3rd May 2010, 21:46
| #76 | ||||
| Senior - BHPian  | Quote:
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 Who knows we may find a reason to go together too, not to leave SirAlec here  Quote:
Cave walking : 1. It's some thing I feel different as you walk into a unknown tunnel with full of surprises of lime stone formation in interesting textures and shapes. 2. Anything you do it in dark needs additional navigational skills, be it in a open plains or in a hilly region. Likewise caves requires a greater understand of your passage (thought the Mawsmai had the map before the entry point, I'm still inclined to explore the 2 other paths inside the cave without light and exit), you know it is kind of thrill. 3. While you are on the open space you would find the flora and fauna the green that requires sunlight and the animals that depends on light, In a cave you get to see the green from algae and the animals of night such as bats. Overall it is an adventure package how a Offroader finds his/her OTR trip is what the caves meant for the explorers. Shillong Hotel (Madras Cafe) I mentioned it, we didn't have food in Madras Cafe due to over crowd and lack of time and the entire bunch was in too much hungry mode and we wanted to grab that quick. Next day we departed from the stay directly to Cheerapunjee. I had a chance to meet up with Manoj back in Guwahati to only understand that the day after we left Shillong had heavy rainfall and traffic jams due to minor landslide etc. (If only I delayed the trip in Shillong I would have been into that rain too, though I really miss not eating at Madras Cafe but I'm good as we had enough NE stuffs while in that area) Footwear: Look at that trip blog clearly you will find no water in the surface, compare that with the ones I posted on the same areas. This time when I went water was in all the places and very much slippery. That could be the reason for the caretakers to request us to remove the foot were inside. I have also seen foreigners walking with shoes inside the cave just to remove it with in 25ft inside the cave(already narrated) Quote:
All others, don't hesitate to provide and post any picture or information of NorthEast in this thread. After all the blogs and forum like this are source of information for the future trip planners, I'm so happy that you all have come up with such an information in this thread. | ||||
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4th May 2010, 10:23
| #77 |
| Senior - BHPian | Nohkalikai water falls - Sohra Though I liked North East food, most of the tourist locations had not much of restaurants. Options availed for the people on the move was really thin. At time I found it very difficult to find a food stop so we carried a packet of Bread, Jam and Butter as a fall back arrangement and we had to use it many times. Here in Mawsmai cave, the restaurant served wonderful food though I was settled with Maggi cup noodles only my wife tasted the hotel food and gave a very good feedback about to food served. We moved straight to Nohkalikai falls, for some who have never heard this falls may raise eye brow. For me seeing this falls at first had the same feeling of seeing Taj Mahal first time in life.    It it it is wonderful nature; I love to spend my rest of the life infront of this place. My god no words to describe the flair of nature. The tall waterfalls and the turquoise water comes underneath the rocks around were simple awesome.  Spotting the vegetation on the mountain top and the valley just below the steep side of the hills completely looked contrasting, Just that the top portion gets rainfalls but water runs away but the valley gets all the water so the flora and founa is firm in that groud.   This place has got many watter falls one after one and the height of the falls is adorable giving a unique look to the entire area. See the pictures here to scale the height of the falls, I have tried to take pictures of the same falls in different height levels and looked like different one at every picture.    The water that is harvested from Cheerapunjee rain adds more source for the waterfalls however to our bad luck these waterfalls are actual gateway to Bangladesh for the precious Cheerapunjee water, once the water passes through the falls directly runs into the lush green forest and reaches Bangladesh.   Straight opposite to the place we were standing and admiring the beauty of the Nohkalikai falls above the waterfalls is where the Eco Park is located. So we moved to see the water before jumping into the water falls, here also the car parking, toilets were maintained utmost clean and the park itself wore a nice look with just lawn every where with the waterways crossing it in multiple places farming multiple waterfalls underneath.    There was a small well (that was what I assumed at first), when approached near to that read the board claiming it to be "Missing Waterfalls", Huh Missing waterfalls ? eagarly went and saw inside the round wall to only spot the water going down into the gap of a rock cluster and the water is not seen anywhere on the other side of the mountain, I guess it goes direct below the mountain somewhere.   You can go to the edge of the mountain to witness the jumping water that goes at least 600-1000ft height down. It was sad to see every drop of water that jumps on the edge towards neighboring nation as if some one trying to commit suicide, I know this is different prospect to describe most beautiful element of nature, I can't help it as my origin is a place most talked for water scarcity, and many of the headlines news about our place (Tamilnadu) only about rivers and water share.    While we were on the top of the mountain looking at the valley below noticed white fog formation on the lines of water way and with in 3-5 minutes the entire area was covered with curtain of fog that formed and popped up from the valley below. Then the entire area was completely inaccessible by cameras. Some one around the parking yard was telling me that they have been playing Hide and Seek with the nature for the past few hours as it shuts the beauty with fog for few minutes and again reopens many time in that day.     We were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of all the gorgeous aspect of the place before the fog curtain raised, in fact that was just before we stepped out of the park. With this spot we rolled our Megalaya schedule and zoomed towards Guwahati on the same route which we traveled a day before. to be continued... Last edited by trammway : 4th May 2010 at 10:27. |
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4th May 2010, 12:45
| #78 |
| Senior - BHPian  | |
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4th May 2010, 13:22
| #79 | |
| Senior - BHPian | Quote:
I wish to post high res pics unfortunately fear of slowing down the page loading time with the 10s of pictures in the page, I put myself into a limitation of around 60K maximum size for individual pictures. I have not been to Jog falls yet, may be you can take me around next time when we are meeting in Bangalore on a leisure schedule.  | |
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4th May 2010, 14:18
| #80 | |
| Senior - BHPian | Quote:
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4th May 2010, 21:04
| #81 | |
| Senior - BHPian | Quote:
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5th May 2010, 10:46
| #82 |
| Senior - BHPian | Guwahati spoilsport When we travelled back from Sohra to Guwahati we crossed Shillong and stopped at a village to get some fruits, obviously the fruit was Strawberry as kids really attracted by the color and shape of it.  As usual we enjoyed the whole trip through the Megalaya’s road, when reached Guwahati I had to waste little time in arguing with the taxi driver (already reported the issue in my previous posts), and checked in the same Starline hotel, but then this time the hotel didn't have 4 bedded room vacant hence I was settling for two double bedrooms in 2nd floor  .The next day morning the hotel staff provided hot water in a bucket but the cold water in the tab was as bad a ditch (complete black in color), I really had a bad time and after 5 hours of delay the hotel people shifted my parents to 4th floor in an other room. By the time we were ready at 11AM, I noticed the rain god also in tour to Guwahati. Looked like he came with his entire army and pouring like anything, we were waiting at the hotel for the rain to get over but nothing happened. It was continuously raining till 3:30PM.  We ordered our breakfast and lunch at the hotel and around 4PM we started towards the Zoo (used 2 auto rickshaws), the whole scene Guwahati was bad as knee deep water everywhere. The autos took many roundabouts and finally reached a lane opposite side of Zoo.   We had to walk on the water to reach the zoo, though I didn’t like the idea but then kids were disappointed last time also in the zoo hence we decided to walk while I was carrying Adhava in my arm.   Many vehicles sailed on the roads that were converted as water channels and we slowly reached the Zoo at around 4:45PM. You know what once again we were denied access to the Zoo stating that the Guwahati Zoo ticket counter closes at 4:30pm, My Bad @#$%&*. Kids were started crying, I got no answer to them.   Finally it was my father who took them around showing some monkeys (though enough of them are there in my home town). The mokeys in Guwahati looked little different compare to the ones seen in Tamilnadu.  I followed my father's idea and distracted the the children by letting them play with the Snails on the ground which were popping out due to the rain.   Once the kids cooled down, we closed the day and returned to Hotel, again the trip from Zoo to Hotel was not so good except a stretch were we took Cycle Rickshaw ride.   The next day noon in our plan is to travel back to Kolkata, hence Guwahati Zoo is kind impossible to visit. to be continued… Last edited by trammway : 5th May 2010 at 10:53. |
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5th May 2010, 12:30
| #83 |
| Senior - BHPian | |
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5th May 2010, 12:45
| #84 | |
| Senior - BHPian  | Quote:
The record of highest rainfall kind of toggles between Cherrapunji and Mawsynram. Dunno which one is holding the crown now. Hey Siva, I thought you were able to go to the Zoo. Guwahati Zoo used to be a nice place to spend some time as it's on the slopes of the surrounding hill and used to have a nice cool climate. Dunno how it is these days. The timings of many places there in Assam are like that only as the Sun sets much earlier than mainland India due to Timezone difference. | |
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5th May 2010, 13:56
| #85 | |
| BHPian  Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Guwahati
Posts: 536
Thanked: 90 Times
| Quote:
. Most offices open at 10 am, effectively wasting about 5 daylight hours in the morning in summer. Well known film maker Jahnu Barua is fighting for a separate standard time (something like GMT+4.00) for the NE region. | |
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5th May 2010, 17:08
| #86 |
| Senior - BHPian  Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: City of seven islands.
Posts: 2,877
Thanked: 231 Times
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5th May 2010, 19:41
| #87 |
| Senior - BHPian | |
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5th May 2010, 22:09
| #88 | ||
| Senior - BHPian | Quote:
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I'm completely out of touch I guess, Where is Agumbe ? | ||
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5th May 2010, 22:57
| #89 |
| Senior - BHPian Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: City of seven islands.
Posts: 2,877
Thanked: 231 Times
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7th May 2010, 12:52
| #90 |
| Senior - BHPian | 1024kms train journey towards Kolkata All good so far, we reached the last day of our trip in NE, the Train scheduled to start at 12:45 and we were prompt to board into the train. The entire journey to cover 1024kms in train, and this is going to have good amount of day train trip in the very comfortable climate, what else one need to enjoy the window seat. The trip was excellent, right from Guwahati to New Jalpaiguri and little above distance we had sun light and enjoyed all the sceneries en-route.    The major attraction to me on the train journey was the fishing nets used by villages on the sides of rail track. The technology the followed had a similarity to the larger Chinese fishing nets used in Fort Kochi.    Most of the places in Assam was flood surrounded due to the recent rains, can see many places the corps were submerged in water.  Life in village were badly affected least to mention.  As always we had a good time in the train journey and kids were happy too.  to be continued… Last edited by trammway : 7th May 2010 at 12:57. |
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