My quest for exploration took me to Benreu, a small and beautiful village in Peren district of Nagaland. We were a group of five friends, all young-at-heart, adventure enthusiast. Together, we trekked the first mounting degree of Mount Pauna, which is also the third highest peak of Nagaland, without any preparation or knowledge about the peak with the help of two school children as our guide.

My friend, Abeli, told me about this beautiful village, which also happens to be her birthplace, when I asked her for places to explore in Nagaland after having experienced and enjoyed the Hornbill festival in Kohima. She arranged for our stay in the Tourist village resort ( Mount Pauna Tourist Village resort) and also scheduled for an escort from Kohima to Benreu ,which we later realized was extremely important as there were almost no roads in some places and had it not been for our escort, there was hardly a soul around to guide us on the way.

Benreu is about 67 km off Kohima, the state capital, and 120 km off Dimapur, the commercial capital of Nagaland. Both the roads were extremely rough and prone to landslide during summer.This is one of the major reasons, besides the lack of proper transportation facility that Benreu does not attract too many tourists.

We started from Kohima after breakfast around 9am and reached Benreu at around 4 pm. Our Innova traversed bad roads throughout the journey, but we were safe at the expert hands of Baruah, our driver. In places, we had to get down from the car in order to cross some real bad patches. The five of us being both adventurous as well as intrepid, were thrilled and thoroughly enjoyed the rough journey.

The coffee, cake and roasted pork ribs ,sent by Abeli with her driver, saved us from the hunger pangs as there were no shops or food available during the entire journey. We enjoyed the beautiful landscape and stopped several times to experience the beauty of nature. The driver of the escort car got angry as our Innova was taking more time than his Maruti Gypsy and retorted angrily, "tohoti aji 12 ghontatu napabi" (You will not reach Benreu even in 12 hours).

When we saw Benreu, from a distance, we just forgot all about our tiredness. It was one of the most beautiful villages that I have ever seen. The village tourist resort was situated in a big open field with a Morung in the front. The reception,restaurant ,staff rooms and dormitory were housed in a 3-story building while eight double bedded cottages with attached toilets and necessary amenities were constructed under the trees ,making you feel closer to the nature.

As soon as we entered, we were greeted by a lovely lady, who was the caretaker of the resort. She was a wonderful lady and with the help of two boys, she took good care of us. The resort is separated from the village by a few meters and a few stone steps. There was also a huge football field situated just in front of the resort campus.

The village is situated 1950 metre (7000 ft) above sea level, with Mount Pauna overlooking the village and surrounded by a dense forest. It has around 180 households with a population of 850 according to 2011 census. Majority of the population are christians and home to Zeliangs and Kukis with a high literacy rate ( 593 according to 2011 census). The village is a centre for ethnic tourism and 20 per cent people are animist.

Livelihood of the people in Benreu is mostly agriculture. They mostly grow oranges and Mangoes. They also rear Mithuns. The people of Benreu believe in conserving forest. Because of this conservation, there is good source of water in the village and every households in the village has running water facility.There is also electricity in every household. As a part of their conservation, there is also a ban in killing birds and wild animals in the village.

Like in the case of other hilly regions, the people in Benreu also practiced Jhum cultivation in older days. But after knowing the adverse affect of burning the forest for cultivation, they had imposed a ban on Jhum cultivation.The village is very rich in flora and fauna. Rhododendrons, different varieties of orchids ,wild flowers are grown here . Different varieties of birds and animals are also found here.

All of us being the adventurous kind, we wanted to trek the Mount Pauna peak. We were advised to start our climbing to the peak after midnight so that we are able to see the sunrise from the peak. Being new in the village, we asked our caretaker lady in the village resort to arrange for some guides to help us in our trek . Luckily enough, we insisted on having two guides ,although she assured us that one guide will be enough. During our dinner,two schoolboys came to meet us and we were told they will be our guide to the peak. One of them was studying in class XII and the other was in class VIII. We decided to start our climb at 3 am. But one of us insisted on starting at 2 am. After dinner,we went to our respective cottages for a short nap. We all were mesmerised to see the clear sky and the big twinkling stars looking at us.

we all got ready by 2 am. Our caretaker lady made tea for us and we carried chocolate and biscuits along as we headed for the adventure without knowing how tough is the road.We walked through the stone stairs of the village and crossed 2 km. Being inexperienced in the hilly terrains, I was quickly tired with the ups and downs of the steps inside village ,I started wondering, if I would be able to climb the peak. Once we reached the base of the peak, we started our ascend, climbing the narrow path, which could hardly accommodate one person to at a time. We still trekked along guided by the light of the pencil torch, which each one of us were carrying. It was really cold in the month of December and we all were wearing heavy jackets etc and good shoes. Our guides were wearing light woollens and Hawaii Chappals. The boys were shivering. I gave one of my jackets to the younger boy to wear.We were surprised to see them climbing with ease, where we had to really struggle and sometimes had to use both feet and hands to climb certain patches.One of us got scared and decided to go back after 10 minutes of climbing.

After climbing for about 2 hours, we four, Uttam Borthakur, Rubi Goswami,Fazlul Alam and myself managed to reach the first peak of Mount Pauna just before sunrise. I will never forget the bright big stars in the sky; if only we could pluck them and hold them.It was Fazlul’s birthday, and we celebrated at the peak with biscuits,chocolates and tea in front of the bonfire the boys lit with the drifted woods.It must have been the most memorable birthday in his life.

There was also a natural water spring at the peak, from where water is supplied to the village.We waited for the sunrise, which I strongly believe is still the best sunrise in our lives. We decided not to proceed on our climb to the second and the third peak as it was a little risky climb and it would have been even more difficult to climb without having a stick, thus we started with our descend.

Mount Pauna is the third highest peak of Nagaland. Reaching to the top of the peak will be an interesting trek along 3 mounting degrees, of which we reached the first one. The summit of Mount pauna is situated 2486 metre above sea level. We returned to the resort and slept for sometime.

Post breakfast, we walked around the village. Fazlul did some birding. After lunch, our caretaker lady took me and Rubi to the village. The village was very clean and probably it was one of the cleanest villages that I have ever seen.There was a big Morung in the centre of the village. Inside the Morung it was very dark. It had wooden benches and beds with the heads of wild animals hanging over it. People of the village are very friendly and they are very close to each other.

We returned the next morning, this time we took the road to Dimapur via Paren town. This route is longer but little better than the route from Kohima. It still took us good eight hours to reach Dimapur.This route is also equally scenic. Peren is also a beautiful town.

I will never forget the memory of Benreu in my life. This place is so rich in culture, flora and fauna, beautiful and serene with friendly and helpful villagers and development, makes it an ideal village.Lack of good communication, bad roads and lack of proper guidance are probably keeping this heaven out of reach from the normal tourist.

Dr Mitali Baruah

( The author is a Consultant Physician and her favourite hobbies are travelling and photography. She can be reached at [email protected] )

Photo- Dr Mitali Baruah and Fazlul Alam