So, this is continuation of my previous blogs on Tawang and Kaziranga. In case if you have missed it, here is the link for a quick revisit : Tawang: The peaceful land of the Rising Sun, Kaziranga : The land of one horned Rhinoceros
Quick Recap:
We, a group of 5, landed at Guwahati in Assam, and then drove all the way to Tawang. We were lucky enough to witness the first snow of 2021, both in Bum La and Sela pass. The last 5 days we were travelling around the beautiful Tawang, exploring its mystical beauties. Tawang had us fall in awe. From Tawang we headed to Kaziranga, where we got the chances to see the famous one horned Rhino. We did both elephant & jeep safari, and elephant safari turned out to be a truly amazing one. Also, we visited the Kaziranga National Orchid and Biodiversity Park before heading towards Meghalaya.
Day 0: Drive to Shillong
We had started off from Kaziranga around 4pm in the afternoon. Shillong was still about 5hours away from here. We managed to reach Shillong only by around 10pm. But since we hadn't made any bookings we were out to search rooms for our stay. Rooms in Shillong, especially if visiting over weekend, are quiet costly, and remains booked in advance. In case someone's planning for visit to Shillong, kindly book your stays in advance. After some searching, we finally found one.
Day 1: Double decker root bridge, Rainbow & Elephant falls
We tried to start early, but due to the previous journey we were all quiet exhausted. We managed to leave our room only by 9 in the morning. Without wasting much time we headed straight to elephant falls. Elephant falls was quiet empty early morning. I would say early mornings are the best time to visit this place as later it would be quiet crowded. Elephant falls is actually a 3 layered falls The name "Elephant falls" comes from the gaint rock near the falls that looked like an elephant. However this rock was later destroyed during an earthquake.
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| The Elephant Falls |
From elephant falls we drove all the way to Cherrapunji. On our way we did stop for sometime near the Mawkdok Dympep Valley View Point, enjoying the view for quiet some time. For someone looking for any adventure there's also a zip line here. From here, we headed straight to Double decker root bridge, Nongriat.
Usually the double decker root bridge takes almost an entire day. But due to our schedule we didnot have much of time. it was already Saturday today, and we had our returns scheduled for the coming Wednesday. Morevover, we heard that double decker is closed on Sunday's.
We started getting down from the Nongriat side, only by around 1pm. The time we were getting down, people were already coming upstairs, finishing their double decker trek. However, we were quiet quick, as we managed to reach the double decker base by around 3pm. From there we decided to head further to the Rainbow falls.
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| One of the Root bridges |
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| The Rainbow falls |
It was a trek for one more hour to reach Rainbow falls. However, the Rainbow falls was worth all the efforts of trek. The falls was utmost beautiful with a perfect rainbow sighting as the name suggested. After spending some time here, we headed back the same way, covering Blue Lagoon on the way.
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| The Blue Lagoon |
Blue lagoon too is a very calm place, with not much people around. Usually Rainbow falls is much crowded and one can find blue lagoon almost empty. After spending some time here, we started to head back. We had some pit stop again at Double decker bridge, and finally started climbing back.
We were done for the day. It was already dark and we just had few of our mobiles for source of light. We finally reached back to Nongriat by around 8-9pm. In case if someone's planning to climb post sunset, kindly carry enough light with you.
After having something to eat at Nongriat, we headed back to Cherrapunji. We didn't have our stay booked today either, and were yet to search for one. We went around searching and we finally found one on the way back to Sohra.
Day 2: Cherrapunji Sight seeing
Though we had planned to visit Wei Sawdong falls early morning, none of us could get up early due to the tiring previous day's trek. We managed to vacate our room and head out only by around 8 in morning.
We were just roaming around searching breakfast, suddenly we spotted Wah Kaba falls board on our way. Since it appeared like a view point, and moreover, all of us were quiet tired after yesterday's trek, we just quickly visited this Wah Kaba falls.
Then after finally having breakfast, we decided to visit Arwah caves. Arwah caves is a limestone cave very famous for its fossils. One can see some fish and Mollusca fossils, but this might require some guide as its quiet tough to spot them on your own.
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| Inside the Arwah caves |
After Arwah caves we headed next to Wei Sawdong falls. Wei Sawdong falls was soo crowded. Its always advisable to visit this falls early morning when visiting on weekends. The Wei Sawdong falls has a small trek for roughly around 20mins. The beauty of falls is so thrilling that one would just like to sit there for the whole day. Its also a 3 layered falls but unlike elephant falls, all the 3 layers are visible from the base of falls. Also, one can even get into water here, as many places are quiet shallow.
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| Wei Sawdong falls |
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| Wei Sawdong falls from the view point |
Wei Sawdong falls took most of our time of the day. We were all hungry and upon a friends repeated request, we headed to Labana Hotel for lunch. The hotel did provide nice food & service though, and is advisable for anyone visiting Sohra.
It was almost around 4pm by now. We had to head to our next destination, Shnongpdeng, via Dawki. After seeing the sun set over the Shora hills, we set off to Dawki. Dawki was around 2.5 hours drive from here, and we reached only by 8pm or so.
In Dawki, one can see the famous Dawki bridge, over the Umngot river, and also visit the India Bangladesh checkpost. We did visit the border in night, but weren't permitted to go to Tambil on the other side of the border. However, if one manages to visit this place over day time, one can definitely cross the border and visit the Tambil 0 point.
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| The Indian-Bangladesh Border, Dawki |
From here we headed next to Shnongpdeng. We had no booking here either, but somehow were sure of finding some tents by the Umngot river. We drove straight to the last point, parking our vehicle there and then started searching for tents. Finally after some search and bargain, we were able to get 3 tents for Rs2000.
We had some snacks near the river base and headed to our tents. Shnongpdeng is now completely changed, its completely different than the place I had been 4-5 years before. There were a lot of tent providers, eateries, shacks that had opened on both side of the river now.
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| By the side of Umngot river |
After spending some time over the camp fire doing some star gazing as well.
Day 3: Umngot river & Krang Suri , Phe-Phe Falls
We were all sleeping in tents just besides the beautiful Umngot river since last night. Whole night we could listen to the hushing sound of water over pebbles and rocks around. The early morning rise of light woke up us all, and we were just awestruck with the beautiful view around us. We went around taking a stroll over the beautiful place.
There are couple of beautiful hanging bridge, which connects us to the other side of river. Umngot river is the most transparent clean river one could find. One can literally see the pebbles beneath, on the river bed, when observed from the bridge.
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| The morning view from the tents |
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| The hanging bridge across the Umngot river, Shnonpdgeng |
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| The clear water of Umngot river |
There were water activities too here, scheduled to happen after 9, however, we didn't have much time for that. Post having some snacks here, we headed out to our next place.
Today we had initially planned to cover Krang Suri Falls, Phe Phe falls and then head back to Shillong.
However, we started out from Shnongpdeng only by around 11, Krang suri was still around 1hour from here. Krang Suri is one of the beautiful waterfalls one could see. From the parking area one has to trek down towards the falls reception. The trek is well paved steps with nice barriers whole the way. Upon reaching the falls, one would be mesmerized with the water, which is all blueish-green colored. Plus there's a small lake formed at the bottom of falls, where one can swim around, life jackets are provided at the reception in case someone wants to head near the falls.
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| The Krang Suri falls |
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| The Krang Suri falls |
After spending some time here, we were all quiet hungry. We were now headed towards the PhePhe falls, however, Phe Phe falls too was a trek. Plus we were hungry. Hence we decided to have some food before heading out further. We had a good lunch at a restaurant on the way.
It was already around 3:30 now. We didn't have much time, but we didn't want to miss Phe Phe falls either. We were on the direction towards Phe Phe falls, when we saw a small board saying Phe Phe falls parking. We parked our car here, and a person helped us cross the small river by his boat. There were path markers all the way till falls. Phe Phe falls is a two layered falls. We reached the first layer only by around 4:30, but it was already getting darker. Plus, upon reaching the first layer, we found one more place where people had parked their vehicles and were trekking downwards towards the falls. This place appeared to be quiet closer to the falls than we had parked. However, we still did try to go down, but were limited by running day light. We could just manage to have a glimpse of the beautiful Phe Phe falls from far. The Phe Phe falls was very much mesmerizing, I could say the color of water was so gorgeous making the falls much more beauty to watch. One should really try to visit Phe Phe falls when around here. Also, there are plenty of other falls around here, most of which aren't explored much. If time permits I shall come once again here, exploring the beautiful nature.
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| The stage-1 of Phe Phe falls |
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| Phe phe falls |
We were though limited by day light and hence headed back towards the parking area. After spending some time here, we drove all the way to Shillong and called off for the day.
Day 4: Last day in Shillong
Today was our last day here in Shillong, as were off back to Karnataka tomorrow. We had kept this day as an additional buffer day. However, our entire journey went in smooth not needing the necessity to use the additional buffer day.
So we thought we'll just roam around Shillong. Morning we headed towards the city center, but due to the peak time, all the roads were chocked. Hence we headed out of city, towards the Laitlum grand canyons. This is actually a very beautiful scenic place in Shillong, though very less people visit here, probably due to its offbeat location. Laitlum canyons is around 1hour drive from Shillong, but the place is definitely worth the long drive.
Laitlum canyons is a very vast land with greenery all around. On to one side of it one can see series of mountains, while on to the another, there's continuous green grassland. This is also an ideal place to come for picnics and spend time with your closed ones. There are also few villages down the hill which one can visit if time permits.
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| View from the Canyons |
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| The grasslands at Canyon appearing like Windows Bliss ! |
We spent major portion of our day in the canyons. We started to head back to Shillong only by around 2pm. We were gonna head to Guwahati today as we had our flight the next day. On our way we did stop at Umiyam lake, but it was quiet dark already.
We reached Guwahati and after searching for room, called off for the day.
Day 5: Back to Bengaluru
We had nothing planned for this day. as we had flight to catch. Morning we just gave a visit to Kamakhya temple, and from there straight to Guwahati Airport
This was the end of our splendid north east trip. In the last 12 days, we had been to 3 states, visited 2 international borders, played in snow, seen temperature drop to -5°C, covered the great Sela & Bumla passes, visited so many monasteries, seen one horned Rhino, did an elephant safari, visited numerous waterfalls, stayed by the side of Umngot river, and so many other adventures. The 12 days now seem to have gone in a fraction of second. Every day of the trip was a day well spent and very very memorable.
Overall it was a perfectly timed trip. I would recommend everyone to visit these places at least once, to experience the unique and amazing life here.
Additional Info:
Here are some of the contacts :Shillong: RJ Homestay (9774874508)
Shnondgpeng: Chester Tents(8414896858)
