Kohima Travel Guide: War Cemetery, Museum and Angami Villages

Kohima was the headquarters of the Naga Hills District under Assam, a start the district dates to G. H. Damant's appointment as Political Officer in 1879, and it is now the capital of Nagaland. The city fills a day; the Angami villages and the hills around it fill several more.

Kohima War Cemetery

The Kohima War Cemetery stands in the middle of the city on Garrison Hill, the site of the battle. The Kohima district describes it as a memorial to soldiers of the 2nd British Division who died fighting the Japanese invasion in April 1944, with a panoramic view over the city. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which has cared for it since August 1948, says its designer worked the tennis court across which the battle raged into the plan, and that the Kohima Cremation Memorial commemorates more than 900 Hindu and Sikh soldiers cremated according to their faith. It is a place of remembrance, so visit quietly.

Nagaland State Museum

The Nagaland State Museum, founded in 1970, holds artefacts from the state's tribes that illustrate Naga material culture and traditions. The Directorate of Art and Culture lists eight galleries: open-air display, key, ethnological, painting, textile, indigenous bamboo wall, wooden sculpture, and ornament and jewellery. It makes a useful first stop, because it puts names to the shawls, carvings and ornaments you will see in the villages later. The pages read give no opening hours, so ask your hotel to check before you go.

Naga Heritage Village, Kisama

Kisama is 12 km from Kohima on the national highway, with taxis available from the city. The heritage village is laid out as an ancient Naga village, so that visitors can see how one was arranged and how the morungs, the separate community houses for men and women, worked as places to learn skills and talk. Kisama is best known as the venue of the Hornbill Festival, held in the first ten days of December; the district page gives no visiting hours for the rest of the year, so ask locally.

Khonoma

Khonoma, 20 km west of Kohima, is an Angami village with terraced paddy fields. The Kohima district calls it India's first green village, and the Khonoma Nature Conservation and Tragopan Sanctuary protects the endangered Blyth's tragopan. The state tourism department's homestay list shows eight homestays in the village, which makes it the easiest place near Kohima to sleep in a village. Walk the terraces with a local guide, who will know which paths are open.

Japfu Peak

Japfu Peak rises to 3,048 m, about 15 km south of Kohima, and is the second-highest peak in Nagaland after Saramati. The Kohima district gives November to March as the season for it. It is the nearest of the high peaks to the capital. Start early, because hill roads are slow, and check conditions and the route up with the Directorate of Tourism or a local guide before you set out.

Dzükou Valley

Dzükou lies about 30 km south of Kohima, at around 2,450 m, in the hills between Nagaland and Manipur. Bamboo brush covers the slopes, and the district lists green hills, streams and seasonal flowers; the state tourism department says the valley turns into a floral wonderland in summer. It is reached on foot, and the Hornbill Festival programme includes Dzükou day hikes. Go with a local guide, take rain gear, and ask the Directorate of Tourism about the trail first.

Touphema Tourist Village

Touphema is a recreation of a traditional Angami Naga village, 36 km from Kohima by the district's detailed page and 41 km by its list of places, so allow a long drive. Guests stay in cabins and rooms built to look like traditional huts, with bonfires and cultural dances, local dishes such as ghalo and bamboo-baked fish, and a refurbished museum of wood carvings, musical instruments, textiles and jewellery. The Angami Sekrenyi festival is celebrated in the village in February.

Kohima's winters are cold. IMD gives a January mean maximum of 15.5°C and a minimum of 8.0°C, and the lowest temperature ever recorded in the city is 1.0°C. Summers are moderate: the hottest months, July and August, average about 25.0°C by day and 19.0°C at night. The city gets 180.5 cm of rain a year, about 64 per cent of it in the south-west monsoon, with August the wettest month at 36.6 cm and December the driest at 0.7 cm. Sky is heavily clouded in the monsoon, and fog occurs from May to October, occasionally from December to April.

That makes the dry months from November to March the most comfortable, with February for Sekrenyi and early December for Hornbill. Japfu Peak suits November to March. The monsoon is wet and foggy, and thunderstorms in March and April are sometimes accompanied by hail.

Kohima has no airport or railway station of its own. The nearest domestic airport and the nearest railway station are both at Dimapur, roughly 74 km away according to the Kohima district. Nagaland State Road Transport buses run between Dimapur and Kohima, night buses run too, and shared or reserved taxis leave from the stand next to Dimapur railway station. From Guwahati, the state tourism department gives 8 to 9 hours by road and advises starting and finishing the drive before nightfall; private luxury buses and taxis also connect Guwahati and Shillong with the state's district headquarters. Indian visitors need an Inner Line Permit before entering the state; our Nagaland travel guide explains how to apply.