Phawngpui: Climbing the “Blue Mountain”

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Phawngpui, literally “blue mountain” in Mizo, at rather lowly 2158 m (7078 ft) is the highest point in the state of Mizoram.  The mountains or hills of Mizoaram make up for what they lack in height with shear quantity making it the state with the fewest acres of flat land in India.  Phawngpui stands close to the Burmese (Myanmar) border in southeast Mizoram.  Knowing my love for trekking, Himpuii suggested I hike up the forest covered peak on my visit to southern Mizoram.  From Saiha I traveled 3 hours to northeast to the village of Sangau, the point were I would start my hike over Phawngpui, and add the “Blue Mountain” to my list of peak conquests.  I almost always prefer to hike without a guide, though in this case a guide provided by the forest department was mandatory, so I shelled out the 500 rupees to let the forest ranger tag along (I generally led most of the hike so he didn’t really do much guiding but he was a pleasant enough guy who new a few words of English).  The path passes through a couple of villages before the steep forested accent to Farpac a flat meadow about and hour and half from the summit bound by steep sided cliffs which provide a dizzying view of the valley below.  While the weather was not ideal the clouds that shrouded the peak most of the day finally lifted as we sat resting at the summit revealing the rolling green hills of Mizoram below.   From the peak we descended to the village of Vonbuk on the southeastern base of Phawngpui, not far from the Burmese border.  I stayed in the tourist loge though the woman running it didn’t speak a lick of English, I managed to get a bit of food and arrange a seat in sumo back to Sahai in the morning despite the language barrier.  Vonbuk was a pleasant village and I spent the afternoon wandering about taking pictures of the amused kids and having tea with the locals.