To the Land of Jewels-Manipur

We started our journey to Imphal from Guwahati through Air Asia flight from Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport to Imphal International Airport .We hired a cab from Manipur cab Service and the proceeded towards the guest house in ICAR,Lamphelphat.This was our first day in Imphal and we had very less time to go any distant place. We decided to give a visit to the Ima Keithel,the largest women run market in Asia and explore the Imphal city.Then we proceeded towards Kangla fort,a site of historic remembrances and Imphal War cemetery but unfortunately both the gates were closed because it was dark by the time we reached because of winter season.We then headed to my Girlfriend’s place,had our dinner there and headed back to the guest house.

This was our second day and our plan was to reach Ukhrul district which is around 109kms from Imphal .So we packed our bags from the guest house and headed to ISBT,Khumanlampak from where we got our winger tickets to Ukhrul.The fare from Imphal to Ukhrul was INR 180/person.It took us more than  3 hours to reach Ukhrul and as soon as we reached we went to to a hotel called -25 Degree North and then called up Sancham from Chiko Adventures who is working in a travel venture based in Ukhrul.Charges for the room were INR 700 for single room and INR 1200 for double room.Immedietly after checking in we started our way towards the Shirui Peak which was around an hour drive from the town of Ukhrul and another hour of a short trek from the Shirui village.The sunset from the peak was the best sunset i enjoyed till date.

Today  our plans were to explotre the Khangkhui caves and then head to Nitai Te Estate.We started early alongwith Ayo,our driver and guide for the day.It took us around 4 hours to reach the caves because the roads were quite in an off-roading condition.We started to crawl inside the cave  and i was quite confused because that was the first time i entered a cave.We continued for about 15 mins and started back and explored the whole area.Then we headed to Nillai tea estate.We spent our time watching the sunset from the estate and continued back to our hotel in Ukhrul.Vehicle charge for the day –INR 4000(bolero)

Today our plan was to reach Imphal from Ukhrul and head directly to Moirang.We walked to the taxi stand early but unfortunately it was  Sunday and there were almost no taxis to Ukhrul.After waiting for more than an hour a local taxi stopped by and asked us to pay INR 300 instead of the normal fare of INR 180 till Ukhrul.We had no alternative and so we started our return jourmey along with 3 other peoples.Everything was fine until the vehicle broke down somewhere about 50kms from Ukhrul in the midst of nowhere.We waited for another hour hoping he vehicle will be fine but that was completely useless.We started asking for lifts an fortunately a bolero stopped by and offered us lift.We reached a small town and got in a small van and continued to Imphal.After having our lunch at the Emoinu hotel in Imphal,we started our journey to Moirang in a bus from a place called Whengbamleikai.It took us an hour to reach Moirang and another 30 mins to reach Loktak lake and then finally to the floating campsite called Loktak Aquamarine.We were hosted by Mr Ashok from Sangai moonlight camping and welcomed us with some amazing lemon grass tea.We were quite lucky to get some glimpses of the sunset from Loktak lake and spent the night taking photos of the night sky and the lake.

This was the last day in Manipur and the end of the trip.We had planned to leave for Silchar from Imphal and haul for a night.So we started at around 7 from moirang and got in the vehicke to Silchar at around 8AM.We headed by the Imphal-Jiribam road and by the time we reached Silchar it was around 5:30 PM.We checked in to a hotel called Hotel Milan Sree booked through goibibo.The deal was quite cheap as we got a double room and asingle room for just 1600 INR.Next day we spent the day in Silchar and boarded a bus from Silchar ISBT to Guwahati and thus ended the trip.