Assam : Day 0-1 Cherapunjee

 

Our Assam trip started late evening November 1st. Abhay, Sunil, Shubhada and myself took a 10 pm flight to Guwahati and reached there past midnight. We stayed at a hotel close to the airport. Our driver Munnabhai was there to pick us up at the airport that night and again in the morning at the hotel. 

Wednesday morning November 2nd we started at about 8 am for Shillong after a breakfast at our hotel. For the first time we got a glimpse of the mighty Brahmaputra river as we crossed the city. 

Later we passed through military cantonment area and up into hills. There was a noticeable presence of Border Security Forces/ The Assam Rifles along this route. Further up we began to see a big lake to the right of the highway down in the valley. We took a stop for a view of this magnificent lake . It was the Umiam Lake. A lot of tourist buses had stopped at that vista point. We were surprised to hear Marathi out there. But as our trip progressed this was no longer surprising. We found out that majority of tourists to the Northeastern territories came from Maharashtra. 

We carried on towards Shillong. Our next stop was Elephant Falls. This was so named by the British because near the falls there used to be a rock that resembled an elephant. Unfortunately an earthquake destroyed the rock later but the name remained . We enjoyed a fresh cut pineapple from one of the vendors near the falls before proceeding from there.

Lunch was at a Bengali Thali place. Sunil chose to eat somewhere else. 

We drove through the dreamy Khasi Hills of Meghalaya. True to its name, there was a constant veil of clouds( Megha) over the hills. At one stop we could see some tourists enjoying a zip line ride. I wished I could do it. But the other three companions weren’t very keen on the adventure. 

We headed to Cherapunjee which has the honor of being the place with the highest annual rainfall. At one of the stops on our way we saw the view of the seven sisters falls . Water was very thready at the time but the view of the hills and far away valley was astounding. The plains in the distance were actually in the territory of Bangladesh, our neighbor. At that stop we met a young man who picked up conversation with us when he heard Marathi. He was barely 22 and a member of the Assam Rifles. It was his day off . He told us he was from Satara, and sometimes missed home but enjoyed his job. 

From Seven Sisters Falls we went to the Cherapunjee RamKrishna Mission center. It was located on a hilltop. There was a school on the premises. Some school kids were practicing dance on the center courtyard. There were nicely maintained gardens around the buildings. A nicely curated exhibition depicting art and other works representing the seven sister states of the northeastern India was one of the highlights of the venue. There were items of wood work, leather work, earthenware as well as textiles in this exhibition. A particular woven piece of textile, a Bodo scarf called Aranai caught my attention. The details on the traditional border were truly amazing. 

Shubhada and me went into the shrine while the men chose to wait outside. It was a remarkable place with utmost peaceful ambience. We tried to soak in that tranquility for some time before returning to our companions. 

There was a gift shop on the premises. We got some woven shawls and stoles as well as placemats. Later in our trip we realized the prices of these items were so much less than anywhere else. We should have shopped some more after all.

And it made sense for when the resident Swamiji met us and told us that all these textiles are actually woven on the premises. He took us along to see the looms and the weavers in action. They had 12 looms there. The weavers are trained and given means of livelihood. At another corner in the premises they also had a tailoring institute but we didn’t go see it. 

That was our last sightseeing stop for the day. We took the same route back passing through several small villages of Meghalaya, seeing the local people along the way. Fabrics with multi colored plaid patterns like those in the Burberry catalogs seemed to be their traditional wear. The women wrapped this shawl around them with a knot over one shoulder. Men or women carried little babies in a sack over their backs. It was cute watching them as we drove along. Except for a brief stop for hot tea on the way we made it back to Shillong city by the evening. Our hotel was in the center of a busy circle in the city. We checked into our rooms, and scanned through the hotel. The restaurant on the premises looked good. But it was a bit early for dinner. Shubhada and me snuck out to do some shopping in the market around our hotel. There were shops selling shawls and other woven goods, cane products, spices, tea, local fruits and vegetables and souvenirs. We didn’t buy anything but simply discovered how much better the prices were at the RamKrishna Mission gift shop. Back in our hotel the four of us went for the buffet style dinner at the restaurant adjacent to the hotel lobby. It was really good. The hot soup especially was much appreciated as Shillong had bit of a chill compared to Guwahati. It had been a lovely day. 

The saree all day had been a cotton Assamese weave in bright yellow with goss butta in black thread all over. The woven borders were stitched over the saree, something traditional about Assamese sarees and chadors. It was a very comfortable drape for the entire day.