Update! First trip outside of Guwahati

So Friday, June 14^th, LeeAnne and I got to go on our first big adventure outside of the Guwahati area. Myself, LeeAnne, Keltoum, Chris, Uttam, Aimani, Delumini, and her sassy yet adorable 2 year old daughter Bipha all piled into a land-rover type vehicle and headed off to Shillong – a rough 5 hour drive southeast. The drive was a little overwhelming, seeing as 95% of the roads we drove on were unpaved and unbelievably bumpy. We bounced around, hit our head on the ceiling of the car, and held on for dear life as big trucks swerved and maneuvered around us. But the scenery during the 5 hour ride was like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Mountains, tea gardens, and closely-packed bustling cities swept past us as we ventured south.

Shillong is the capital Meghalaya, and is also known as the “Scotland of India.” Well, it definitely stands up to that name. We piled out of the car at our first stop and marveled at the site in front of us. Layers and layers of massive mountains stood before us, with beautiful streams and lakes trickling at their feet. We continued on to Elephant Falls, a collection of waterfalls that got its name from a giant elephant shaped rock that used to be perched on the top until it was destroyed some time ago. The waterfalls were beautiful, and we got to walk out on some rocks to the middle of the body of water at the bottom. It was wonderful. My personal favorite part was the fact that since we were so high up, it was ACTUALLY COLD! It was such a refreshing change of pace after the 30 degree weather we’ve been experiencing in Assam. Afterwards we enjoyed some tea and snacks with our little family, and packed back into the car to head to Cherrapunji.

Meghalaya literally translates into “House of Clouds” is Assamese. After we arrived in Cherrapunji, we could fully understand why. LeeAnne and I were speechless, and just stared off into the distance at some of the most epic mountains and waterfalls. We never thought in our lives we would get to see such landscapes. The mountains made us feel smaller than ants, and waterfalls dribbled over almost every edge of them. We literally ran and skipped down the broken stone paths that led to a railing that leaned over the top of the mountain. We decided to go explore a little, and followed the broken path down to a waterfall. LeeAnne climbed right on in using the giant boulders as stepping stones. Soon after a young gentleman told us there was a bigger, better waterfall just a short hike down, so we quickly trekked downwards to the biggest waterfall we saw that day. First we saw the fall from a side angle, but we managed to dig our way through the jungle to find the start of the fall. We took our shoes off and sloshed around in the cool clean mountain water. Excitedly, we wadded over to the edge of the falls and looked down in disbelief. The water threw itself violently off the rocks, but we still took advantage of the fact we probably won’t get to see something like this again for a while, and perched up on a rock at the center of the top of the falls. We looked out over the valley as water poured down below us. It was by far the biggest mountain we have ever seen. We sat and talked for a while; about how unreal it was that we were sitting on the top of a waterfall, in India, in the “House of clouds”, and how beautiful everything was. It was one of the realest moments of our adventure so far, where we realized how truly lucky we are to be on this half of the world, seeing things we have only dreamt of for the past 7 months. Even the plants we saw were plants we’ve never seen before. We saw so many different kinds of leaves and trees. One thing we thought was amazing was the fact that these mountains were literally almost vertical, but trees still somehow grew straight out of every inch of the mountain. The trees were so dense and thick and green; we were literally in a rainforest. We played around in the waterfall for a while, snapped some amazing photographs, and hiked back up the mountain to the car. We were happy, giddy, in shock, and ready for the next adventure!

We took off to our third stop of the day, the caves of Cherrapunji. Not before stopping to get some food though! We were all starving, and we ate at a little hole in the wall place across from the caves. Honestly, LeeAnne and I were a little nervous eating there. It was our first time eating unpackaged food outside of our little Parijat bubble, but we bravely faced the menu and wound up eating some of the most delicious food yet. We were totally fine afterwards, actually better than fine, and happily left the restaurant with full bellies and no aches. Our lunch wasn’t uninterrupted, however. We had probably 5 or 6 different groups of people gawking at us, and one person even came up to me as I eating and asked us to take a photo with her daughter. I tried to refuse at first, but I gave in and we took a photo with them – food in mouth and all.

The caves were pretty great. I wasn’t aware of how small they actually were going to be, so at one point I began to become a little claustrophobic. But the caves opened up the more we hustled through them and it was a site to see. It astonished us how they were constantly dripping and wet, even with no water source in site. It was a little difficult to get through them, LeeAnne had flip flops on but she eventually just took them off and had a much easier time navigating the dark wet caves barefooted.

Next we time headed more south. Actually, we headed so south we eventually saw the giant mountain range suddenly just end. There were mountains and suddenly, just flat land. We were so curious, so we asked Uttam and he informed us that the end of the mountains and the beginning of the flatlands was in fact, Bangladesh. BANGLADESH!  We stopped at another site so we could really get a chance to see the landscape. It was amazing. There was this enormous rock that was totally detached from the mountains, just standing alone. There was another gigantic rock just propped up on the top of it. We stared out into the distance at Bangladesh. It was another unreal moment of our adventure. We both looked at each other at one point and knew we were thinking the same thing; neither of us ever thought we would get to see Bangladesh… ever. It just occurred to us that we were literally on the opposite side of the world of everyone we know and love, and that we are looking out onto a country that most people we know probably won’t ever see. It was a moment we’ll hold forever, because it was so surreal. We were just about ready to get back into the car, when Chris hurried over to us and told us he had found the edge of the world. LeeAnne and I smiled at each other and ran his direction. He took us somewhere we weren’t quite expecting. There was no broken stone path like before – in fact there was no path at all. We climbed down the steep swarms of trees and rocks that opened up into yet another waterfall! It literally looked like the edge of the world, because this time when we looked out from the top of the waterfall we didn’t see any mountains, we just saw flat Bangladesh. The three of us stood there smiling and taking in all the beauty around us for a while. We jumped from rock to rock avoiding the heavy stream of water, and again snapped some breathtaking photographs. We then had to climb back up the little mountain, which was a little difficult, but luckily we’re both really tall and had our legs to help us out.

We headed back to the car, and everyone was a little concerned about the fact we just climbed down a mountain… but we piled back in for one last time and decided it was time to head back to Guwahati. It was about 5pm, and we had a long drive ahead of us. LeeAnne and I put our headphones in and jammed to Passion Pit as we watched the beautiful sun set behind the House of Clouds we spent all day exploring. The drive was long, and everyone fell asleep pretty quickly but LeeAnne, Chris and I. It was difficult for us to sleep because the roads were so hectic! People honk their horns here every single time they pass someone, and like I mentioned earlier the roads are basically unpaved and so bumpy. It feels like a ride at an amusement park the entire time, and not in a good way. Every time we passed one of the decked out carrier trucks, its pollution would race into our car windows and fill the car with an awful smell. At one point we all had some sort of bandana or cover over our mouths to avoid inhaling it. But despite all of this, we still had smiles stretched across our face the entire trip home. We had the most incredible day of our lives, and that’s not much of an exaggeration. It was truly an extraordinary day, and it made us realize how much more of the world we want to see. We vowed to ourselves we would do everything in our power to see as much of India as possible during our time here. India has stolen our hearts. It is the Motherland.