The land of clouds : Chearapunjee
Tiger expert Atul Dhamankar has organsied his annual kaziranga camp and we signed up for it isntantly. It was only wise that we visit as many places as we could of this faroff land 6 years back had a chance to be Meghalaya governments guest and visit shillong , however that was an official visit so was short on time.Only after few years hence i came to know of the living root bridges and was disappointed not to have visited such a wonder . So when we finalised Kaziranga , Cherrapunjee was default addition in to do list.
Cherrapunjee
Sohra , as it is locally know is the worlds rainiest place with average annual rainfall of 11692mm , in 2007 it was close to 16000mm. Beauty of shohra strucks you instantly and there is lot still unexplored in this place.
Cherapunjee is 180kms from Guhwahati , the nearest airport and just 70kms from shillong. Situated at height of about 1000 meters this place receivies rain 9 months of the year caused by heavy evaporates from bay of bengal in the nearby Bangladesh. December to February are dry months and the best time to explore the wilderness that sohra offers.
Being the rainiest place doesnt mean ample availability of water though , because of the gravellous nature of the soil and the mountains , most of the water flows back to Bangladesh where it aids unending planes of rice fields.
Situated in the laps of Khasi hills , cherapunjee is still much unexlpored and has much to offer than the torrential rains and the waterfalls.
Cherrapunjee Holiday resort
Few of my friends had advised infact forced me to stay in Cherapunjee holiday resort only , I called the owner Mr.Ryan few days back and he decliend our request for reservations stating that resort is open only for the families , I had to ask my friends who had stayed their and our cab driver to put some weight and allow us to stay in this overprised resort. yes is is overprised , 2700 per day for a bed and breafast is bit overprised but priseless if it is the only resort available in the region .
Flight from Mumbai to Guwahati was good , scenic . If you are flying to guwahati , always remember to book the seats on the left side of the plane . If you are flying from delhi you might see the mount everest on a clear sky day. The views while flying from mumbai were not bad either , the moutnain ranges surrounding darjiling and sikkim were visible from the flight which made it less boring.
We had booked the cab to pick us up from Guwahati and take us to Cherapunjee , the public transport in this region when i travelled 6 years back used to close down at 5pm and i didnt want to take any chances and stay in guwahati and waste a day. Shim , our driver , translator , guide for the next few days has arrived on time and we began our journey towards cherapunjee.
It takes close to 5 hours to reach guwahati , the road condition is good only if it is not blocked by the truck drivers protests , in that case add an extra few hours and enjoy the off road drive through interiors of meghalaya , we did just that.
The resort even though the name suggest is 20kms away from Cherapunjee and is located in a village of Laitkensew. The USP of this resort is its closeness to the bridges and other trekking spots.
The resort however is neat clean and has a very homely comfort and food , it just that you pay 2700 per day for the home like comfort.
So finally after 7 hours of drive we manage to reach the resort at 9 pm and to our surpisrise there were few singles and non family guys already staying at the place and they were not denied the reservations at all.
On arrival we wre presented with the booklet of all the possible treks and other adventure activities to choose from , after some discussion with the resortmates we decided to do river cannoying and reach nongriant and visit the double decker bridge at umishang. There are as many as 15 bridges and only one double decker bridge.
Later on we came to know that the owner Mr.Ryan was going out of town and hence doesnt want singles to came to his resort and cause racuss. I think he had a bad experience with indian singles in the past as he allowed foreign singles without cross questioning.
Roameo Riding
One great thing about this resort is even though its bit overprised for indian travellers it is always preferred by foreigners and you can find some interesting company here. We had a privilage of meeting Ryan here. Ryan is a cannadian whos been riding his 800cc Triumph Tiger since last 2 years and has till date travelled close to 90000 kms through 4 continents and 28 countries. We had a great time listening to ryan's travel tales and we couldnt help but to ask hi,m how come hes not bored of riding for this long ...as our 22 dayspiti-laddakh trip just ment riding from sunrise to sunset which bored us in the end , Ryan has a great explanation for this "Less is more" he said , "I never try to race against time , I reach a destination and then just wait there till i enjoy it to fullest , then i move forward , doesnt matter if you are riding bike or driving a car if your purpose is travelling and exploring that place , driving should be secondary" . It is a great advise from a very well travelled man which we will try and remember.
Ryan also maintains his blog roameoriding.blogspot.com where you can checkout his travel tales.
Umasi River Canyoning
Trek through the river cannoyn is not new for us we have plenty of such treks here in maharashtra but a trek through rocks and water is always tempting.
Trek starts from a nearby village at about 4 kms from the resort , a small descend takes you to the river basin and from here onwards its a adventure ride through heavy buldors and picturesque ponds .
Its too hard not to take a plunge in these crystal clear water pools but when you have a long trek ahead and not much time due to early sunset time , its wise not to waste much time. The views however are breathtaking, even though we had done this type of treks in the past , this one was different due to massive size of the buldors . Our guide abniss due to his smaller structure was finding it easy to make his way through small gaps and holes for us it was not that easy but hell lot of enjoyment.. After close to 2 hours we reached the hanging bridge before village nongriant . Hanging bridge is something we havent experienced before we walked past it without any difficulty but then realised that our feet were trembling ,body's natural reaction to the height , we got used to it after the first one and was throughly enjoyable.
Jinkiyang Jiri
When you travel thorugh the small villages in meghalaya , you would find that the people here have leanred to live in harmony with the nature. The living root bridges are perhaps testimony to this.
The local name for these bridges in Jinkiyang Jiri , the bridges of the rubber tree roots. These bridges were created by ancenstor khasi tribes using the secondary roots of the Indian Rubber plant.
Indian rubber , Ficus Elastica is a plant adopted to these land of heavy rainfalls and massive soil errosion. It has many secondary roots , growing in all directions and holding on to anything that comes in their path , heavy buldors , rocks , walls etc.
The wise khasi people used this to their advantage and using beetal nut wood to direct the growth of roots controlled the direction of root growth in such a way that they grew from one bank of the river to other. This bioengineering marvel would take close to 20-30 years of monitoring and maintenance. Once the bridge like structure is formed the stones are places to create pathway which over the time gets embedded in the bridge.
These bridges have a estimated lifespan of 500 years and til then they grown stronger and stronger.
There was one long root bridge as well near nongriant on the way to top , this bridge is created by single roots from one end to other .
From nongriant to the starting point is now 3000steps , long walk back to the resort. The pleasure we had in the cannyon , while jumping on the rocks and enjoying the scenary was nowhere here in climbing these stairs.
After one and half hours and lot of pain we reached the top.
Limestone Caves
Limestone caves are formed by the process called speleothemes which is nothing but the water cutting through the calcite based limestones. This process takes a very long times hence these caves are nothing short of natural marvel.
There are 2 caves open for tourists near cherapunjee , these caves are home to peculiar flora and fauns , many species of moths are also found in these caves.
Cherapunjee resport had listed in their thick book of to do list the adventure cave exploring , a group from shiilloing with all proper climbing equipments will take you to the tour of the depths in the caves , I am sure it will be amazing but we couldnt do it because of lack of time...something for the future :)
Mawlynnong :- Asia's cleanest village
People of meghalaya belive that their existance and survival is largly due to jungles , rivers and all the other natural elements and hence they respect them a lot and its in their culture to protect and preserve the nature. They are also a selfless buch of lot , the root bridges may have never been used by its constructor and are preserved for the future generations to use similarly one generation cultivates beetal nut crop and the next generation rips it.
Mount Kailash is a holy mountain for Khasi tribe as well however unlike we hindus who flock the mountain in thousands and leave the trash behind , Khasi's actually believe in preserving it and hence believe that you will reach their once you are dead and not while you are alive and should preserve its sanity till then.
In 2010 , Discovery India bestowed mawlynnong with the title of cleanest village in asia , since then tourists from all corners of the world are flocking it , mostly indians. All the villages i visited in meghalaya were neat and claen with bamboo or kane dustbins placed at regular distances and villagers making sure that garbage is not littered anywhere else , even our cab driver Shim kept the banana pill inside and dumped it in the dustbin when we reached the resort. I was curious to check what different MAwlynnong has done to be awarded cleaneset amongst the clean villages.
The village is about 110 kms from chearapunjee and the road is extremly beautiful with Khasi hills following from both sides. For a moment i felt like travelling in Konkan region of Maharashtra , similar green vegitation all over , small houses and winding roads.
Mawlynnong is clean and well maintained no doubt , but its like any other village in Meghalaya , I wanted to check of they are managing wests differently , yes there was a compost pit in front of everyhouse but now as outsiders are flocking this place the village is struggling to manage the plastic wastes which they bring.
Hence , help keep Mawlynnong clean and stay away from it.
Outside the village there are few tree houses , some are 55 ft above the ground and offer a view of bangladesh planes at nominal charge of 20 rs. Its difficult to get the view post noon as by then it gets hazzy but reaching the top is worth the fun.
There is still a lot meghalaya has to offer , its still very much unexplored and i hope one fine day like Ryan i will be no short of time to visit the land of clouds once again
Cherrapunjee
Sohra , as it is locally know is the worlds rainiest place with average annual rainfall of 11692mm , in 2007 it was close to 16000mm. Beauty of shohra strucks you instantly and there is lot still unexplored in this place.
Cherapunjee is 180kms from Guhwahati , the nearest airport and just 70kms from shillong. Situated at height of about 1000 meters this place receivies rain 9 months of the year caused by heavy evaporates from bay of bengal in the nearby Bangladesh. December to February are dry months and the best time to explore the wilderness that sohra offers.
Being the rainiest place doesnt mean ample availability of water though , because of the gravellous nature of the soil and the mountains , most of the water flows back to Bangladesh where it aids unending planes of rice fields.
Situated in the laps of Khasi hills , cherapunjee is still much unexlpored and has much to offer than the torrential rains and the waterfalls.
Cherrapunjee Holiday resort
Few of my friends had advised infact forced me to stay in Cherapunjee holiday resort only , I called the owner Mr.Ryan few days back and he decliend our request for reservations stating that resort is open only for the families , I had to ask my friends who had stayed their and our cab driver to put some weight and allow us to stay in this overprised resort. yes is is overprised , 2700 per day for a bed and breafast is bit overprised but priseless if it is the only resort available in the region .
Flight from Mumbai to Guwahati was good , scenic . If you are flying to guwahati , always remember to book the seats on the left side of the plane . If you are flying from delhi you might see the mount everest on a clear sky day. The views while flying from mumbai were not bad either , the moutnain ranges surrounding darjiling and sikkim were visible from the flight which made it less boring.
We had booked the cab to pick us up from Guwahati and take us to Cherapunjee , the public transport in this region when i travelled 6 years back used to close down at 5pm and i didnt want to take any chances and stay in guwahati and waste a day. Shim , our driver , translator , guide for the next few days has arrived on time and we began our journey towards cherapunjee.
It takes close to 5 hours to reach guwahati , the road condition is good only if it is not blocked by the truck drivers protests , in that case add an extra few hours and enjoy the off road drive through interiors of meghalaya , we did just that.
The resort even though the name suggest is 20kms away from Cherapunjee and is located in a village of Laitkensew. The USP of this resort is its closeness to the bridges and other trekking spots.
The resort however is neat clean and has a very homely comfort and food , it just that you pay 2700 per day for the home like comfort.
So finally after 7 hours of drive we manage to reach the resort at 9 pm and to our surpisrise there were few singles and non family guys already staying at the place and they were not denied the reservations at all.
On arrival we wre presented with the booklet of all the possible treks and other adventure activities to choose from , after some discussion with the resortmates we decided to do river cannoying and reach nongriant and visit the double decker bridge at umishang. There are as many as 15 bridges and only one double decker bridge.
Later on we came to know that the owner Mr.Ryan was going out of town and hence doesnt want singles to came to his resort and cause racuss. I think he had a bad experience with indian singles in the past as he allowed foreign singles without cross questioning.
Roameo Riding
One great thing about this resort is even though its bit overprised for indian travellers it is always preferred by foreigners and you can find some interesting company here. We had a privilage of meeting Ryan here. Ryan is a cannadian whos been riding his 800cc Triumph Tiger since last 2 years and has till date travelled close to 90000 kms through 4 continents and 28 countries. We had a great time listening to ryan's travel tales and we couldnt help but to ask hi,m how come hes not bored of riding for this long ...as our 22 dayspiti-laddakh trip just ment riding from sunrise to sunset which bored us in the end , Ryan has a great explanation for this "Less is more" he said , "I never try to race against time , I reach a destination and then just wait there till i enjoy it to fullest , then i move forward , doesnt matter if you are riding bike or driving a car if your purpose is travelling and exploring that place , driving should be secondary" . It is a great advise from a very well travelled man which we will try and remember.
Ryan also maintains his blog roameoriding.blogspot.com where you can checkout his travel tales.
Umasi River Canyoning
Trek through the river cannoyn is not new for us we have plenty of such treks here in maharashtra but a trek through rocks and water is always tempting.
Trek starts from a nearby village at about 4 kms from the resort , a small descend takes you to the river basin and from here onwards its a adventure ride through heavy buldors and picturesque ponds .
Its too hard not to take a plunge in these crystal clear water pools but when you have a long trek ahead and not much time due to early sunset time , its wise not to waste much time. The views however are breathtaking, even though we had done this type of treks in the past , this one was different due to massive size of the buldors . Our guide abniss due to his smaller structure was finding it easy to make his way through small gaps and holes for us it was not that easy but hell lot of enjoyment.. After close to 2 hours we reached the hanging bridge before village nongriant . Hanging bridge is something we havent experienced before we walked past it without any difficulty but then realised that our feet were trembling ,body's natural reaction to the height , we got used to it after the first one and was throughly enjoyable.
Jinkiyang Jiri
When you travel thorugh the small villages in meghalaya , you would find that the people here have leanred to live in harmony with the nature. The living root bridges are perhaps testimony to this.
The local name for these bridges in Jinkiyang Jiri , the bridges of the rubber tree roots. These bridges were created by ancenstor khasi tribes using the secondary roots of the Indian Rubber plant.
Indian rubber , Ficus Elastica is a plant adopted to these land of heavy rainfalls and massive soil errosion. It has many secondary roots , growing in all directions and holding on to anything that comes in their path , heavy buldors , rocks , walls etc.
The wise khasi people used this to their advantage and using beetal nut wood to direct the growth of roots controlled the direction of root growth in such a way that they grew from one bank of the river to other. This bioengineering marvel would take close to 20-30 years of monitoring and maintenance. Once the bridge like structure is formed the stones are places to create pathway which over the time gets embedded in the bridge.
These bridges have a estimated lifespan of 500 years and til then they grown stronger and stronger.
There was one long root bridge as well near nongriant on the way to top , this bridge is created by single roots from one end to other .
From nongriant to the starting point is now 3000steps , long walk back to the resort. The pleasure we had in the cannyon , while jumping on the rocks and enjoying the scenary was nowhere here in climbing these stairs.
After one and half hours and lot of pain we reached the top.
Limestone Caves
Limestone caves are formed by the process called speleothemes which is nothing but the water cutting through the calcite based limestones. This process takes a very long times hence these caves are nothing short of natural marvel.
There are 2 caves open for tourists near cherapunjee , these caves are home to peculiar flora and fauns , many species of moths are also found in these caves.
Cherapunjee resport had listed in their thick book of to do list the adventure cave exploring , a group from shiilloing with all proper climbing equipments will take you to the tour of the depths in the caves , I am sure it will be amazing but we couldnt do it because of lack of time...something for the future :)
 |
| Nohkalikai falls |
Mawlynnong :- Asia's cleanest village
People of meghalaya belive that their existance and survival is largly due to jungles , rivers and all the other natural elements and hence they respect them a lot and its in their culture to protect and preserve the nature. They are also a selfless buch of lot , the root bridges may have never been used by its constructor and are preserved for the future generations to use similarly one generation cultivates beetal nut crop and the next generation rips it.
Mount Kailash is a holy mountain for Khasi tribe as well however unlike we hindus who flock the mountain in thousands and leave the trash behind , Khasi's actually believe in preserving it and hence believe that you will reach their once you are dead and not while you are alive and should preserve its sanity till then.
In 2010 , Discovery India bestowed mawlynnong with the title of cleanest village in asia , since then tourists from all corners of the world are flocking it , mostly indians. All the villages i visited in meghalaya were neat and claen with bamboo or kane dustbins placed at regular distances and villagers making sure that garbage is not littered anywhere else , even our cab driver Shim kept the banana pill inside and dumped it in the dustbin when we reached the resort. I was curious to check what different MAwlynnong has done to be awarded cleaneset amongst the clean villages.
The village is about 110 kms from chearapunjee and the road is extremly beautiful with Khasi hills following from both sides. For a moment i felt like travelling in Konkan region of Maharashtra , similar green vegitation all over , small houses and winding roads.
Mawlynnong is clean and well maintained no doubt , but its like any other village in Meghalaya , I wanted to check of they are managing wests differently , yes there was a compost pit in front of everyhouse but now as outsiders are flocking this place the village is struggling to manage the plastic wastes which they bring.
Hence , help keep Mawlynnong clean and stay away from it.
Outside the village there are few tree houses , some are 55 ft above the ground and offer a view of bangladesh planes at nominal charge of 20 rs. Its difficult to get the view post noon as by then it gets hazzy but reaching the top is worth the fun.
There is still a lot meghalaya has to offer , its still very much unexplored and i hope one fine day like Ryan i will be no short of time to visit the land of clouds once again
 |
| bangladesh vie point |
Wonderful travelogue! Beautiful writing! Enjoyed it very much. The pictures were wonderful! Great photography. Thank you very much for taking your time and creating this page. Enjoyed reading.. will be traveling there this year October 2015.
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