If waking up in Fish Hoek was a little disorientating after two months in Latin America, arriving back in Bangkok was a culture shock after Kwa-Zulu Natal. I had a fairly uneventful sleepless journey from Joburg with Etihad Air transiting through the vast building site that is Abu Dhabi airport. It was a welcome relief to arrive in Bangkok and take the easy public transport system.


I had not made a reservation where I usually stay at the Atlanta Hotel, but had decided to stay further along Sukhumvit Road near the Indian Embassy and also close to where my good friend Joan Ibanez lives . Joan now lives and works in Sukhumvit Road at the Rembrandt Hotel and it was great to catch up with him, likewise John Thompson my old school mate who I saw the previous year.


I was also determined to get my passport in quickly to the Indian Visa Service. Based on the 24 days it took them in London to process my visa in 2013, I was expecting similar problems and delays. As it turned out it took them just ten days here in Thailand without any of the fuss or agro they had caused in London. Unfortunately, whilst waiting for the visa approval I contracted Bronchitis and had to be treated with penicillin. The doctor also recommended leaving Bangkok for several days to avoid the ferocious air con and pollution which he felt was the cause.


I settled on visiting the old city of Ayutthaya which was only 80 mins minibus ride up the highway. At that stage I did not even feel like a three hour trip to Koh Samet . Actually this turned out to be a great move as I stumbled across a fabulous guesthouse in the suburbs, which was characterful (all wooden floors and panelling, great bed, shower and staff, with fabulous owners, ultra clean and with a swimming pool. Consequently I managed a remarkably quick recovery.


With visa in hand I was able to leave Bangkok on the allotted day arriving in Kolkata at 6.00am. I had a four hour layover before arriving in Guwahati at lunchtime, to be greeted by a smiling Raj, Mr Sakar and Holy. All were pleased to see me and determined to hear about my adventures. Raj also had some of his own to relay to me, including a harrowing adventure when he fell off his ship in the ocean outside Kolkata during a big storm and nearly drowned.


Raj was ever helpful and accommodating. He was soon opening his contacts book and recommending his friends for me to visit in Eastern Assam, Tezpur and Nagaland . All of a sudden I completely relaxed as Baruah Bhavan really does feel like home.


Unfortunately I was not going to be able to stay as long as I wished. My plans were to travel the hard road in Eastern Nagaland with my Naga friend Langa Chuba Chang, whom I met in Tuensang in 2013, ending up at the Sangai Festival in Manipur some two weeks later to see the Indigenous Sports Festival that showcases there. Bearing this in mind Holy kindly booked a train ticket to Dimapur in Nagaland for me (the only rail station in Nagaland) after just two nights.


My first train journey in India was easy. Holy ensured I got on the right train in Guwahati and some five hours later I was talking to Langa Chuba again after exactly one year. I also met his girlfriend, Ato and then I introduced them to my fiend Nungty, who had kindly invited me to stay in Dimapur with her . As it turned out, Nungty had a very comfortable flat in the suburbs of Dimapur close to the train station. Within minutes many of her extended family and her fiancee had arrived to greet me and nothing was too much trouble. With Langa and his girlfriend already committed to one party that evening and Nungty attending a function with her fiancee, I was left in charge of her cousin, OJ.


OJ was a loud captivating man with a gregarious personality. He was also a well known Indian celebrity, a model, a former Mr India and a “Mr International Earth”, a singer and (he told me) was trying to break into Bollywood. He was judging that evening at the Naga Hindi Voice competition (a sort of Naga Pop Idol) and he invited me. This turned out to be great fun, with the final 22 Nagas all singing Hindi Songs in the middle of a Dimapur street. The audience was all over the place, highly partisan and very loud, and it was great fun . OJ was his “Simon Cowell” best and was obviously a hugely respected and popular figure (as he should be being Nagaland’s first Mr India and Nagaland’s premier male model). The night ended with the voting, 22 candidates were whittled down to 14 with the long drawn out process ensuring some terrified and stressed out contestants. Back at Nungty’s, she and her cousin had prepared an enormous feast. It was a great evening.


The next day Langa arrived at 10.00am to collect me and take me to his girlfriends house in the rice paddy fields outside Dimapur. She lived in a beautiful large house with her two sisters and two brothers and parents. She and her parents had also prepared an enormous pork and snail Naga dish. We strolled around their property and enjoyed a relaxing warm afternoon. This place is idyllic, quiet, green with none of the usual India noise and clutter. Dimapur itself had the feel of a large sprawling incomplete dusty building site and Ato’s property felt like another country. Actually, I was starting to warm to the dusty Dimapur. It was just that under all that dust, rubbish and shocking roads I was discovering a lively young university town bursting with energy and youth. A far cry from the slightly more attractive but rather staid Guwahati.


In the afternoon we returned to Nungty’s where she had (wrapped in a large green leaf) more than 80 of the huge spiders I had encountered in Meghalaya the previous year. These were the ones that the German Biologist told me were being researched to see whether their webs could be farmed for the treatment of wounds, replacing stitches. Here Nungty was sitting with about 80 of these big Huntsman sized critters, which she casually picked up and pulled off their legs and popped them in the cooking pot. “We Nagas have a true reputation for eating everything,” she smiled as Langa nodded. Luckily I did not eat these or the grasshoppers or the grubs that were also in that days shopping basket.


What we did enjoy that night was a Naga dish called Angu Pongsen. This delicious fish dish was cooked inside a regularly turned large bamboo shoot over hot coals. Green chilli, river fish, fermented bamboo shoots and other greens plus a lot of ginger were slowly cooked together and eaten with rice and a traditional fiery chilli chutney, that blew my head off. The food was excellent.


The next morning Langa and I were up at 4.50am and out at just after five to catch our Tata 4x4 shared Sumo to Mokokchung. Our final destination was the northern Naga Konyak town of Mon, but for some strange reason on this Monday all the Sumos to Mon were full, so I decided we would go to Mokokchung and stay with the lovely family I stayed with in 2013 and complete the journey (on reputedly the worst road in India) the following day.


It was slow with all the road blocks, police and army checkpoints. I had forgotten about these ridiculous performances since my last visit and they were certainly time consuming and far more numerous than I recall. What was strange was again the way they treat foreigners in Nagaland. Outright harassment it would be called in the UK. Three times in four days I have been stopped, forced to register twice, when the Nagaland House in Kolkata told me the previous year “once is enough” On one occasion (in Dimapur) I had to register myself on a discarded piece of paper whilst the officer next to me had to phone some other people to find out what questions to ask. On another occasion a (I believe) policeman in plain clothes on his day off was chewing a local drug (beetle nut and dribbling red juice down his chin) whilst an accomplice was wearing pyjamas whilst all this registration stuff was going on. I had none of these problems in 2013, and now it seems endemic and unjustifiable (I mean what do they use the information for???). It obvious why some tourists are deterred from visiting this fascinating state and that is a great shame.


Eventually after all the delays, stops and congestion we arrived in Mokokchung. Amazingly, the taxi driver who met us at the Sumo station immediately recognised me. His name was Albert and I soon remembered that he had driven Dieter, myself and Dominique to Tuensang the previous year. I also recalled thinking he was the best and safest Sumo driver I had encountered. Nowadays he was a taxi driver and very pleased to see me again. The family at the guesthouse were also pleased to see me and it was nice to see them and their nice cottage with balcony. Suddenly it felt like coming home sitting on their balcony looking at the tremendous view over the roof tops of Mooching to the Naga Hills.


Auntie (Akok’s sister) continued to chat to men in Hindi, expecting to me to understand and quickly produced a little snack and some chai. I spoke with her husband whilst her son Tshui seemed to get on well with Langa. The rooms upstairs were just as I remembered, the only thing new in the whole place was a lady helping in the kitchen. We wandered around Mokokchung in the afternoon, again little had changed. I also continued my futile search for a map of Nagaland.


In the evening Langa went out for a beer with Tshui and I chatted with Auntie’s husband. After a sumptuous meal Langa and Tshui returned with a gaggle of teenagers and a man with a guitar who called himself Nagaland’s Bruce Lee. He played us a few songs, showed us his arm muscles and then proceeded to ask for money, all of which was somewhat unimpressive. They all left eventually after I showed little interest. This was a relief as had another early morning start to catch our Sumo to Mon.