It Rains really hard here !

Journey PART VIII
From Shillong to Cherrapunji is much better drive, primarily because of good condition of roads and secondly because you are moving more towards rainiest place on the face of this planet. Our first stoppage was this view point near DUWAN SING SYIEM BRIDGE, (can't figure out how to say it!!!). Standing on this viewpoint gives you a magnificent view of an entire valley full of green beautiful trees, wild flowers, streams, clouds and this bridge, seems like this-is-not-real.


Well, we moved on.. this next place we visited was most beautiful place of this entire journey and made a profound impression on sapota's memory, which will last for ever. We were little unfortunate when we went to Nohkalikai falls, entire fall was invisible due to clouds, these clouds were so dense that you cannot see anything beyond 3-4 meters.

We tried hard to get a glimpse, for that we descended deep into jungles, but all we could get was sound of water head, but no sight of waterfall. This entire place was located on highest place in cherrapunji, so clouds were floating around and we were literally walking in clouds.


After moving around this place for some time, we moved towards Mawsmai Caves, these caves are natural caves, made by flow of rain water. Caves are dark and there is now way sunlight can enter, most important thing to notice in these caves are water made sculpts(or structures.), seems like been sculpted by man. But the kind of sculpting, that is, seems infeasible for humans. These caves have very very slippery and difficult surface, so walking across them was not easy.


In Cherrapunji there is this spot called seven sister falls, an attraction special to entire North east. We went to this viewpoint, but it was a hot day and it didn't rained for quite long, so these falls were thin. Moving back we visited this eco-park, which had man made structures and natural beauty combined together. And surprisingly(for us) all those falls were located here and now we had a clearer view of entire thing. The valley below was very deep, sapota tried to capture the valley along with fall, but not to much success. There was one more interesting thing that was a lost waterfall, which was suppose to come out somewhere from the mountain edge, but it was falling much before it and water was seeping to ground(actually the mountain!), again we tried very very hard to capture the thing, but could not.

This place was very near to Bangladesh border, which was somewhere towards some far end.
Well this part of journey was over with our arrival back in Shillong. Sapota will write more about Hajo visit in next blog.

A day in Shillong

Journey PART VII
It was rather two days in Shillong, we discovered some part the night we reached and other half next day. Well as soon as you enter Shillong, you will notice considerable temperature fall. We were staying at Center Point Hotel(courtesy Dutta), which was situated at center of main market in Shillong. We after checking in and all, moved out to have a walk across the city.
Shillong has a typical environment of a hill station; most of the roads are sloppy and one-way; if you are not sure where you have to go, you will be lost for sure. Shillong is one of the cities established by Britishers, so like all British-made-cities, its typically beautiful, neat and more organized. It is called as Fashion Capital of North East and one of the most prominent cities having rock culture. No wonder you can see dudes and chics clad in something unusual for other parts of India. So while roaming around Sapota was easily able to locate kool rock merchandise: Tees, Belts, posters, Music CDs, chains and many such things. It seemed like sapota was not at all in India. Next, Sapota went to a Thai Restaurant, Sapota had no clue what persuaded him to try this thing, but it was nice, having exquisite cuisines is always delightful.

Next day we went to this Lake called as ward lake. This lake is a beautiful man made lake, I believe(although not sure) it must have been made by Brits. We hired a boat and sailed across the entire lake. there was a small lotus pond separated by a fence in the lake itself, lake was surrounded by pinus trees and since it was early morning, so people were feeding fishes in lake from the foot bridge. Near this Lake was a Botanical Garden and it has a huge tree, which has huge roots, on which sapota hanged for a huge amount of time and posed for many snaps(Quite a bloody poser you know).

Then next we went to see the Cathedral of Mary help of Christians, we had a tough time locating this church since we had no clue about the way. Finally we could locate the church, thanks to the CAB fella who took us there. The church was Grand, it was quiet and it was quiet, The home of god must be peaceful and it must be easily accessible. The church was beautiful, neat had huge seating capacity and it reflected some old construction, Sapota had no clue about architectures. Sopata was thinking in contrast to his visit to temples, where he was bugged by Pundas, who are exploiting the religion, no doubt people are afraid to go to temples. Well this part of city was full of catholic churches and schools. Shillong has a good amount of high profile Christian schools, famous all across the country.

Next Place we visited was Elephant falls, these falls were although not big, but properly maintained and worth visiting, this one is also an English discovery. Sapota can safely say Brits are much more lovers of marvels of nature than anyone else. While traveling to this place, we passed through Shillong Cantt. So when u see trees painted in white and red, that's signal: "this is military area". Shillong Cantt. is one of the most beautiful Cantts, pinus tree all throughout the sides of road, all of them shaped up so orderly and neat, I felt like staying there for the entire day.
But we cannot afford this, so we moved on, next stop we headed towards was "Shillong Peak or View Point(that's common name here, there are many other in nearby areas)" . This area was typically inside Air force station of shillong and no wonders it has strict timings. So we went to see this place. Well this is one of those places were we can view entire shillong in one glance. My perception that shillong was small, went for toss here, Shillong is quite big, not comparable to cities on plains, but yes for a city entirely on a hill, it is big. Sapota realizes the importance of this place here, as here u get a perfect idea of how beautiful this city is.

Entering the home of Clouds

Journey Part VI
This is one of the finest journeys of Sapota's life, crossing Assam and getting into the Meghalaya. We were traveling with Gautams car(he calls it dhanno!) so we can just stop anywhere and click whatever we want. Meghalaya is totally different from Assam in most of the things, one can say its a totally hilly state, unlike Assam which is more like plains or may be a plateau. Entire path i.e. guwhati shillong highway is very pleasant (minus potholes, sorry roads were really bad here.). The flora here is totally different from Assam, assam primarily has thick big trees and mostly bamboos, but in meghalaya its more of pinus and other such plants.

Since its hilly throughout there, so roads were spiral and towards shillong it was all uphill, Gautam was having tough time Driving. Anywhere just besides the roads you can see step farms or some times a small lake or pond and water-falls popping out somewhere from rock.


The first sign that we have reached Meghalaya came to us when we saw first clouds just over our heads among the pinus trees.Sapota was ecstatic, he said "WoW clouds !!!". From now on we can see clouds just anywhere and everywhere, it appeared as if sun is trying its level best to peep from clouds, but he had little chance, we knew now for sure that we are in Megh-alaya. Meghalaya's native are khasi people, female wears a typical khasi attire, which is something like a skirt and a top and one large single cloth going from front to bottom spirally around the body, they speak khasi, which is not a language and they use roman alphabets to write it, so its almost impossible to pronounce anything, which is written, at first go u will feel its english, but sorry dude, you are tricked! its khasi written in roman script. By evening we finally reached Shillong.