Mesmerising Meghalaya – I

As a child, I was a big day dreamer. I loved history and geography and whenever my teacher told me about a place, I would imagine myself there. That era, those clothes, the food—the entire scenario. I very vividly remember reading ‘Cherrapunji has the highest rainfall in the world’ and wondering if the dark ominous rain clouds always hovered above the city there. Fast forward 30 years, as I sat at the beginning of the year, I knew I had to plan a retreat to Meghalaya whilst it was relatively unpolluted by the million tourists that flock to every scenic place in India.Meghalaya is the land of pristine emerald waterfalls, deep green valleys, root bridges, and home to the cleanest village in Asia, Mawlynnong. The name Meghalaya quite literally means ‘the abode of clouds’ in Sanskrit and as you wander around this wild and beautiful state, you understand why..My group and I landed at Guwahati Airport, the closest airport to Meghalaya. There are no direct trains or flights to this state. We boarded the mini bus from Guwahati airport at 1 pm, enjoyed the ultimate traditional thali in Guwahati for lunch and drove to Cherrapunji which took us almost six hours, thanks to the winding roads and a few of my students having motion sickness. We had a 40 minute stopover at the incredibly picturesque Wards Lake garden for hot tea and momos. We finally reached our hotel by 7 pm (which felt like 9 pm!)It is only in Meghalaya that I understood what a big country India really is. By 4 pm, the sun starts to set in Meghalaya and by 5 pm it looks almost like 8 pm in Chennai—pitch dark and your brain is trying to understand how evening can feel like this. That’s not all—by 4:30 am the sun rises and is shining brightly. Ideally for the size we are, India should have had different time zones.After a great 12-hour sleep, we woke up early (it felt easy thanks to the early sunrise) and practiced some much-needed yoga and pranayama. Our legs were tight from the long bus ride and our breaths ragged from the cold. After the 1.5 to 2 hour practice, we were all ready for the day to come. .Everyone ate breakfast with gusto as the day ahead promised to be one full of fun and adventure. We were to trek to the legendary living roots bridge. The legendary double-decker live root bridge was located in Nongriat, Tyrna, a 30 minute drive from our hotel.The living root bridge has been formed by guiding the pliable roots of the Ficus Elastica tree across the river and then the roots were allowed to grow and strengthen over time. The tree is taken care of by a family that lovingly finds a place for each new root. Their life is dedicated to building these bridges.This bridge is over 150 years old. The path to the double-decker root bridge is three kilometres long. No, don’t smile and think 3 kms is easy. You see the 3 km trek has approximately 3,500 stairs and descends 2,400 feet just one way! Since we were all full of energy, the descent into the valley felt easy and doable.