[graaja]

Cherrapunji – Wei Sa Dong waterfalls, Nohkalikai falls, Arwah caves

Started the 5th of January with a nice cup of coffee with a view of sunrise from the room.


Then we had a nice breakfast and headed out for some local sight seeing.


We first visited the Wei Sadong waterfalls, which is a cascading waterfalls that forms three layers. As this place was a tourist attraction, it was quite crowded and we had to patiently wait to get some pictures. A few pictures of the waterfalls.













After this, we went to the Nohkalikai waterfalls. At 340 meters, this is the tallest plunge water falls in India. There is an interesting story about this waterfall. According to legend, there lived a woman named Likai who had to marry a second time (per local culture to raise her daughter) when her husband died. The second husband was jealous that his wife paid more attention to the daughter and murdered the baby. Likai out of grief jumped off the cliff at the waterfall and killed herself and the waterfall was named Nohkalikai which literally means "Leap of Likai"







After this, we visited the Arwah caves. These caves are formed of limestones and have fossils of crustaceans from 6.5 crore years before. A few pictures from the visit to these caves.

The walkway to the caves.


There were two options. As we were already tired from the treks in the day, decided to take the easy way.


Information on the caves.










Information about the fossils.




The fossils.




Returned back to the resort. Treated ourselves to some good food and called it a day.

[graaja]

Sunrise in Cherrapunji and the Mawryngkhang Trek

Sunrise:

I had seen the beautiful sunrise the previous day from the room. But by the time I could go out with the camera, the sun had come out full and I missed the opportunity to click the sunrise. So, on 6th January, I woke up early in the morning and was ready by 6:00AM at the spot from where the sunrise can be shot. A few pictures of the sunrise.











The Mawrynkhang Trek (Bamboo Trail Trek):

We then had our breakfast and started our drive to Nohwet village. On the way, we took a detour and did the Mawryngkhang trek, also known as the bamboo trail trek. This is one of the toughest treks where one has to trek through bamboo bridges and walkways made of bamboo on the edge of the rocks. Walking on the edge of cliffs with a view of the steep drop on one side on a swaying bamboo structure was quite thrilling. I also found a nice stream with a pond and took a dip in the ice cold water. One of my wishes was to swim in some clear water streams in Meghalaya and that was fulfilled in this trek. A few pictures from this trek.

At the start of the trail.


On the trail.




Place to rest. We passed it on the way down. But it came handy on the way up.


We passed beautiful streams.


We walked through several bamboo bridges.






Trekked through bamboo trails built on cliff edges with deep precipice on one side.




A warning.


Information about renovation of the trail.


A view of the summit to reach.


Taking a break.


The final climb to the summit.




At the summit.


Penance at the summit that I get to do many more such road trips


Taking a dip in ice cold water.


After finishing the trek we drove to Nohwet village where we checked into the Na I Me home stay. After a nice dinner of rice, dal, chicken, potatoes and pineapple, we called it a day.

[graaja]

Nohwet - View of Bangladesh, Umngot river and Phe Phe waterfalls

Bangladesh Border:

On 7th January, post breakfast, we visited various places of interest. The first was the Dawki village from where we could see the plains of Bangladesh.

The view of the Bangladesh plains.


Driving along the border.


There were several watch posts like this and we could see army men on patrol on motorcycles and on foot.


Another view of the Bangaladesh border.


Umngot River:

After this we drove to the Umngot river which is famous for its crystal clear water and is an important attraction in Meghalaya. We hired a boat which took us to the crystal clear water sections from where we photographed the boat that looked like it was floating in air.

Crystal clear water






The boat looks almost like floating in air. On this particular day, there was wind that was creating ripples on the surface of water. Hali told us when there is no wind, it looks more perfectly like glass.








A few more pictures of the river.




After boating we enjoyed some kayaking and I also took this opportunity to go for a swim in the crystal clear water. It was an awesome experience.

Phe Phe Waterfalls:

We then left to another beautiful location called Phe Phe waterfalls. It was already getting late in the evening and Hali, the homestay caretaker and our guide said if we can do some off-roading we can cut down the trekking time to the waterfall by more than 45 minutes. This is where the Fortuner with its 4x4 and low gear ratio shined. Megazoid took the car through some water crossing and some steep off-roading trails and reached the starting point of the trek to the waterfalls.

Trekking down to the falls.




As we trekked down we got glimpses of the falls.




Once we reached the bottom, it was a mesmerizing sight to see the crystal clear pond and the waterfall. I so wanted to go for a swim again. But as it was getting late and as the temperature was dropping I decided to pass. There were no other tourists around and we had the whole waterfall to us and spent a lot of time admiring the beauty and clicking lots of pictures.

The beautiful waterfall.




The waterfall with the view of the moon.


The waterfall with the view of another full moon.


We then returned back to the homestay late in the evening at 8. And Hali, after such a long day started preparing our dinner without any signs of fatigue or tiredness. After another delicious dinner, we retired to bed.

[graaja]

Barapani Eco Resort - Umiam Lake

On the 8th of January, we had our breakfast at Na I Me homestay and left for final destination in Meghalaya - the Barapani Eco Resort at Umiam lake. This day was meant to be a rest day with no activities.

This was a short drive of 90km. On the way, we stopped at a nice Cafe named "ML 05 Cafe" for coffee.





Mr. and Mrs. Megazoid with some cool quotes on the wall behind.


I got proper black coffee the first time in 3 weeks. I also had a walnut brownie to go with the coffee.


We had to drive through this path amidst tall trees to reach the Cafe.


The place where we were going to stay was on an island in the lake. It is not a proper island that is covered with water on all sides, but sort of a pseudo island as the only access to the place is through the water. We had to park our cars in the main land and take very minimum luggage. We carried just a set of change of clothes in our back packs and took a speed boat.







The key attraction of the stay was a wooden cottage that was floating in water on barrels. Approaching this cottage.


Mr. and Mrs. Megazoid stayed in this cottage and I stayed in a tent overlooking the lake.




The island did not have electricity and they had battery packs charged using solar panels and these battery packs were connected to small LED lamps in the tent and the cottage.


They also provided kerosene lamps. We used the kerosene lamps instead of the LED lights. Mr. and Mrs. Megazoid trying to get some warmth from the lamp.


In the evening we went for a short walk on the shore of the island enjoying the scenery. We also had three friendly dogs for company.


Me remembering childhood.


The friendly dogs.


A fisherman casting his nets in the evening.


We then had tea on the deck of the cottage enjoying the view of the lake and the whole evening was spent in conversation on various topics.


It was also Megazoid's birthday and we celebrated his birthday with a small cupcake.


We then had a simple dinner and went to bed.


I woke up at 4 in the morning and went out to get some long exposure nightscapes.






The beautiful view of the cottage on the shore.


We had a breakfast of bread and omelet and noodles and checked out. A speed boat came and picked up from the cottage and dropped in the mainland from where we started our drive to Siliguri.

Our ride back.


Leaving our hearts behind on the island and taking fond memories.


Reached Siliguri around 8 in the evening and retired to bed after dinner.

[graaja]

The Last Leg of the Journey and Conclusion

The next day, I and Megazoid started the last leg of the journey - drive from Siliguri to Bangalore, while Mrs. Megazoid took a flight back to Bangalore.

With our steeds at Sinclairs, Siliguri.


We did Siliguri to Mirzapur on the first day. This was the toughest day in all the trip. We had to drive through 120km stretch of roads that were under construction, with broken roads and diversions. This stretch happened late in the evening when we were already tired and that added to the difficulty. We persevered through the difficult drive and reached Mirzapur hotel at 11 in the night. The saving grace for this day was the lunch we had in this simple vegetarian dhaba.






On the second day, we did Mirzapur to Nagpur. This was a relatively easy drive through 4 lane highways and we reached Nagpur early at 6 in the evening.

We had awesome ginger tea on a roadside shop.




We stopped at this nice dhaba for lunch







On the third day, we did Nagpur to Bangalore. It was a fast drive from Nagpur to Hyderabad. After Hyderabad, progress was a little slow due to truck traffic. About a 100km from Bangalore, we said our goodbyes with this selfie.


We still kept together till we reached Bangalore airport toll after which we lost each otehr in Bangalore traffic. I reached Novotel hotel at around 9:30PM.

The next day morning I left early at 5:45 and drove to Coimbatore and reached home at noon, bringing to conclusion this marathon of a road trip.

A few statistics:
Total days: 24
Total kilometers driven: 9401
Total time driven: 165 hours 10 minutes
Longest drive in a day: 1106 kilometers, Nagpur to Bangalore
Highest average speed: 88.6kph, Nagpur to Bangalore
Total fuel cost: INR 86,174
Fuel cost per kilometer: INR 9.16
Total states driven through: 12 (TN, KA, AP, TS, MH, MP, UP, BH, WB, AS, AR, ML)

Conclusion:
I had a great time in this road trip of 24 days with some wonderful company driving 9400km through 12 states. I came back with fond memories for my lifetime. I would like to once again thank everyone who made this road trip possible and with that conclude this travelogue.

Thank you for reading!

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[ABHI_1512]

It’s remarkable that trips made by friends are always special and remain memorable for various reasons. We have already read what MR AD had to say and it’s equally wonderful to read about your side of the story Graaja. Getting to read about your experiences from Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya makes me happy, more so since I have been to most of the places. The pictures that you have clicked, the experiences that you have mentioned, the food that you guys had, all will remind you of the places in the years to come and will remain fresh in the memories, just as it still reverberates in my mind even after so many years.

Like the Wildgrass Resort in Kaziranga or the wonderful café named Laheke or for that matter the lovely Jiva resort, the trek to those wonderful waterfalls or the serene Dawki waters, even the Pasighat Hanging bridge, one look at the pictures and it all came back alive in front my eyes. Brilliant travelogue Graaja, wishing you more trips and memories,

From one traveller to other, keep travelling.

P.S- I hope Megazoid too comes up with his own version of the travelogue and I am sure he will.

[vb-saan]

What a wonderful travelogue! While reading through, it was almost like experiencing the places in person. The scenery/landscape, food, people, and culture – all aspects of the travel covered so brilliantly.

Thank you for sharing!

[graaja]

Originally Posted by ABHI_1512

It’s remarkable that trips made by friends are always special and remain memorable for various reasons...
Like the Wildgrass Resort in Kaziranga or the wonderful café named Laheke or for that matter the lovely Jiva resort, the trek to those wonderful waterfalls or the serene Dawki waters, even the Pasighat Hanging bridge, one look at the pictures and it all came back alive in front my eyes...
From one traveller to other, keep travelling.

Thank you so much for the kind words Abhi

Yes. More than anything, the company is what creates lifetime memories. I am really glad that you could relive your past travels through this write-up.

Originally Posted by vb-san

What a wonderful travelogue! While reading through, it was almost like experiencing the places in person. The scenery/landscape, food, people, and culture – all aspects of the travel covered so brilliantly.

Thank you for sharing!

Thank you so much for the kind words vb-san

[androdev]

Amazing travelogue @graaja! Waking up to see all those yummy food photos is not helping though!

These trips remind me of my college days, film cameras and an unfailing tummy! Now the tourism and transport ministries have been taken over by the home ministry :-)

[Dr.AD]

Wow! What an amazing travelogue graaja! I relived the trip (well, my portion of the trip) through your pictures and narration. Thank you very much for your efforts in penning down this detailed report. This will serve as a great reference for future Northeast drives.

Thanks again for your company and the drive together. This was a great trip. I enjoyed the "truck driver's part" for sure. However, I missed out on the great fun you guys had in Meghalaya. After reading your report on Meghalaya, I feel like a guy who went to a movie, but got out and came back back home in the interval. And then heard about what great action the movie had in the second half from his friends.

Hoping we will do many more such drives in the future!

[megazoid]

Thanks for the comprehensive writeup graaja. Brought memories flooding back!

In such a long drawn trip, many things play a vital role. One is that the folks partaking in the trip remain healthy throughout the duration. This assumes importance because of the enormous differences in weather that one is enduring on a day to day basis. The sun of the plains, the mist of the hills, the smog at places and biting cold in the north east. Suffice to say that no one had any health hiccups through the duration and made the journey pharma free. graaja jumped into the cold waters on the bamboo trail hike and swam around like Tarzan trying to impress Jane. Its just sad that the only admirer he had was me. I was a tad worried that he would catch a cold but graaja is made of tougher stuff and pulverized the cold waters.

The other forgotten part are the cars themselves. The Fortuner clocked around 11000 kms in all and went from Bangalore to Koteshwar in Gujarat and then cut across the country to reach Kaho in Arunachal before going round in circles in Meghalaya and finally rolling down into Bangalore. It took a lot of abuse along with drastic temperature variations at places. No engine oil top ups, no brake checks, no greasing, nothing. The ability to just be a quiet steed without fuss is admirable.

So is the case with the BMW. We could not take it to few places at Meghalaya due to bad roads but it was a trouble free run for the German powerhouse. It was a hoot to drive on the good surfaces and made us crane our necks trying to find bitumen to put wheels on, at others.

Another important thing is the food. So much of diverse food and innumerable gastronomical delights makes for some serious intestinal coping power. Thankfully, we could grind everything to pulp inside us regularly. From Gujarati delicacies to the local cuisine of Meghalaya was a wonderful spread. We relished all kinds of things that came our way.

Yet another thing is the stay itself at various places. Although this may seem a simple affair, getting oneself adjusted to staying places of different types every other day is in itself a challenge. These are the small things that make or break a trip but we had a terrific time at almost all the places as the trip mates were fuss free gentlemen who could look beyond the difficulty.

And last but not the least is the planning that goes into such a trip. While it is important to plan, it is a fine line between planning and over-planning. A lot has to be just feel based decision making. Thanks to Shivali for doing some nifty work planning the Meghalaya leg.

The other interesting aspect is the driving itself. We had two cars that were diametrically opposite in strengths. Yet, it turned out to be a good thing as we used the Fortuner to do the difficult bits and enjoyed both the cars on the good roads to the best of our abilities. Some excellent driving discipline is required when one does long highways in cars with varying highway abilities and mercifully, we did not put a foot wrong.

I got a chance to drive graaja's BMW and it has some wonderful bits going for it. I am used to the powertrain but special mention for the advan neova tires and the msport suspension with the uprated sway bars. The front end feels sharp and the ride comfort is not compromised at all even with the 10mm lowering. The car was loaded to the gill and showed no signs of difficulty lugging all that weight around this vast country.

The Fortuner is manual and I had no creaking bones and joints during and after the trip. It is indeed a car built for the long haul.

Leaving you with a little bit of the paradise

https://youtu.be/E6l_HT1KsWA

[abirnale]

Originally Posted by graaja

Conclusion:
I had a great time in this road trip of 24 days with some wonderful company driving 9400km through 12 states. I came back with fond memories for my lifetime. I would like to once again thank everyone who made this road trip possible and with that conclude this travelogue.

This is mother of all travelogues! The most detailed, most fun and extremely important - loads of car pictures! You made my day!

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

Wow! What an amazing travelogue graaja!

Between you and Coach, I see a jugalbandi on best writing! You guys are just awesome!

Originally Posted by megazoid

Thanks for the comprehensive writeup graaja. Brought memories flooding back!

Great trip there - even better was your commendable effort on Gumball with Robi. You guys are next level of endurance! Missed all the earlier drives with you even in WDM trips… hope to join on on some trips in future. It’s Robi’s backyard but the way your best half did the planning, amazing! A fantastic trip and best report i have read till date - felt like i was with you on this trip!

You guys are best

[FuelInjector]

Both you and Dr AD are vying for the top spot in travelogue writing. So many pictures recount the wonderful memories you had in this trip.
Kudos for doing such a marathon trip.
I still say, my favourite is the sunrise pics
Keep the travel bug on.

[shady_lawyer]

A wonderful thread.

So you've discovered one of the two most beautiful places in Meghalaya Wei sadong, was known only to the local till a few years back. Is that path still as mental as it was? Cut bamboo, shoved into make steps?

I hope when walking to U Mawryngkhang, you were told the story, and why he became the king of stones. There are so many stories in ML, a magical paradise.

Thank you for reliving some beautiful memories.