same on the other side.
A guy sitting next to me, the son of one of the women, proposed to take me in his car to Sendra Island in Lake Loktak, with views out over the lake. We left about 4 on the short drive, reaching Sendra via a causeway. The island, looking like a hill over the lake, was full of people. The views out over the lake, filled with clumps of vegetation, were great. I saw a few boats being paddled on the lake, perhaps fishermen. The sun, behind clouds, emitted visible rays of sunshine onto the lake. We drove to a bar on the causeway for beer and chicken and then drove back to the temple as the post-sunset sky was filled with red clouds.
Darkness had fallen and the temple now was much more active, with dancing (a sort of marching dance) and music. The dancers had great costumes. This was the last day of a 41 day festival honoring the pre-Hindu god Thangjing. A teenage guy helped me get close to take photos, through the dancers and musicians were rarely in any good light. He also warned me when not to get too close! Lots of candles were lit all around the temple grounds. While I wandered around, two tourism officials spotted me (I was the only foreigner there) and took photos of me for some newspaper or tourist publication. I was told the festival finale would be sometime after 11, but I left about 7. It took almost a half hour to walk back to my hotel. On the way I passed lots of candles that had been lit and set on the ground in places. Back at the hotel I talked with a man, from Imphal I think, who was headed into the hills of southwestern Manipur the next day to serve as an election official. He was an interesting guy and told me Hinduism had been introduced into Manipur only in the 18th century.
I didn't do much the next day after having had stomach troubles the night before. I spent the day at the hotel, reading and relaxing. The morning was sunny and hot, but in the afternoon the wind blew and rain fell, a welcome respite from the heat, before the sun came out again.
Before 8 the next morning I caught the bus coming through Moirang and heading to Imphal. The sun was out as we headed north to Imphal, with good views of the hills to the west. We arrived in Imphal about 9 and I took an auto rickshaw to the Ukhrul bus stand and about 9:30 left on a van for Ukhrul, about 50 miles away in the hills to the northeast. Ukhrul is the first town Stillwell reached during his retreat from Burma in 1942. The road was good in the valley, but much poorer as we rose into the hills. Lots of military buses and other military vehicles that had been on election duty the day before passed us. One vehicle had a manned machine gun on top. The hills were not as scenic as I hoped.
We reached Ukhrul, a dusty town on hilltops at about 6100 feet elevation, at about 12:30. I checked into a nice hotel and looked around town. The townspeople are mostly Naga and I saw lots of election posters for the NPF and independent Naga candidates. I saw one poster of a Naga running under the banner of the BJP, India's ruling party. I walked through town from hilltop to hilltop, with views out to the hills outside town, as far as a church with a yard full of many varieties of bright colored flowers. As I looked around the pastor came over to say hello. With the power out, I ate a candlelight dinner in a small restaurant where I was the only customer. My room at the hotel had a Gideon Bible.
Under cloudy skies I left Ukhrul the next morning at 10:30 on a van bound for Imphal, arriving about 1. By then it was sunny and warm. I spent the afternoon doing errands, including buying a plane ticket from Calcutta to Bangkok from a friendly and helpful travel agent, from whom I later bought a train ticket from New Jalpaiguri to Calcutta.
The next day was sunny all day. I had decided to take a day trip to Moreh on the border with Burma, 70 miles southeast of Imphal. I had hoped to cross via that border post from Burma to India earlier in the year, but obtaining a permit from the Burmese proved too difficult and expensive. The van to Moreh left at 7:30. The first half of the trip was flat, in the valley, but the second half was in the hills, rising to about 5000 feet elevation. The paved road is in good condition and there were good, but hazy, views over the scenic green hills.
On the way the van was stopped twice at army checkpoints, each time for about ten minutes, while soldiers fairly thoroughly checked the van. They pulled out the driver seat and checked the spare tire. They probed the van's doors and sides with thin metal wires.
The day was hot and got hotter as we descended to Moreh, at only about 900 feet elevation, according to my altimeter. We had good views over the plains of Burma to the east just before we reached Moreh, arriving there about 11. I spent only about half an hour in that hot, ugly town. The border is about two miles east of town.
I headed back to Imphal in another van, with extensive vehicle checks again on the way back. The next morning I read in the newspaper, the Imphal Free Press, that earlier on the morning I had traveled to Moreh an ambush had killed 17 soldiers and injured 16 on a road just a little south of the road we had traveled. The fighting was reported to have started at 6 in the morning and to have lasted three or four hours. Responsibility for the attack was claimed, the newspaper reported, by "the NSCN/GPRN, KYKL and the KCP," without explaining what those acronyms stood for. I got back to Imphal about 3 and spent some more time at the women's market.
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