5Ks in 10 Days: Kamakhya, Kaziranga, Kohima, Kisama, Khonuma

When you have 10 days of leaves still left in the year and yearend is approaching fast, you are wondering where do you spend this!!

 Well, here is a plan! 5Ks in 10 Days!

You read it right but you might be thinking it’s some kind of yet another ‘Make Money Online’ stuffs.

 Isn’t it?? ?

My friend, how about thinking of making memories instead of money!! Yeah! Let’s call it, ‘Make Memories Offline’.

So, what is with this 5Ks?

We picked up 5 interesting destinations in the Eastern parts of India, all starting with the letter K:

• Kamakhya
• Kaziranga
• Kohima
• Kisama
• Khonuma

Interestingly you can cover these places in 10 days. So, lets get in to the bites of how you can do it.

Kamakhya Temple:

Day-1: Arrive at the Guwahati Airport. Also, you can arrive at Guwahati thru train from major cities in India. From the airport drive to the Holy Kamakhya Temple is about 17 KM. From railway station, its 6 KM away. This temple is dedicated to the most revered Goddess Maa Kamakhya and is known as one of the famous 51 Shakti Peethas in India. It was earlier known for Tantric practices.

• 

You can also check-in your luggage at your Hotel/Homestay before visiting the temple. The temple is open from 5:30 am to 10 pm on a normal day. If any day is falling on a specific festival day, there might be some deviation.

Go back to hotel/homestay and have your lunch. Take some rest and in the afternoon visit the Srimanta Kalakshetra. This place is 9km away from city center in the Panjabari area of Guwahati and represents the History and Culture of the State of Assam. It was named after the medieval poet, playwriter and reformer Srimanta Sankardev.

You can also plan to skip visiting Srimanta Kalakshetra and instead don’t plan for check in to any hotel/homestay in day-1, just visit the Kamakhya Temple in morning and hire a CAB from Guwahati to Kaziranga. Distance between Guwahati to Kaziranga is about 230 km and it might take ~ 5hours to reach there. You can then check in to a hotel/homestay near by the Kaziranga National Park. Sun set early in this part around 5 PM IST.

Kaziranga National Park

Day-2: Make sure you have booked your Kaziranga National Park Safari well in advance online few weeks before. Please book a place nearest to the National Park to reduce travel time. It will be hassle free in case you are travelling with family or a larger group. On day-2 early morning, go for an elephant ride and safari. However, given the news and reports coming in various social media in various parts of the world how animals are tortured to get tamed by their masters, you might be skeptical to take elephant rides as animal lovers. Just take your own conscious call whether you want it or not. Although it gives an experience of how the journey had been in the era of monarchy when they travelled on elephants. It also provides good source of income for those manhunts dependent on it. If you are interested for elephant rides to see wildlife in the park, timings are 5 am/6 am/7 am.  Duration is 1 hour. Post this you can come back to your hotel/lodge/homestay. Have breakfast and go on a Jeep Safari. There are 3 ranges in Kaziranga popular for Jeep Safari: Eastern Ranges, Central ranges and Western Ranges. I took 2 days, 1 day for Eastern Ranges (Kohora) and the other days for Central ranges. Some guides are in the opinion that Eastern and Western Ranges are having more or less similar landscapes. So, you can pick just one of them to visit.

Jeep Safari gets over by 2-3 pm. You can do the Central Range Jeep Safari and then head straight to Kaziranga Orchid and Biodiversity Park. This is just 2 km from the Central Range. The Orchid Park is sprawling across 5 acres of land and host around 500-600 species of Orchid found on the North East of India. This also has 200 varieties of paddy, various medicinal plants and herbs, green house, lake with boating and angling facilities etc. You can have delicious mouth-watering lunch there at the Park with each meal having 15-18 items. And then go for various activities there:

• Nature Walk
• Bamboo Garden Visit
• Cactus Garden Visit
• Medicinal Plant Garden Visit
• Rice Museum
• Folk-Cultural Event

• 

By 6 pm come back to the central venue where various cultural events are organized. From 6 pm IST to 8 PM IST you can watch the cultural shows there which represent various folk-dance of the North East regions.

Head back to your hotel at night to have your dinner and rest.

Day:3 You can again go for Eastern Range Jeep Safari in Kaziranga National Park. Kaziranga is famous for its one horned Rhinoceros. But you will get to see a large variety of Flora and Fauna. There is a huge lake in side the park. You will drive along one side of it and have a close watch at birds and animals leaving happily in pristine lap of nature. Various types of Birds and Animals and reptiles that you might get to see are listed here:

Animals: Indian Tigers, Jungle Cats, Fishing Cats, Leopard Cats, Rhinoceros, Elephants, Asiatic Water Buffalo, Swamp Deer, Sambar, Hog Deer, Golden Jackal, Bengal Fox, Pangolin, Sloth Bear, Golden Langur, Hoolock Gibbon, Wild Boar, and many more.

Birds: Egrets, Kingfishers, Grey Headed Canary, Black Naked Cranes, Storks, Grey backed Shrikes, Pond Herons, Eagle, Vulture, Harriers

If you do the safari early morning, post safari you can also visit the Kaipho Langso Waterfall in Karbi Anglong. Take rest at hotel in the evening. Next day early morning drive to Jorhat

Day-4:  Distance from Kaziranga to Jorhat is about 100 km which you can cover in 2 hours. Have breakfast at Jorhat. Go to the Neemati Ghat which is 14 km from Jorhat and take a ferry ride to cross the Brahmaputra River to reach Majuli.  The ferry ride takes around 2 hours. At Majuli, you can explore the island, enjoy the traditional Sattriya Dance. It is believed that in 15^th Century Vaishnav Saint Srimant Sankardev went to Majuli island to set up 65 Sattras or unique monasteries.

• 

• 

This dance form was a way of worship and was adopted to ensure it break all language barrier in the island thru its visual form of dance and drama. You can then visit to Samaguri Satra monastery which is famous for mask making. Then drive to Kamalabari Ghat which is about 14 km and will take half an hour. Return back to Jorhat via Ferry in another 2 hours. Spend night at Jorhat in hotel/homestay.

Kohima

Day-5: Drive to Kohima from Jorhat takes 6 hours. So, get up quite early in morning to start your journey. Kohima is an amazing hill station and a place of historic importance. The Battle of Kohima was a defining moment in World War II for the allied British forces to fight against the invasion of Japanese forces in 1944. If you are an Indian, you would require Inner Line Permit (ILP) which you need to apply online much before and come only after permission given. Usually it takes 2 days to get the permit online. Foreign tourist requires Restricted Area Permit (RAP)/Protected Area Permit (PAP)

Once you reach Kohima you check in to your hotel/homestay. Remember the famous “Hornbills Festival” is organized at Kisama village in the first week of December and goes on for about 10 days. Kisama is 9 KM from Kohima. You can either book hotel/homestay at Kohima or to avoid traffic, I would recommend to find a homestay need Kisama festival ground. So, you can simply walk around the hill roads to reach there easily. Please book this Kisama homestay 2-3 month in advance to avoid any last minute’s rush.

• 

Kisama Village

You can offload your luggage in homestay in Kisama. Have bath and lunch at homestay and visit the Hornbill Festival ground. Download the 10 days schedule list of Hornbills festival and try spending 2-3 days there. Throughout the day you can enjoy various cultural programs by the local Naga tribes, concerts in the evening at the festival ground and also some live music events around the Kisama Village Hills organized by various groups.

There are 16 Naga tribes who come and perform various acts depicting their traditional ways of living life. If you are reaching festival ground by 10-11 am IST, I would recommend you to visit the World War II Museum in the Hornbills Festival ground which opens around 11 AM IST. This museum has lot of story to tell around the Battle of Kohima in 1944.

• 

• 

• 

Day-6: Have breakfast early and trek to the Pristine Dzukou Valley at boarder of state of Nagaland and Manipur. The trek takes around 3 hours. So, get up early reach the valley, enjoy this majestic beauty, capture it in your camera, take videos. Dzukou means “like a dream” and indeed this valley is like a dream.

• 

Have some meal or dry snacks that you might have carried with you. Remember at Nagaland Sun Sets by 4 PM IST. So, start returning back from valley by 1pm. You can also have something at Kisama homestay provided you order in advance. In the evening you can again visit the festival ground to watch concerts or you can visit a nearby place for live music. Spend the night at homestay.

Khonuma Village

Day-7: Get up early in the morning. Have breakfast by 8-9 am and visit the historic Khonuma Village which is 26km from here. The road from Kisama to Khonuma are not is good conditions and takes around 3 hours to reach there. Khonuma Village is known as the “First Green Village” in India. It’s a village of the Angami Tribes in Nagaland. From 1830 to 1880, the great warriors of Angami Tribes in Khonuma fought against the British and managed to retain their territory and hence achieved a historic feat in India against the Colonial Invasion. Later a truce was achieved between the British forces and Angami Tribes to stop fighting. Angamis were head cutter warriors. They used to cut heads of their hostile enemies. You will see small houses known as “Morungs”, these were like traditional Gurukuls where students were taught on various skills like warfare, moral values, social responsibilities, craftmanship, native games, agriculture etc. Return to the Kisama village and if you have some time of the day left head straight to the Night market of Kohima for some shopping. Come back to Kisama to spend your night at homestay.

• 

Day-8: Reserve Day: If you feel like you have not spent enough time at “Hornbill Festival” ground, you can actually spend the whole day here from morning to night attending cultural programs through out the day and concert at night. In case there is any unforeseen delay during any plan execution phase, its good to have a day in hand so that you can adjust it accordingly. You never know next time when you visit to cover any missing places around it.

Day-9: Check out from Kisama and go to Kohima, visit the World War Cemetery.

• 

Plan for your return journey. Kohima to Dimapur(72km) takes around 3 hours. Last running cabs are available around 4 PM IST due to some restrictions of travelling at night. Once you reach Dimapur, the cab last stop will be Dimapur railway station. Just next to railway station, you can go and stay in Dimapur Tourist Lodge at night which has all amenities with reasonable price and good location to board the train.

Day-10: Catch a train to Guwahati from Dimapur in case you have booked your returned flight or train from Guwahati or you can also go to Dimapur Airport for your return journey.

Hope you will have good 5Ks in 10 days next time when you plan for it!!!

Happy Bites!!