I had been to Shillong in 1985, as part of the Under 22 South Zone team. We had to play matches in Guwahati and we ended up visiting Shillong on an off day. I enjoyed the bus ride, the sweet pineapple and fell in love with the sweeter pineapple vendor. Now when I got a chance to spend a couple of days in Shillong I decided to make the most of it.
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| Views |
As capital of Meghalaya, you realise that Shillong, a hill town, offers many unique spots to visit. There are water falls, canyons, lakes, living root bridges, crystal clear waters. Cherrapunjee which was part of every youngster's geography book as the wettest place on earth is there too. With so much to see I was pretty excited.
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| Going down to the falls |
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| At the falls - the other side |
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| Pavan, Krishna, Ronnie, Santosh and DB |
On Day one DB got us two cars which we used to drive to Cherrapunjee, now called Sohra. It was a nice road and we stopped at a couple of places. Once for tea and some pictures and then to see some waterfalls which were some distance below.Apparently there is a root bridge there too called the double decker but DB did not know anything about it so we made do with the tiny water fall. The climb back up was rather strenuous.
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| Cherrapunjee is now Sohra - and not as wet |
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| Best dosa place |
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| Seller of spices and fiery paans |
Then we saw a board that said 'welcome to Sohra' and my childhood dream of visiting Cherrapunjee was fulfilled. It was not wet. In fact there are no rains except in the rainy season. The waterfalls are mere rocks with no water falling. But let's get to that later.
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| Seven sisters falls |
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| No sister in view |
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| Viewpoint |
We stopped at a restaurant where I ate the best dosa in a long while. The waiters were all women and they were really courteous and good hosts. Outside I found a little kid selling paan and bought one - it was deadly - burnt my tongue and the insides of my mouth with whatever lime they put in it. Nothing like the soft sweet paans we are used to back in Hyderabad.
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| The Fire Department |
From there we drove into the village where we saw NIT, Sohra at a faraway place, saw the seven sisters waterfall which had no water. I bought some pineapple from the lady who was selling pineapple and as I knew, the pineapples here are something else. We headed back to Shillong, stopping at a cute wine store on the way to stock our supplies up.
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| The Barrel Shop! |
In Meghalaya the day starts early, and after 2 pm, there is a chance of cloud cover coming in pretty soon, so its not great for sight seeing. The day kind of ends by 430 and it gets quite dark. The day temperatures were about 14 degrees and the night temp was about 6 degrees.
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