I am completely messing up my visit to Mizoram. What a pity, for this state is such a beautiful state.

Mizoram is perhaps India's remotest state. It's at the southern edge of north east India bordering both Myanmar and Bangladesh. Mizos are a completely different culture and they are spread across the border into western Myanmar and eastern Bangladesh as well - in fact the demarcation of India and Burma, split them apart as we will see later in the post. This is Christian land - virtually everybody is a Christian. British missionary territory however; the American missionaries were at work in Nagaland instead. Even in missionary work there appears to be earmarked territories ! There are actually many tribes - Lei, Mara, Hmar, but they organised themselves politically as one combined Mizo group. They are almost universally literate thanks to the missionaries. Mizoram stands next to Kerala as the second most literate state in the country.

This is the time of their most important festival - Chapchar Kut. The occasion traditionally is the end of the jhum season (slash and burn) and start of sowing. The festival was quasi religious and so the missionaries disapproved of this and stopped it. It was revived in the 1970s, shorn of animistic rituals and now as a social festival. There is much singing and dancing and feasting. Women don the traditional Mizo dresses (otherwise they are all in trousers these days) and dance the famous Cheraw. Indian readers might remember the dance where men move bamboo poles and the women dance daintily between them stepping in and out. That's almost the picture postcard of the North East. Its Mizo. If you want to sample this dance, click here for a YouTube video .

Unfortunately I just missed this festival. I had started to feel the strain of travel and had to rest in Silchar for two days. Consequently, I missed being in time for the festival. It would have been lovely to see the celebrations and I discovered after coming that there are big celebrations that just ended. Well, you can't get everything all the time.

My original plan was also to go to Champhai, the eastern part of Mizoram. But I decided not to do this - its a gruelling journey and discretion is sometimes the better option over valour. I will instead only write just a little about what I learnt when I planned this trip.

Champhai is the most beautiful part of the state. The Murlen National Park, the home of the hoolock gibbon is there. Its also the border with Myanmar. Zokhawtar is the border town here, as Moreh is in Manipur. Again you can cross the border and go freely into Myanmar up to the Rih Dil. This is a lake considered holy by all Mizos which they believe that souls of ancestors visit. But when the national boundaries were drawn, this fell into Myanmar. The Mizos in India were cut off from their holy place for quite a while. With the easing of border restrictions now, all Indians can freely travel to the lake and come back the same day.

Champhai is also starting to become a wine growing region. Mizoram is however a dry state - so this is all for exporting to the rest of the country. Would have been lovely to see that. Sorry, didn't go there. If any of you go there in the future, please blog about it .

So I just went to Aizawl, the capital of Mizoram. I was told Mizoram was a laid back state, everything was slow and Aizawl was a charmless town. Oh boy ! it was completely different.

We'll see tomorrow :)