The secret valley

Dzukou Valley, Nagaland & Manipur, India

This landscape is like nothing I’ve ever encountered and is so intensely beautiful and otherworldly!...
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Dzukou Valley, Nagaland & Manipur, India

This landscape is like nothing I’ve ever encountered and is so intensely beautiful and otherworldly!

From dawn till dusk the ever changing weather, light and color hues provided the most stunning show. During my time the visual was seasoned with regular and amazing thunder from neighboring valleys.

At night the sky was partly starry with amazing lightning shows in faraway thunder clouds, making it hard to go to sleep as it was so beautiful and without any sound from the thunder or any human!

This is shot at about 2650 meters elevation, yet there is rarely any show up here in winter – another unusual thing about this incredible place. But you can see it completely covered in frost, which must be incredible.

The valley floor, seen to the right, is a stunning botanical garden, flowering from early spring until autumn. During my time the yellows were abundant, with pink and purples in the mix.

This was in the rainy season, and I could easily have found myself staring at the thick fog for the duration, but I was lucky and only had rain as I was leaving. This is shot just before I headed back, and the low cloud rolling in here was the very start of an intense rain shower, with thunder and lightning striking really nearby – an amazing experience, as I had now experienced the stars, sun and rain during my short stay here.
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