Here is a summary of all posts on North East India series I had been writing till now.

IMAGES FROM NORTH EAST

* Arunach Pradesh(Eaglenest National Park, Tawang)
* Assam and Meghalaya(Guwahati, Nameri, Kaziranga, Shillong, Cherrapunjee)

ENTERING THE NORTH EAST

* Beginning of the series
* From Bangalore to Guwahati
* Impressions of Guwahati
* Umananda temple and Peacock Island

Brahmaputra flows at Guwahati

EAGLENEST NATIONAL PARK

* Travelling to Eaglenest
* About Vacation For Conservation
* First Day at Eaglenest
* The days at Eaglenest
* Haathi Trail
* About Eaglenest National Park

Rhododendrons at Eaglenest

TAWANG

* From Eaglenest to Tawang – I
* From Eaglenest to Tawang – II
* Tawang Monastery
* Snow and Lakes beyond Tawang
* Around Tawang
* Returning from Tawang

Inside Tawang Monastery

WILDERNESS OF ASSAM

* Nameri National Park
* Arriving at Kaziranga National Park
* At Kaziranga National Park
* About Kaziranga National Park

A One Horned Rhino at Kaziranga

MEGHALAYA

* Lazing in Shillong
* Cherrapunjee

Nohkalikai falls, Cherrapunjee

MORE

* On travelling in the North East India
* Assam’s degrading environment

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Travelling in the North-East in the summer of 2006
Guwahati >> Eaglenest >> Tawang >> Nameri >> Kaziranga >> Shillong >> Cherrapunjee
+Previous: Lazing in Shillong
+Go to the beginning of the series

Update: Cherrapunjee is now renamed as Sohra, the name it used to have before the time of the British.

Cherrapunjee is well known to everyone as the place where it rains the most in the world. But what is not well known is that it is a very beautiful place with green hills and many waterfalls. I would personally put it as one of the most beautiful places in the lower regions of the north east. But today Cherrapunjee is no longer the place where the precipitation is the highest – as the credit has now gone to a near by place called Mawsynram.

One of the days I was Shillong, I decided to take the daily sightseeing tour of Cherrapunjee offered by Meghalaya tourism. I would have preferred to explore it myself, but there are many places to see around Cherrapunjee and there is hardly any public transport available.

The guide on the tour bus looked young and not really well prepared for his work. After introducing himself, he asked if everyone understood English. But he hardly waited for answers and concluded with the next sentence – “English is the official language of Meghalaya, so I will speak in English”. And he had a funny English. He would describe every place saying ‘one place is there’, and little else. So mostly we got to know from him that “one valley is there”, “one falls is there”, etc.. I posed him a few questions I had about some places, and he did not seem to know, and did not show much enthusiasm in having a conversation either.
A valley on the way to Cherrapunjee

But in any case, the tour was good and we went through beautiful places. We first stopped at a beautiful valley of which the name I can’t recall. Most of the places had names difficult to pronounce, so I had difficulty remembering them or noting them down. We were still in a dry place but could see clouds in a distance faraway in the valley indicating of things to come.

Nohkalikai falls

Now you see it.. now you don’t.. The fog kept playing with us as long as we were there

Up close and a rainbow

As we moved further, we were driving on a plateau with grasslands and occasional fragments of forest. This is the plateau where Cherrapunjee stands on, and we started seeing clouds and wet weather. The ground was damp indicating that it has been raining. The guide said the rains begin in April and continue to increase in the coming months. It was getting foggy around us and as we drove, we kept moving in and out of fog every now and then!

grasslands and strips of forests on the plateau on which Cherra stands

The town of Cherrapunjee is a small place which has nothing much of interest except for its precipitation. Beyond the town of Cherrapunjee, Nohkalikai falls was our first stop. It is said to be the second highest waterfall in India after Jog Falls, and is named after a lady who is said to have died there. It was indeed very tall, and clouds kept hiding it from us. In the 30 minutes or so we were there, we could see it sometimes and then it would be blocked by fog, only to reveal itself again in a few minutes.

Inside Mawsmai Cave

The next stop was Mawsmai Cave. It is a large cave with openings on both ends, and was big enough for people to walk through it. The region around Cherrapunjee is known to have several caves of this kind.

Panorama Seven Sister Falls as seen from the hills opposing the valley

One of the Seven Sister Falls, up close

We stopped at the top of a cliff overlooking the famous seven-sister falls for lunch. It was like a restaurant in the sky from where we could look down at the vast expanses of Bangaladesh below, and at a series of waterfalls at the opposing cliff, called seven-sister falls. After lunch, we drove to the other side from where the water was falling down.

We moved on from here to see a garden which seemed to have been created for the tourists arriving to Cherrapunjee, and then to a few more waterfalls of which I can’t recall the names. Each place we went to was green and beautiful, and I wished I could spend much more time here. Cherra deserves spending a few days around its beautiful vistas, but my day trip had to end much quicker.

one of the stream that falls off the cliff and into Bangladesh

A lady near Cherra

I spent another day in Shillong walking around Shillong Peak and within the city. I then moved on to Guwahati, and eventually back to Bangalore, ending my almost a month long journey in the North East.

About Cherrapunjee

Cherrapunjee is a less than 2 hour drive from Shillong. It is advisable to cover the region with your own transport, since there is plenty to see which can’t be done by public transport. It is a beautiful region and deserves a few days of your attention. The well known places to see are the Nohkalikai falls, seves sister falls, Mawsmai caves and the vistas of the planes of Bangladesh from a height. One of the local attractions include root bridges, which are naturally formed bridges that are actually roots of trees that grow across streams.

Cherra is a small town and it did not look like the town had any kind of accommodation available, but being close to Shillong, it should not be a problem. Cherra resorts is a family run resort near Cherrapunjee.

(End of the Series)

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• Lazing in Shillong

Travelling in the North-East in the summer of 2006
Guwahati >> Eaglenest >> Tawang >> Nameri >> Kaziranga >> Shillong >> Cherrapunjee
+Previous: About Kaziranga National Park
+Next: Cherrapunjee
+Go to the beginning of the series

As soon as you enter Meghalaya on the way to Shillong from Guwahati, you start seeing greenery all around. Most of the road from Guwahati to Shillong took me through green and beautiful hills, and the large Umiam lake – an artificial lake created by building a dam.

Birds eye view of the town, on the way to Shillong Peak

The town itself, like many other hill stations today, has two parts – the old town in the center which is clean, beautiful and well maintained, and the extensions which have grown haphazardly in an ugly manner all around the old town. “Shillong is nice place”, the owner of the angling camp at Nameri had told me, and it indeed seemed beautiful.

Shillong has many of these pretty and ancient buses!

On the days I was there, we had clear blue skies, and the weather was just how I wanted – slightly colder than normal. There were quiet lanes with lot of trees and a few ancient looking bungalows around the town center. The Ward’s lake and the golf course were the celebrated landmarks and were worth taking a walk to. The roads and the places around Shillong Peak, just outside the town are quiet and wooded and offered some pleasant walks. My guidebook suggested a visit to barabazaar or lewduh, a market close to the city center, where I did go to. But it looked no different than the old chaotic markets that you get to see in any town in India.

Ward’s Lake is right in the center of the town

I spent the days in Shillong walking around its parks and green avenues, and the evenings sitting and lazing near the Ward’s lake. For the size of the town that Shillong is, I was surprised to see that it hosted a few discos. Many shops and restaurants also had posters of rock concerts by local stars, which seemed to happen pretty often.

Who said traffic jams happen only in big cities?!

About Shillong

Shillong is a pleasant town and is one of the well known hill stations of the North East. The best thing to do when you are there is to spend time leisurely, enjoying the weather and without bothering to do too much moving around and sightseeing. But nearby Cherrapunjee is not to be missed. The well known sightseeing places around Shillong are the beautiful Shillong peak and Ward’s Lake. There are a few waterfalls located around the town. A short drive from the town on the way to Guwahati is the large artificial lake – Umiam Lake, also called Barapani.

You can reach Shillong by buses or shared taxis from Guwahati, which is takes approximately three hours. Shillong also has an airport and you can fly in from Kolkata. There is also a helicopter facility from Guwahati to Shillong.

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• Cherrapunjee

Travelling in the North-East in the summer of 2006
Guwahati >> Eaglenest >> Tawang >> Nameri >> Kaziranga >> Shillong >> Cherrapunjee
+Previous: About vacation for conservation
+Next: Assam’s degrading environment
+Go to the beginning of the series

When I took off to the North East, I had a few worries in mind. The primary concern was safety. With many insurgent groups troubling most of the North East, the worry of becoming a victim was always there. The next thing that bothered me is infrastructure to let me commute comfortably and at will.

INFRASTRUCTURE

Infrastructure in the plains of the North East is almost on par with rest of India. There are plenty of roads and some of them are maintained by the highly respectable Border Roads Organization – BRO. But public transport is not as reliable as it should be. Although most places in the plains are well connected, it may require some planning and knowledge of bus timings if you are planning to go anywhere other than the big towns. Going to Kaziranga, for example, took me long waits at Tezpur. I did not see much of public transport around Cherrpunjee area too. Remote areas in the region are hardly accessible by bus, and this is especially true with Arunachal Pradesh. It is a tough job to find buses going to Tawang or such far-away places. And the North-East doesn’t have a good train network either. But if you are planning to go from Guwahati to bigger towns like Tezpur or Shillong, you just have to get to the bus terminus and you will most likely find a bus ready for you. And these inter-city buses are usually well maintained and comfortable to travel in.

SAFETY

I did not see any reason to worry about the safety aspect while I was in the North-East. It is said that Manipur and some surrounding regions may not be safe to travel to but Assam and Meghalaya are generally safe. Arunachal Pradesh is known to have some hostile tribal communities, but if you are sticking to the main roads and do not wander off too much, you should not have any trouble here either. We did see some unfriendly people but none of them harmful. When I was in Nameri National Park, one of my fellow travellers asked a staffer if he is an Assamese. And he replied – “No, we are not Indians, we are a separate nation called Bodoland”. Assam has its share of internal problems and a history of violence but it is largely peaceful these days and travellers need not really worry too much.

CONVENIENCE

Tourist infrastructure has plenty of room to improve in the entire North-East. Budget travellers to North-East may sometimes see that accommodation is in short supply. Even in a touristy place like Tawang, we had a tough time in finding a place to stay. When I was in Kaziranga, most of the privately owned budget hotels were closed and the government guest houses were fully booked. I was lucky to find a place but some people who arrived after me failed to find any accommodation. And when I was in Nameri National Park, I did not notice any tourist facilities except a privately owned resort where we stayed.

People travelling with a mid-range budget would be delighted to know that the hotels and resorts here have still remained inexpensive and affordable. You can find a decent mid-range hotel in a touristy place at prices starting as low as Rs.600 to Rs.800, which would have cost two to three times elsewhere. But one always needs to book, since availability is limited.

Few towns are equipped with ATMs and it is essential to carry plenty of cash. Credit cards are also not widely accepted except in major locations. I did run into a situation where I ran low of money and had to make some change of plans just so that I can go through a town having ATMs.

To be continued..

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