The famous Nohwet village, known for its living root bridges and other natural beauty, has just reopened following the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Speaking to Highland Post, the acting headman of Nohwet, Bitlinwell Khongthiem, said the village had applied for permission early in the month but could only reopen to visitors on Friday after the go-ahead was given by the civil authorities.
However, the village has still only seen fewer than 20 tourists a day since then. The parking lot where most visitors park their cars, though, falls under Riwai village and that will not open until next month.
Nohwet is another picturesque tourist spot that appears to have a bad case of vaccination hesitancy, with Khongthiem saying that less than 25 percent of the inhabitants have taken the Covid-19 vaccine.
However, all of the volunteers who look after the living root bridges have, thankfully, gotten the jab.
“We have put up signboards, etc, where all the protocols laid down by the Health Department have been mentioned to contain the spread of Covid-19 and our volunteers, who are mostly members of the CCMT (Community Covid Management Teams), are seeing that the protocols are strictly followed at this tourist spot,” he said.
Khongthiem further said that the coronavirus crisis has badly hit the livelihoods of the villagers, with over 400 households directly dependent on tourism.
“We are paying daily wages to the volunteers, including cleaners who maintained the tourist spot, but in these almost two years the pandemic has affected everything but we are hopeful that everything will bounce back to normal,” he said.
Maintenance of the bridges is hard enough work but the villagers have also cleaned and fed the 200 or so root bridges with compost twice a year. They have also been undertaking efforts to grow a second layer in order to produce a double-decker bridge in time.
