Shillong

In Shillong, Ward's Lake, Lady Hydari Park, Don Bosco Museum, Golf Course, Umiam Lake, and Elephant Falls are some of the must-visit places. And except Don Bosco and the Golf course, all these places are covered in the tour package. 

Ward's Lake

I can never forget this particular spot. One moment, I was asking my children to pose for a picture and the next moment, the phone slipped from my hand, bounced on a rock, and promptly, fell into the water. It was Sathya's phone.

I freaked out! Shit Shit Shit! I shrieked.

I looked up at him and caught an evil grin. I knew what that grin meant: I had to buy him a new phone! 

There was fear written all over mine. No way in hell would I do that! 

I ran as fast as I could to the guard at the gate, told him what happened, and begged him to help.  

When I hurried back, I saw Sathya waving the phone at me! He had retrieved it as the water was shallow and it had not moved from the spot where it had fallen. Phew!   

For a quiet evening in a well-maintained park, this is the place to be.  

There is a boating facility too.  

Now, with these boats, which I have stopped hopping onto, the problem is that out of 3-4 people who sit in the boat, only 1 or 2 peddle and it is usually a man. This means the women spend all their time on the boat clicking, pictures, posing, and enjoying the view while the poor man works his ass off to keep the boat running with his legs. Even if you manage to reach the middle of the lake, you still need extra energy to paddle it back to the starting point. 

With us, it is only Sathya who peddles. Tanvi is lazy, Rutvi is small and I am not interested in peddling. So we have stopped going on boats that require any kind of manual effort to keep them moving. 

Elephant Falls

It is a multi-tiered waterfall, and each of the three drops is a sight to behold. Steps have been made right up to the plunge pool below and the climb is easy. The entry fee is Rs 100 per person now. I believe earlier, that is pre-Covid, it was just Rs 25. They have increased the fee to make good the loss due to lockdown. There was strong objection from everyone to keeping the fee so steep but the authorities stayed put. In most other places in the whole of ML, the entry fee is just Rs 50 or even Rs 30. Very reasonable.

The first drop(below) is completely hidden from view by thick foliage.

The second drop

The third and final drop and plunge pool. You cannot play here. It is strictly view-only fall. 

At all the tourist locations, I realized that Rs 5 Chips packets could not be seen. There were only Rs 20 packets everywhere. Just my bad luck or was it really so? 

For Rs 100, you can dress up in the traditional local Khasi dress. I have dressed in local costumes while in Sikkim and Uttarakhand and Rajasthan. It is fun!

This costume facility is available in Umiam Lake also. But the lady there was so rude I walked away. Here too the woman at the stall had only 2 words in her mouth "Rs 100. Cash" to whoever came and whatever they asked. Without the currency in her hand, she won't even look at you, and once the note is visible, she just roughly puts everything on you. Man, someone please tell these Khasi women to try & be polite and courteous. TRY!

As you drive from Guwahati to Shillong, the first place you will stop at is the beautiful Umiam Lake. It was created by damming the Umiam river. It is a large river and so lovely. 

We met a Kannadiga family there. In fact, we met so many families and big groups of Kannadiga travelers on this trip. Did not find any Malayali!

The view of the Shillong city from atop the Don Bosco Museum Skywalk. 

After the museum visit and lunch, we tried to drive to Police Bazaar where our hotel was.

And boy! Did we go round and round the mulberry bush or what! Shillong city, the capital of Meghalaya, is a small hill city, thickly populated and with numerous shops and buildings placed tightly together. There are so many "no-entry" roads and "one-way" roads and "not allowed" roads and "only one man can walk" roads and "only two-wheeler" roads, that if you take your eyes off the road for even ONE SECOND, you will go in circles. We came to the same spot 3 times and by then we knew every house and hotel on the way except the one we wanted to go to.

Lady Hydari Park

The park was closing at 5 p.m. Everything in ML closes at 5! We reached at 4:30. The lady at the counter waved me to go in without the tickets. And at sharp 4:55 the watchman started blowing the whistle asking everyone to leave the park. 

This is definitely a park for tourists and their restless children. There were so many tourist parents in this park! Their kids were finally having a good time in the kids' play area or simply running around in the open grass or playing hide and seek or shuttle-cock. Hill stations are not for little kids. My little one kept asking for "beach"!!

As you drive through the interiors of Meghalaya, you will notice that there are hardly any liquor shops. Contrast this to the border area of ML and Assam state highway. There are rows and rows of liquor shops. And what are they named? Nothing! Just simply: Shop Open or Open Shop signboards! No shop names. Even the jail-like hole-in-the-wall liquor outlets in Tamil Nadu and Kerala have a name. 

Karnataka is the best place for liquor shopping. The shops are like showrooms, with modernity written all over, well-lit, fancy interiors, latest stock, friendly staff, parking facility, promotional merchandise, and crazy displays. 

Tamil Nadu will make you wonder if you are buying marijuana! Dingy, small shops in some godforsaken place with a huge grill barricade that separates the customer from the shopkeeper. They really make you feel you are buying something illegal!

Black taxis in Cherrapunji and yellow taxis in Shillong. Strangely, we only found ML05 registrations initially. And after many thousand vehicles, we found one that had ML03.

At the Fast-tag counter of ML, we kept waiting for the fast-tag to be read. No one came. We continued to wait. Finally, we reversed the car and halted at the counter window. The lady lifted her head for exactly three seconds, said "Mouse not working" and went right back to doing whatever she was doing. She didn’t say, "Go to the next lane". Nothing. Frowned, Completely indifferent. What the hell!

The signboard read "Fasting is mandatory" instead of fast-tag. Great English for people who speak only English.

We visited ML twice. Monday and Tuesday we had driven with the tour operator in a Swift Dzire. Wednesday we were at Guwahati. Thursday Friday back again in ML. We were not satisfied with what we had experienced or seen with the tour thing. So in Guwahati we hired a Wagon R from Zoomcar for Rs 5000 for 3 days and went back to exploring ML some more. THAT is the draw of ML. The mountains call you! 

When we had traveled by taxi, the driver started the journey at 7:00 in the morning and he reached Umiam Lake at 10:30. 

When we drove, we started the journey at 8:45 and reached the same spot at the same time! 

TWO hours difference! The driver was driving that slow! Even after starting in the wee hours of the morning when there was no traffic, no rain, no stopovers! He took two extra hours to reach the same spot. He was driving at 40 km/hr speed throughout! From 7 a.m to 4:30 p.m when the day ended it was 40 km speed. Calling it snail’s pace would be a hyperbole. Whatever he showed us in two days, we could have easily covered it in a day. We realized this after we drove on our own. Shit! With him, we did not enter Shillong city at all. He only showed the places outside Shillong en route to Cherrapunji. He said the places inside the city, he would show on the return journey tomorrow which of course he didn’t show.

We should have gone for the self-drive option from day one. Like we had done during our Mumbai-Lonavla-Matheran road trip.

Guwahati to Shillong is a 100 km 3 hours drive. And Shillong to Cherrapunji one and a half hours. The entire stretch is a dream ride. Like we in Bangalore go to Mysore, the Guwahati people are lucky to be able to go to Shillong.