Have you ever heard of Chin Hills? Have you ever been to Chin Hills? If you are a regular visitor to our blog, you probably might have read about Chin Hills. I posted a few articles about Chin Hills – Chin culture, Chin custom, towns and places in Chin Hills, videos I took from Chin Hills. Talking about Chin Hills would not be complete without Kanpetlet. For me, Kanpetlet is the most beautiful town in Chin Hills.
Kanpetlet is a small town in the southern Chin State. With a population of only around 2,000, Kanpetlet probably is the smallest town in Chin State. The town is just about 50 miles away from Mindat, and only 12 miles away from Saw from Yaw region. Most people in Kanpetlet are Chin, but there are now a large number of people from Yaw region, mostly from Saw, migrating to Kanpetlet. About half of the population in Kanpetlet is Christian, while the other half is Buddhists. People are usually friendly and helpful. You will find smiling faces wherever you go in Kanpetlet.
The town itself is a very quiet and lovely town. It is built on the slope of the mountain, with large mountains overshadowing the little town. The scene from the town is very beautiful, especially before the sunset. During winter, the mountains are covered in thick fog, transforming the whole town into a small paradise. From Kanpetlet, the view to the mainland Burma is very beautiful. When the weather is fine, you can see up to Irrawaddy River. This is the most fantastic view.
The town is very small that there are not many shops or restaurants. There are only two restaurants and three teashops. If you want to order any meal from the restaurant, you need to order in advanced as they usually do not stock meat. Sometimes, you cannot order meat as the restaurant cannot find meat. The three teashops usually open during the day, and serve tea, coffee and a few snacks which usually run out around noon. I usually go to Htan Lay’s Victoria Teashop in the center of the town which serves nice Indian snacks like nan and samosa. There is no market, only a few shops open in front of the individual houses. Fresh meat is not always available. You can buy pork or beef when the individual owners killed and sell. Chicken is available only if you buy alive and killed it yourself. This is the condition of the town.
Most of the houses are wooden houses. Electricity is available only two hours, from 6 PM to 8 PM at night. There are only three roads in the town, all of which meet each other again at the other end of the town. There is one hospital, one high school, a small post office and a manual telephone exchange which also serves as a public call outlet (PCO) to make trunk calls. There are only three phones at the PCO to make trunk call, using the IP Star satellite. The PCO opens from 9 AM to 10 AM in the morning, 12 PM to 1 PM in the afternoon and from 6 PM to 8 PM in the evening. There are always a lot of people waiting to call and receive trunk and international calls. (You cannot make international calls but you can still receive). For a very remote town like Kanpetlet, this PCO is a present from heaven.
Read Kanpetlet Part-2