A trip to the "Abode of clouds".

Hello Hivers!
I hope you all are sensational
Today I'll be sharing with you my experience of a trip which I went on back in May 2023.
In may 2023 I went on a trip to Meghalaya, India . It was my first time visiting the north east and trust me that place it so magical and underrated, most of the people are obsessed with the north amd the south of India , but North east is no less than magic.

About Meghalaya:

It is located in North-east India, Meghalaya, is also known as the Abode of Clouds. Shillong is Meghalaya’s state capital and also the main cultural hub. It is the melting pot of the entire North-East region because of its status as a regional academic nerve centre.Meghalaya is inhabited by many tribes, the most prominent being the Khasis, the Garos, and the Pnars .

So now comes the question why did I go there?

Why did I choose meghalaya specifically?

I went to Meghalaya (Shillong) to surprise my bestfriend, Tanishka,on her birthday.
A little background, Tanishka was junior to me back in school however when we were in school ,we hardly ever talked , it was later on after completing our School that we became friends and now she is my family.
Currently Tanishka is pursuing her collegiate studies from NIFT (National institute of Fashion technology) Shillong,so I decided to surprise her on her birthday because I remember back in May 2022 , being away from home on her birthday she was crying the entire time , so 2023 I decided to surprise her and make her birthday better , the perfect bestfriend , isn't it? Hahahhahahaha

Journey :

Distance Solan HP to Shillong - 2280 kms
I started from Solan, Himachal Pradesh,India on 20th of May .
I boarded a bus to Delhi and from there I boarded a flight to Guwahati, Assam .
I couldn't go to Shillong directly because there is no airport in Shillong.
Then from Guwahati I booked a cab to Shillong and then finally reached Shillong.

After reaching Shillong:

In the morning as she was about to leave for her college, I knocked on her door and surprised her .
I still remember the look on her face , it was way better than any honeyed oratory, a very pure feeling.
After that as I was totally enervated I took a bath and directly went to bed , meanwhile she left for college as she had to submit some important assignments, later I along with her flatemates made some arrangements for her birthday .
Next day 22nd May , the entire day we celebrated and had a lot of scrumptious food.
On 23rd after done celebrating her birthday, she showed me around the city of Shillong and it was completely different from what I had expected, it was very westernized and the culture was completely different from rest of India. Later that day while scrolling through my Instagram randomly I came across a video of a very beautiful waterfall called Rainbow waterfall , when I checked the location I came to know that it was Cherrapunji (Sohra) , a place just a couple of hours away from Shillong.
Immediately I made a plan with Tanishka and we decided to visit Cherrapunji the next day, at 8 Pm on 23rd we booked a scooty and made some other arrangements as well , the ones we could think of at that moment , the excitement had completely taken over.

About Cherrapunji;

It is located southwest of Shillong and the other name of Cherrapunji is Sohra. “Cherrapunji” means “land of oranges.”
Cherrapunji is noted for having one of the world’s highest average rainfall, about 450 inches.

Journey to Cherrapunji:

We started early morning and after riding for 15-16 kms our rear tyre got punctured , that was the last thing we had expected , then after inquiring the locals we came to know that the nearest mechanic was some 500 - 600 meters away so then we walked our scooty till the mechanic.
He was a very nice person and when we told him that we hailed from Himachal Pradesh, he got super excited hearing that , told us that visiting Himachal had always been on his bucket list , and didn't even charge us , he literally fixed the flat tyre for free ! (GRATEFUL)

We resumed our journey through the beautiful landscapes and then we came across a beautiful waterfall ,called Wah Kaba fall .

After enjoying the view for some time we continued the journey and finally reached our destination after 3.5 hours.

There we realised that amid the excitement we both had forgotten to book a hotel .
But first we decided to have something as we were famished.
So we went to a nearby restaurant and ordered "dosa" , I know not the best place to be ordering Dosa. Then after wolfing down the Dosa we got into searching for a room, finally after searching for 15-20 minutes we found the best deal and immediately left for the hotel and rested for a while .

Then in the afternoon we again started scrolling through our phones to look for a place we could visit nearby and then we started our scooty and left for Mawsmai Caves , we both were fascinated seeing the rock formations and the art that mother nature has blessed us with. It was a great experience walking through those caves .

then we ended our day with this perfect sunset.

Next day we left for the place we came to Cherrapunji for (Rainbow waterfall).
So we started early even though our legs were a bit sore yet we kept pushing.
Not knowing what was there for us later in the day ,we actually thought that the waterfall would be a couple of furlongs away from the road but after reaching Village Tyrna ,which is the starting point,we came to know that the waterfall was around 4-5 hours away from the starting point and to reach the destination we had to hike through the jungles . We motivated each other and started the hike , first we had to climb down 3500+ stairs! Yes you read it right 3500 freaking stairs .

It took us 2 hours to reach Nongriat Village , which was home to the famous UNESCO World Heritage double decker living root bridge .
It was a beautiful site as we had never seen anything like that ever in our lives.

There we clicked some photos and rested for sometime as we were already tired , by this time even Tanishka had started complaining.
However I kept on motivating her and brought her a glass of lemonade from a nearby shop , there were a lot of shops and homestays on the way , at that moment the lemonade was no less than manna from heaven.
Rainbow fall was 3kms away from the place we were currently at , we both mustered all our willpower and started for Rainbow falls .

The only thing that kept us going was the thought of taking a dip in the water of the fall.

We pushed ourselves and then finally after 2 hours of hike we reached the beautiful Rainbow falls , as we were descending towards the water we were stopped by the locals ,as there was some issue going on regarding the sharing of the falls' water between the two communities living there. So after walking for approximately 4 hours we couldn't even do the thing we were most excited for , we were totally disappointed.
Tanishka was so disappointed that she didn't even click a single picture of the fall and on that was giving me a stern look everytime I took out my phone to capture the place .

After resting for a while we started our journey back to Tyrna village is took us around 5 hours and hardly did we talk on our way back.

After reaching Tyrna we stayed at a homestay and then the next we started our journey back to Shillong.
By this time we had got out of the disappointment and had started enjoying the place. On our way back it started pouring which made it really hard for us to ride the scooty however none of us whined(surprisingly) we kept on taking turns and later we stopped to have lunch , there we had Putharo (a type of bread ) with black cheak peas and Chicken Neiiong , the meal was actually scrumptious.
By then even the rain had stopped and trust me now the landscape looked even better , lush green sodden landscape. The views actually brought a smile on our faces .
Look

Most importantly it made us realise that it's actually foolish to be obsessed with the destination rather we should always focus on the present and enjoy the journey.
Finally after 4 hours we reached Shillong and lounged glamourously under the sheets for the next two days .
We used to wake up , have food and then again go to bed
With this my Shillong trip finally came to an end and trust me I can never forget this experience , it was truly a crazy week.

Lessons learnt:

1. Yes, there is a lot of thrill associated with going out on spontaneous plans yet now I believe that some reasonable planning does make things more enjoyable.
2. It is the people who make the place and the experience better, surprisingly every person I came across in Meghalaya radiated nothing but positively. Something which doesn't usually happen in tourist places.
3. It's the journey we should focus on and not the destination.

I hope the words and the pictures I shared were able to convey my emotions and my experiences.
These pictures were clicked by me using Iphone 11.
See you again in my next post till then take care and don't forget to LIVE!

Thank you so much for sticking till the end .