Tour of Nagaland 2022 | Day 18 | Kisama – Kohima-Khezhakeno – Kisama | 104 kms

I was not feeling good. The cold and cough was on top of me. After yesterday’s trek from Dzuko Valley, it had deteriorated even more. I had taken some medicines the previous night but to no effect.

I woke up to a beautiful sunrise with an open valley view in front of me. The landscape and sky were changing colors as the sun began to ride. Wasting no further time, I got ready to move on. Today, I planned to head towards a mysterious village called Khazakeno which was further down south and around 55 km from where I was staying and once that was done I would be heading towards the northern part of Nagaland where my stay was not planned. Thanks to the guidebook that I had received during the Hornbill festival. It contained all the offbeat places to visit and this one was taken straight from it.

By 6:30 am, I was all packed and ready to leave the hotel. The hostel caretaker kindly arranged a hot cup of coffee for me. The hostel was located right in front of the entrance to the Kisama Heritage Village where the Hornbill festival was conducted.

As I kickstarted the bike on the first attempt, It started but the thump died immediately. Thereafter, even after subsequent kicks, the bike wouldn’t start. I tried the electric start but with no success. Even though it was cold around, I started to sweat after repeated kicks. I was in a quandary. The bike’s sudden behavior startled me. I got worried and didn’t seem to find what the problem was. There had been no prior indication. Yesterday, I drove her only for 3-4 km without any issues after I came back from The Dzuko Valley trek. Before that, it lay the completely cold night outside the lady’s house who had agreed to shelter the bike.

I got worried and started to check the things one by one. First, I checked the fuse box and all seemed well. None of the fuses had blown. The power was coming to the ignition. Then I checked the spark plugs and tried to replace them from my spares. The problem persisted. I tried checking the HT cable of the spark plug for current and that also seemed fine. The current was coming from the battery. I then tried to clean the spark plug tips and adjust the gap but the problem was still there. In all this fiddling with the bike, I had removed all the luggage from the bike for ease of convenience.

After many kickstarts, somehow, I managed to get the bike to start but it was dying again as I left the throttle. I was still confused by the bike’s erratic behavior. I was sure that the battery had less juice to power up the bike but the correlation was just not matching. All the checks had been performed with the consultation with my family mechanic back in Pune. Now, the last option was to take it to the service center which was in Kohima for a diagnostic.

I managed to start the bike and hold onto the throttle to not let the bike die again on the road. The 12-14 km ride to Kohima was the toughest in the morning traffic as I struggled to maintain a constant rpm even when I had to brake hard for the traffic in front of me. I managed to reach Kohima without even once letting the bike die down. To my dismay, the location that I had put on Google Maps was wrong and when I reached the intended location, I could not find the place. When I re-entered the name of the service center, I got directions to the showroom which was 2 km before, and thought of asking about the right service location there. When I reached the Royal Enfield Showroom, I saw that the service center was attached to it but it was closed.

By now, I had already received the Kohima Service centre number on my phone through my friends who are working in Royal Enfield. When I phoned the person, he told me that the service center would open shortly and that I had to wait for some time.

After some time, a guy came and opened the service center and I introduced myself. We took the bike inside and I described the problem to him. He was the lead mechanic and started to work on the bike immediately. A job card was made. I told him all the history of the bike and described all the issues that the bike had faced in this tour. When I told him that I had bypassed the rear brake light cable due to the fuse being blown up constantly, he took one good look underneath the rear mudguard only to find the positive and negative cables touching to each other. I guess that was the root cause for the bike’s abnormal behavior. He set on to change the cable almost immediately. Even he could not find any other problem on the bike apart from the touching exposed cables.

We attributed the cause to the loose suspension setup and with the heavy luggage load on the bike, the rear tire must have rubbed onto the wires which were passing underneath the rear mudguard. During offroading, the situation of suspension travel might have been extreme.

We changed the cable to a new one. It seems that the cable had come out from one of the holding hooks which secured the cable in its place. We routed the new cable perfectly and the bike was taken now for the test ride. It was all ok now as the bike seemed to start on the first kick. The battery voltage was still low but would eventually get recharged after I’d run it for a few km. I vowed to kick start the bike and not use electric start least for today till I regained my complete confidence on the bike.

By now, the service manager had arrived and I thanked both of them for supporting me at the 11th hour and making sure that my bike’s problem was sorted out. I thanked the mechanic and left the place after paying the bill.

When the bike was getting serviced, I had to the nearby medical to purchase some medicines for my cold and cough and since it was breakfast time, I managed to have some breakfast of paratha and subji as I had to take medicines. My breakfast was done at the same time as the bike was almost ready.

I left the service center and made my way towards the hostel. Half of the day was almost over so I decided to check in again and spend one more night. I shifted all my luggage in the room and prepared myself now to visit the mysterious village as per the plan. I left the hostel around 12:30 pm.

On the way, I met 2 guys from West Bengal who were in the Police but had recently quit their jobs to fulfill their dream of exploring their homeland. They had this vision of exploring the entire nation and wanted to achieve it badly before saying goodbye to Mother Earth. I could see the zeal in their eyes and boy language as we talked with each other on the side of the road. They were touring on a basic cycle without gears with bare minimum equipment and clothing. Even the smartphone which they had, got lost on the way and they had to resort to using simple phones for communication. Their mission was clear and was put up in the form of a board at the back of their cycles. They had no day-wise plan and were like a free bird. I got inspired by them with their daring and courageous nature. I thought to myself, not everyone can do what they had planned to do. The struggle is real when you don’t have money in your pocket to fund your travels. Inspired by them, I handed over a 500-rupee note for their little expenses on the way and bid them the best of luck and goodbye for their dream trip. The morning’s thoughts of the bike’s breakdown had been completely washed away after listening to my hero’s ventures.

The road as usual was bad. It was broken in most places and also, there was a lot of loose dirt scattered on the road. I went up to Viswema village, the place from where we had turned right 2 days back while going towards the Dzuko valley. I was following the Google Maps as we turned left now. We were passing through Viswema town, the letters of which were marked on a circular arched entrance to the town.

The roads were somewhat good now. The scenery was excellent with dense vegetation all around and very little traffic. I was enjoying the ride. Passing through one of the bridges, I noticed a river flowing below. The scene was quite tempting. Not bad for a camping spot. Excited, I took a U-turn and went down via a small dirt road to the banks of the rock-flowing river. It was truly a magnificent sight with no one but me, my bike, and nature. The sun’s rays hitting the water made the scenery even more beautiful.

After a while, I had to turn off from the main road and follow a first road which went up the mountain. There was a green signboard giving the direction to Khazakeno village. This village too, like the others was situated on top of a mountain. The loose dirt road was completely deserted and at some point, I had the feeling that I may chosen the wrong road. Exiting one turn, I came across a bunch of people login woof from the trees. Like me, they too were shocked to see some unfamiliar places in this area. They carried on their activity and I made my way past them. They had taken me by surprise as I had thought that no one would be on this road.

Making my way slowly up with lush green vegetation on both sides, I finally started to see some houses and thereafter a church as I made my entry to their village. The first impression of the town was quite shocking. Elders could not be seen around. Leaving the children around, the rest of the town looked ghostly. I stopped the bike and was just looking for someone to enquire about the mysterious stones. It so happened that I was right beside them and a small wall was built around it. All the information about the place was put up.

I parked the bike and the kind boy opened the gates of the compound for me. At one corner, the information about the mysterious stone was mentioned and what it signified.

I stayed there for some time and then decided to retrace my steps back to the hostel. On the way, I stopped at a local house to see the head weaving technique which was seen as an old lady fiddled with the weave. Small children were running around here smiling shyly. I watched the hand weave process. I was not able to ask questions due to the language barrier but by seeing her activity I could easily understand. I too thanked her for showing me how it had to be done and left the place.

Going back the same stretch, I stumbled upon 3 hunters who were trying to hunt the black squirrel. I got to witness live action through my camera. I waited till their encounter was about to get finished. I later on heard that you can easily carry firearms in Nagaland. It was a double-barreled gun with a long pipe.

I came back to the hostel often stopping at places to click some photos along the way. I freshened up and thereafter went to Kohima town to enjoy the night market and the shopping. It was my last day in Kohima so the evenings were spent in buying some Christmas Plum cake and some handy souvenirs. I visited all the local stalls which offered a variety of things for purchase. I glanced through each one of them and only took what interested me. I took a Nagaland Wall Hanging souvenir.

Dinner was taken at the hotel which was near my hostel. It was the same hotel where we had taken lunch after our trek from Dzuko Valley. This time too the food was tasty and once again I thanked the lady team of chefs for treating me with such good food. I then retired to my hostel for a comfortable sleep. During the day, I had received a message from my local riding friend that he too was in Kohima and would be riding home to Noklak which was in the North. He had offered me to join with him on the way. Since I too was heading north, I decided to go with him. We agreed to meet early morning at a designated place which he had suggested to me. Kohima’s chapter had come to an end. It was time to explore the northern parts.