Shillong

Our Itinerary:
Day1: Delhi-Guwahati-Cherrapunjee
Day2: Cherrapunjee & Cherrapunjee - Mawlynnong

Day3: Mawlynnong & Mawlynnong - Shillong

Day4- Shillong + Day 5: Shillong-Guwahati-Delhi

We reached Shillong again at around 6.30 PM, by now it has become our official checking-in time for any city. As it was 26^th January (Republic Day) the entire market was closed, my first task at hand was took look for some open bakery to purchase a cake for 12’o Clock Birthday celebrations. The each and every shop in the market was closed, all the passages were empty as if, there is some curfew, but we kept on driving here and there. Finally out of nowhere I found one very nice looking bakery, while walking my eyes got glued on bakery only and I fell into a Deep (around 2 feet) drain kind of thing. Never the less I immediately got up and completed the task to purchase an awesome and expensive cake!!

Mawphlong Dam @ Shillong

**Interesting Fact # 7: Awesome Non-Veg Food

Shillong is a hub for Non-Veg food, and some really awesome non-veg food is prepared and served here, we had to rely on other tourist feedback for that. While deciding for dinner options our driver told that around 300 Pigs are consumed every-day in Shillong itself!!

Shop Selling Raw Meat

Our booking was with Aerodene Cottage, a homestay run by two ladies with a purpose to serve this heritage cottage. As soon as we looked at our room, we simply fell in love with it. The entire room decorated with whites and all items placed in a tasteful manner. Icing on the cake was a private sit-out to spend the evening having beautiful plants all around.

A cup of tea, some cookies and endless calmness, what else one need to complete your evening!! The dinner was being served at common dining area at 8.30 PM. At the dinner table we met a girl who had quit her job and was on indefinite vacation spend some time with herself. I envy such people so much, who have a courage to quit everything to follow their heart!!By the time we were finishing dinner met we met Amit he was there for work. He does exactly the same job (to earn bread and butter) as I do. So we got a common topic to discuss and got some tips for Shillong as he knew that region pretty-well.

For morning we had plans to go to the Scared Forest in Mawphlong. We took a guide named Bond and he told us some stories associated with the forest and while doing so he was also collecting each and every food/beverages wrappers littered in the jungle. An idea just floated through my mind, instead of cribbing about the litter, if we also do the way Bond did, who knows Delhi also might become cleanest capital city!!

Bond was kind enough to invite to his home for some refreshment, we had a good discussion with his father who seemed to be a respected man in their village. After that Nanu parked the car in an open complex kind of thing and took us to climb few stairs by the side of a huge wall. Suddenly out of nowhere we reached a beautiful Mawphlong Dam, and there was nobody not a single living soul to admire the deep blue river surrounded by the mountains and imprisoned by the Dam.

Mawphlong Dam

**Interesting Fact # 8: Land of Waterfalls

Meghalaya has several waterfalls in each and every corner of the state. There are numerous waterfalls in and around Shillong, the famous ones are:  Bishop Falls, Elephant Falls, Spread Eagle Falls, Sweet Falls, Crinoline Falls and Beadon Falls. In Cherrapunjee (Sohra) also, the heavy rainfall has sculpted beautiful rock formations and waterfalls namely: Nohkalikai falls, Dainthlen falls, Khoh Ramhah, Kynrem Falls, Nohsngithiang Falls.

Sweet Falls @ Shillong

We skipped to go to the most famous tourist destinations as we just has half a day remaining with us, we shortlisted few of then began with our little touristy stuff like visiting Shillong View Point (entire city can be seen from here), Sweet falls (Distant View of Falls with no-one around, Some locals say that these are haunted falls) & Cultural museum (Museum showcasing the culture and tribes of Seven Sisters, very informative), roam around in the market (nice small market with quite a few good cafes) to do some souvenir shopping and finally headed towards the Dinner at Tripura Castle.

Next day morning we got up early, had our morning tea at the sit-out, got ready and headed for dinner. At breakfast again I met one of my old colleague, we did some general catch-up as again Rahul got bored listening to our office talks. While chit-chatting we also got delayed by 30-45 mins so we had to skip Watch Lake and directly head towards Guwahati to catch our Flight back to Delhi.

We bade our final good-bye to this Fairy Land with heavy-heart and the feeling that, we could have spent some more time here.. 

Mawlynnong

Our Itineray:
Day1: Delhi-Guwahati-Cherrapunjee
Day2: Cherrapunjee & Cherrapunjee - Mawlynnong

Day3: Mawlynnong & Mawlynnong - Shillong

Day4- Shillong
Day5: Shillong-Guwahati-Delhi

We reached Mawlynnong at around 7.00PM. Nanu had arranged for a beautiful homestay at . They just have one bamboo cottage, to accommodate at maximum 4 pax. Henry’s mother served some delicious home-made food which was at very reasonable rates as well.

River @ Indo-Bangla Border

**Interesting Fact # 5: Asia’s Cleanest Village

Mawlynnong is also referred as God’s own Garden and was identified as Asia’s Cleanest Village in year 2003. As soon as we entered the village we could easily comprehend the basis behind it. One can spend good lone time here, the village is very calm and quite. Ultra clean, small passages having beautiful trees on both side of the passages.

The local residents are very conscious about the cleanliness. The villagers picking up the dried leaves and disposing them to the Bamboo Dustin, which are installed at every 10 feet of the village. The visitors are not allowed to dispose of plastic waste even in bamboo dustbins. They have to carry it back to find a proper disposing place.

Passage inside the Village

Brooms drying under Sun

There are Bamboo tree houses across the village, which offers breathtaking view of Bangladesh plains as it is located on the Indo-Bangla border. Though ascending & descending through those bamboo slopes can we little slippery and shaky at times.

Steep & Shaky Bamboo Tree House to get a top view of Bangladesh !

We started our morning with walking around the village soaking the calmness and simplicity of the village. After lunch we drove through the road surrounded by fields where boom sticks were being grown (Many villagers are into the business of making and selling brooms). The village offers picturesque natural beauty, a small 15 min trek to the living Root Bridge at a neighbouring village Riwai. The Living Root Bridge looked much older, taller, stronger, quieter (with no human soul around) and much accessible than the other bridges in Cherrapunjee.

Living Root Bridge @ Mawlynnong

**Interesting Fact # 6: Indo-Bangla Border

Unlike India-Pakistan (or India-China) Border, India-Bangladesh Border is quite clam and peaceful. These is not LOC defined with no “No-man’s land”. It feels good with neighbouring country share ecological resources with friendliness towards each other. The road for good 25-30 kms towards dawki, is so close to Bangladesh that if you take leap (and mind it, it’s not Spider man leap!!) you can easily enter it.

Kids Playing in Bangladesh

Near Dawki Dam

So we drove next to open fields of the Bangladesh for good 30-45 mins and ventured into Bangladesh at two places. The drive to Dawki is very picturesque, especially while driving by the side of Umngot River you enter into the fairy land, with turquoise Blue River being surrounded by the huge mountains on the either side, which are connected through a concrete bridge (Dawki Bridge) over the river. We visited the checkpost at the border didn’t get down.  It is an official border crossing area which allows vehicles and people to pass through (With valid papers off course).

For here we took a “U” turn and headed towards Shillong our last destination for the Tour. 

Cherrapunjee

Day1: Delhi-Guwahati-Cherrapunjee

Day2: Cherrapunjee & Cherrapunjee - Mawlynnong

Day3: Mawlynnong & Mawlynnong - Shillong

Day4- Shillong

Day5: Shillong-Guwahati-Delhi

The hotel we were staying, was an ECO RESORT Sai-Mika, off course arranged by Nanu and verified by me. Huge open property, with spacious cottages build in old style. The place is very quiet and beautiful. The restaurant is a stand-out, decorated with portraits of Rock Stars, dim lighting, rock music (of 70s-80s) at backdrop and small sit-out with bonfire arrangement. Good Chinese food was served in a huge tiffin style box. I spent some alone time in the balcony just to soak the quite surroundings and appreciate the sight of diamond studded sky and then retired to sleep after finishing of some office work, which I forgot to do on Friday!!  

Morning 6.30, the sun was up with full swing, gazing right into your eyes. Our geyser wasn’t working, so we had to call Antanu to correct it. Due to this we were delayed by an hour. We wanted to start-off early as today was going to be the most tiring and adventurous day.

**Interesting Fact # 3: Living Route Bridges

The living root bridges, are the tree roots grown to the other end of the river to form a bridge. The Rubber fig tree routes are trained to grow through the hollow betel tree trunks (which are placed across the gap) until they root on the other side of the river/gap. The thin long and tender roots of trees are passed through the hollow halves of betel nut tree trunks and as the root grows the bridge takes it shape and strength. It generally takes 10- 15 years to grow a functional living root bridge. Stones and mud is put on the bridge to make the surface smoother and walkable.

As the bridge grows older it also grows stronger, they are naturally self-renewing and self-strengthening as the component roots grow thicker. These bridges in are approx. 150-200 years old.

 There are several living root bridges in this area. The most famous ones are Double Decker and Long Root Bridge. As the name suggests, the double decker bridge is grown in at two levels for crossing the same river. The Long root bridge is thinner and leaner in structure and around 100 feet long.

Front View of Dobule Decker; Living Root Bridge

The route to reach the double decker is not that easy. One has to climb down around 4000 stairs to reach the bridge and also climb those back to reach the car parking area.we started at around 9.15 AM. On the way we encountered beautiful sceneries of the lush green forest on both side of the stairs. At midway there is a villages, the route for Long Root Bridge and Double Decker Bridge diverts here. As suggested by Nanu we first went to Double Decker as it was quite far. Enroute Double Decker we found two rope bridges. The first one was small bridge build on the shallow flowing river. These had lean structure with just enough space for one person to cross at a time. At first those rope bridges look little too lean to cross but once we got on it, it felt perfectly safe and serene.

The unending Stairs

The second bridge was a two stage bride having a pillar in the middle to support the structure. This one had cleaner and bluer water flowing beneath it. The landscape was giving a feeling as if you have entered some live (water) painting having vibrant such blues, greens & browns, with colorful butterflies flying on the beautiful flowers blossomed here & there.

The Rope Bridge

Capturing that image in our mind we moved forward and after some time there we encountered our first living root bridge. It was a small one, giving a far view of the double decker towards its right. Now we climbed up a little to cross the Nongriat village and Reach Double Decker.

Side view of the Bridge

While returning we took the diversion towards the Long Root Bridge it was a 15 mins climb up to the bridge. And after that the mammoth stair-climb was staring at us. Somehow we managed to reach the parking at around 1.30 – 1.45 Pm, with no energy for doing even nothing.

**Interesting Fact # 4: Caves

Meghalaya is home for number of Caves especially in Khasi hills near Cherrapunjee. Just to name a few, Krem Liat Prah (Janita Hills) the longest caves in India, Siju Cave (Garo Hills) is famous for bas and offers some of the finest river passages. 

Then we went to visit Mawsmai Caves, small and fully commercialized caves just to get the feeling of the cave one can visit here. We couldn’t do full-fledged caving in Mawmluh Cave because of shortage of time, as that would have required minimum 6 hrs and full energy.

@Mawsmai Cave

Now we were heading to Mawlynnong, enroute we visited two water falls Nohkalikai and Dainthlen falls.

Sunset Near the Dainthlen Falls

Meghalaya

Our Itineray:

Day1: Delhi-Guwahati-Cherrapunjee

Day2: Cherrapunjee & Cherrapunjee - Mawlynnong
Day3: Mawlynnong & Mawlynnong - Shillong
Day4- Shillong
Day5: Shillong-Guwahati-Delhi

The year 2014 was dedicated to sky high Himalayas. It started from the trip to heaven on earth Kashmir in January, progressed with the adventurous tour to Kalpa-Sangla Valley and Lahaul-Spiti in June, Chandrataal in August and ended with the eventful tour to Mcleodganj and Dalhousie.

We planned to start this year with some awesome beach destination, and when it comes to white sand beaches with crystal clear waters, what better location can there be than Lakshadweep Islands. Somehow we started off little late for planning, and it couldn’t materialise, but cancelling the trip is never an option in my world that too when it was planned to celebrate Rahul’s Birthday!!

We shifted our destination from the untouched islands of south east India to the wettest place on earth towards the North east India, Meghalaya. The entire planning for the trip was done in a jiffy, Rahul called up his friend who recently visited there, took the cab driver’s (Nanu) number and the other arrangements were based on Nanu’s recommendation. The suggestion we got from our friend was just to follow Nanu’s advice and everything will be sorted. I tried to do that but the travel freak inside me didn’t let me do that. So just to satisfy my hunger, I had to do basic secondary research to design the itinerary and at least verify our stay option suggested by our driver.

**Interesting Fact # 1: Tribes of Meghalaya

There are primarily 3 tribes in Meghalaya: Khasi, Garos & Janitas. Garos are settled in the Garo hills of Meghalaya, while the Khasis are scattered all across the state and are known by different names. Mainly the pure Khasis can be sited at the Khasi hills where as the Pnars or Jaintias can be located on Jaintia hills. Garos are known as the descendants of Bodo family of the Tibeto-Burmar race who came down to the north eastern states, all the way from Tibet. The Khasis and Pnars or Jaintias are the believed to be descendants of Proto Austroloid Monkhmer race.

Shillong, Cherrapunjee and Mawlynnong are all part of East Khasi Hills.

Waking up early on a Saturday Winter morning is a task in itself but somehow we managed. We could barely manage to board the connecting at 7.50AM for 7.45AM flight, as Delhi was on highest security alert as US President Obama was coming for 26^th January.

Just 15-20mins after the take-off, all I could see was snow covered Himalayan Peaks making their way out of the greyish-white cloud blanket. Though I couldn’t recognize the exact name of the peaks but most likely we would have seen Dhaulagiri (8,167m), Annapurna (8,091m), Everest (8,848 m). Not every day you get such spectacular views through the window!! The sight mere sight of it was enough to re-kindle my love for sky high Himalaya and I suggested Rahul to divert our journey towards Tawang. Little did he agree with me!!

We started our trip by paying a visit to Kamakya Devi Temple. There was huge queue of Worshippers to get inside the temple. There were two shorter queues one with 100 Rs payment (which closed by the time we reached) and another with a payment of 500 Rs to get an express entry into the temple. The temple door closes at 1.00PM and opens at around 2.30 PM.

The temple is one of the 51 Shakti peeths of Goddess Durga and has special importance for ‘Tantrik Kriya’. Legend has it that following the destruction of Daksha's sacrifice and the Rudra Tandava of Shiva parts of Sati's body fell at several places throughout India, and these places are revered as Shakti peethas. The reproductive organ of Sati, (the Yoni) is said to have fallen here.

At the outer area of temple there is an idol of goddess Durga. There were 5 goat heads (separated from their bodies) lying in-front of the Goddess Idol (Goat sacrifice is a common ritual followed here to worship the Goddess). It also took us 1½ hrs. to enter (after paying 500 Rs each) and offer our prayers at main sanctum which is in in the form of a cave, which consists of no image, but a natural underground spring that flows through a yoni-shaped cleft in the bedrock.

We headed towards our destination, Cherapunjee via Shillong. On the way to Shillong we halted a Umiam Lake, which offered an spectacular view of the Sunset. While talking to Nanu we came to know about many traditions/facts/culture of the Meghalaya and its people.

Sunset @ Umiam Lake

**Interesting Fact # 2: Matricidal Society

The tribes at Meghalaya follow matrilineal lineage whereby a property's inheritance is traced through the women. Children keep the surname of their mother in few cases. Unlike other part of country girl child is considered a boon here, as by having a girl there blood line keeps on growing.

Though the women section of the tribes at Meghalaya take the responsibility of the household work, men are responsible for the mental and material life of his family.

After marriage if a man has married the youngest or only daughter of the family, then man moves into the woman’s house and they reside with girl’s family. And if man has married other than the youngest daughter then the couple has to move out and build their own home separately. Neither can they stay at guy’s house nor at girl’s house. The property also gets transferred to the women in the house. There is only one restriction i.e., one cannot marry in the same clan and the marriage should get the approval of the family members. 

Khasi Women in Meghalaya