Land of Clouds & Waterfalls

Meghalaya (ML) binds you in a spell. It mesmerizes you. It truly is the abode of clouds. 

Unexplored and unexploited, as yet, it is a beautiful state. 

Looking at the crowds thronging ML, the rooms being full or running to full capacity, and every location with loads of vehicles and scores of tourists, I hope and pray ML does not end up being the victim of our greed for beautiful locations. Human beings can spoil everything they touch. Like we say in Kannada, there is no grass that a goat does not eat. There is no place a man will go to and leave it unspoiled as before. 

One of the most beautiful waterfalls we went to in ML was the Nohkalikai Falls. 

I must add here that in ML, every road, every mountain, holds in his womb, many a waterfall. Everywhere you go, you will find a lovely stream making its way down and if you are a thorough city-bred person, you will want to capture the picture of every fall you see as you traverse the landscape. It will be an irresistible feast to your eye and it will take super-human effort to not stop the vehicle you are traveling in everywhere and anywhere. In fact, some of the exquisite streams and falls can only be enjoyed in passing as the onward coming traffic will make it impossible for you to stop and click pictures. 

There is one other thing: when you see the biggest or most majestic of all waterfalls, then the streams will look like regular fare. This is something you will experience a day or two into your travel in the region and you will learn to let go. 

The drive to Nohkalikai is easy as the roads are good and the view itself is picturesque.

Green and white are the two dominant colors in Meghalaya. Large, green fields and the countryside below and misty, white clouds overhead.

When we reached the location, the clouds had engulfed the entire mountain range and it was hard to tell what was beneath those clouds. Except for the roar of the falls, one could never have guessed that there was such a majestic sight behind the spread of white. 

Nohkalikai made us wait. We waited in the tea shop nearby and even as we took the last sip of our tea, the clouds started clearing. 

Like the regal, colored screens in single screen theaters of yesteryears, that went up slowly and then the movie began, the clouds parted way gently to reveal the sight of our lifetime. 

10 minutes apart and the scene changed completely. 

Steps and railings have been made and you can go right to the bottom of the falls to see the plunge pool beneath. 

But it is a lot of steps and if you are not physically fit or have kids with you, it is not advisable to go all the way down. The climb up will tire you or your kids and it would be time-consuming too. 

Nohkalikai is the tallest plunge waterfall in India. It falls from a height of 340 meters. 

Once you have had your fill of the falls, stroll around and enjoy the scenic beauty. Relish the happy 'I-am-in-a-faraway-place' feeling while it lasts. The vast expanse of greenery, very few people around, and the sound in the background of the plunge of water are the only companions to your thoughts. This is the kind of place where you will love spending time doing nothing.

This beautiful waterfall is a part of the tourist itinerary. So it is highly unlikely that you will miss this place.

As you can see on the right, the Cherrapunji schedule on day 2 of a 3-day tour of Meghalaya has Nohkalikai falls. The only thing you need to hope for would be for the rain gods to be kind to you when you reach there. 

Mist and rain are spoilers and enemies of the tourist. They don't care how far you have come from and how much you have spent to reach one of the remotest places in the North-Eastern part of India. 

Like tiger sightings in most wildlife sanctuaries and national parks, the visibility of most attractions in ML is a matter of luck. Pure chance. A blessing. We ourselves realized this when we visited Laitlum Canyon two days later. 

More on Laitlum Canyon in the next post of the Meghalaya series.

Darjeeling

The last lap of our 7 day Sikkim tour package was a day of sight-seeing in Darjeeling. And the first event was the famous sunrise over the Kangchenjunga peak over Tiger Hill. To see the sun rise over the majestic Mount Everest is a surreal experience. Kangchenjunga is the third highest mountain in the world. It lies partly in Nepal and partly in Sikkim.

We had to wake up at 3:30 for this. We were at the hill by 4:30, one of the first ones to be there.

We were shivering in the cold.

There was nothing on the hill top except for people selling gloves and scarves and coffee. 

But in less than an hour, the whole place was teaming with people and there was not an inch of spare space to set foot.

The construction of the new observatory is under way and the outcome sure looks exciting. 

The Kangchenjunga peak glowing with the first rays of the sun. This pic from my mobile camera does no justice to it. Wish I had a super fantastic professional camera.

The sight of the changing hues of the peak in the span of 30 minutes or less makes it worth the suffering in the early morning ruthless chill and the dazed eye from lack of sleep.

The reverence to Kanchenjunga is palpable. Hotels and houses are routinely named after it. As tourists, every place we stop, every bend we take, we catch ourselves constantly trying to catch a glimpse of the peak. 

While in Darjeeling, the adventure sport you must try is white water rafting in the Teesta River. 

Entrance fee to the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute and to the Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park is part of the MMT package but we had to pay from our pockets as they did not inform us. Both these places are worth a visit. The zoo is very well-maintained and quite unique in the way the cages are built. As we walk up the hilly slopes of the zoo, we peer into the cages that are dug out far below. It's an interesting view for us even as the animals are blissfully unaware of people staring at them like fools.

This gorgeous tiger gave us all the sighting of our life by pacing back and forth and roaring.

I hardly saw any clinic and hospitals both in Sikkim and in Darjeeling.

The driver said there are actually very few.

They mostly use traditional herbs and the rest is taken care of by walking. 'Pahadi log' (mountain people) do not have much use for the doctor. So I couldn't resist taking a pic of this clinic that I found inside the premises of the Tsuk Druk monastery.




Darjeeling is famous for 3 T's - Tourism, Tea and Timber. Justifiably, Happy Valley Tea Estate is a spot in the MMT itinerary.
Here is the picture of the cup marking the marriage of Princess Diana sent to the Tea Estate.

Japanese temple built in 1972. There is a large prayer room upstairs. We were lucky to be just in time for the ongoing prayers. We were given a small drumming pad and a stick. We chanted a Buddhist verse to the beats of the drum. The temple was founded by Fuji Guruji for world peace. He is believed to have witnessed the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The Peace Pagoda is the tallest structure in Darjeeling and gives a beautiful view of the town surrounding it. It is believed to have taken the Japanese architect three years to build it. 

The Peace Pagoda has four avatars of Buddha - sitting, standing, sleeping and meditating. All the statues are polished in gold color. This one below is my favorite:

The Tibetan  Refugee Center is on the itinerary too. Skip this in case of shortage of time or if you are not too much into the history of the Tibetan-Chinese territorial conflict. There is a display of photos tracing the events of the illegal Chinese occupation of Tibet & the tragic loss of Tibetan way of life.

You can buy lots of interesting things from here but all the items are expensive. It is better to buy from any of the shops in the town selling almost the same things. However, a board like this will melt your heart and you will be tempted to splurge for the 'cause'

India has been a land of acceptance. Many of those who suffered from religious persecution the world over have sought solace here - from the Jews who settled in Kerala to the Buddhists. Many Buddhist refugee camps dot the length and breath of this great nation.

The Druk Sangag Choling Monastery is a must visit. It is a beautiful structure. You can be a part of the prayers or simply watch the monks and pupils as they scurry around their daily work in their long saffron robes. The monastery houses an orphanage. Poor parents leave their little boys on the footsteps of the monastery to be raised as scholars and monks. 

The beautiful women selling mostly non-vegetarian fare in the evening market.



Most of the small shops, hotels and eateries are run by Nepali origin people. The ethnic tribes like Lepcha, Nepali and Sherpas run the show here and it is evident. Eve-teasing is almost not heard of here.

Darjeeling is already partially autonomous and there is a demand to be separated from West Bengal. They harbor a great disdain for Mamata and her cronies.

You might hear from other people that Darjeeling is congested, a modern slum, too commercialized and so on. But from what little I saw of the city, I didn't feel that way at all. Maybe that's because as tourists on a short visit, we stick to the main lanes and rarely venture into the squalor of the city's underbelly.

I actually really liked the place and if Kubera (the Hindu Money God) continues to smile upon me, I might go back there again. I enjoyed the food, the walks, the tourist attractions, the people's smiling faces and just the fact that I was so far away from home and family and yet the place felt all too familiar and easy to get along with. Except for the cold! The cold is treacherous!