Whenever we read about Meghalaya trips, it is always about the waterfalls… dozens of them for tourists to go ga-ga about! As tourists, we too wanted to see few of them during our recent Meghalaya trip. The most talked about among my friends was the Rainbow waterfall which was supposed to be a dream destination for me. But as luck would have it, we reached Meghalaya coincidently along with Cyclone Remal crossing the area!!! It rained heavily when we reached Shillong on May 27^th, 2024 due to the cyclone effects. At one point, it seemed the whole trip was doomed as going towards Chirrapunji looked difficult for the roads would be difficult to cross in the rains. Further ahead roads towards Dawki had widespread land slides and drivers informed how tourists were stranded for 48 hours on the roads. So visit to Dawki, the cleanest village, Bangladesh border, got cancelled, trek to Double decker bridge and Rainbow fall was unthinkable due to the Cyclone effect to my utter despair….

We are nine friends (4 couples plus one) on this trip. All men are classmates from their twenties and women are the spouses. These men hardly share any secrets – they would be taking about politics often but we women are pals for the past 25 odd years and share all details. The men enjoy all our female chatter and we enjoy pulling their legs. We had loads of time as it was raining outside and we were in the 13-seater traveler, travelling for more than 4-5 hours each day cooped in. Hubby would come out with silly jokes and Sunita will give him quick retorts.. this went on for few times and hubby coined a name for Sunita “Mirchi Kumari”. Archana was one who would be out in front to fight for our needs and hubby dear names her “Phoolan Kumari” and would add “ yeh le ja apna bandook bhi leti jaa”. 😀  Another spouse is named “Mathrri kumari” as she always has “namkeen mathrri “ … At one point, I was trying to reason with hubby but he was stuck to his view and I said – tum to ekdum jiddi ho – and we women named him “Jiddi Kumar”  similarly another man became “Prashhna kumar” as he would ask lot of questions, and so on. There would be lot of laughter and sometimes we would be frustrated with each other… but we were very sure from the beginning that we will travel in one large vehicle even if it was a costly affair(compared to hiring two smaller vehicles). So we had arranged for this 13 seater for 6 days in Meghalaya.

Our first stop in Meghalaya was a secret hideout-kind-of place- not many know about, not even the regular travel agents! It is White water village in Shillong– a place famous for kayaking which trains boys and girls for National level Kayaking championship. A tributary of Umtrew River flows by it where children practice kayaking. This place has tourists coming from worldwide for the kayaking fest and has produced Kayaking champions who travel to National and international level competitions.

This whole place is built and run by Ian and Sheela and their children. It has three cabins and a large room with two large beds for guests to stay and wholesome home cooked food. Ian Vincent trains children for kayaking… we saw him getting into his kayak and go into the water – to coach them for hours together. Kayaking is a terrific sport, with 6 medals in Olympics as per Sheela. We saw how much time and devotion goes in… the kids practiced nearly for four hours in the morning in this river. Apart from all this hard work, imagine carrying your kayak for all the national and International competitions!! Meghalaya is promoting the sport in a big way and Chief Minister came visiting the place to encourage the children. Here is CM Sangma’s testimony:

Here is one kayak rider getting in….

We had an awesome morning walk too in the lush green village… and a tiny trek too(for the beginners).

The boy you see kayaking at the end of this video is a 16-year-old who reaches this spot by 5 am, practices his sport and then runs home to distribute milk his mother milks from their cows and then goes to school…. Hats off to the commitment! All the best wishes to these kids…

We had the privilege to begin our day with rafting in this river for an hour. It was raining rim jhim, imagine the fun when we could criss cross the river in our raft, just with basic skill of rowing frontward, backward … and also jump into the river – Yeyyyy! Ofcourse we wore safety vests and had these trained kayaking guides with us…

We reached Chirrapunji(now called Sohra) where we had two days stay booked. It was raining heavily, and we were surrounded by thick clouds all over, could not see much from our balcony. It was an experience for us with the clouds weaving a dreamy sequence in our rooms around us or when it would be swept away by strong winds, we could then see the scenery around. We spent our morning fascinated, watching this game of the clouds and the wind for long. .. Our stay was aptly named “Breeze hills Inn” as it was surrounded by hills on two sides and wonderful breeze flowed thru.. It rained through out the day.. so much that at Laitlum (famous view point) we just managed to get out of the traveler to pee and were back ASAP … Alas we didn’t see anything! Went back to our stay and played card games in Vasant Kumar’s room as we knew he had all the paraphernalia for hot cups of coffee.. 😀 

to be continued…