My Meghalaya Journal: 7 Days in the Abode of Clouds
Day 1: Shillong — The Arrival
The shared taxi from Guwahati airport cost 400 INR and took three hours of increasingly winding road. My driver, a Khasi man named Bah David (everyone is Bah here — it's an honorific for men), drove with the calm confidence of someone who'd done this route ten thousand times.
Shillong sits at 1,496 meters, and you feel the altitude in the air — cooler, thinner, cleaner than the plains below. The town looks nothing like the rest of India. Hills, pine trees, churches. The "Scotland of the East" nickname makes sense, though I'd argue it undersells the place.
Checked into a guesthouse near Police Bazaar (1,200 INR/night). The room was basic but the view of the misty valley was free. Walked to Police Bazaar for dinner — a plate of jadoh (red rice with pork) and a cup of the best black tea I've had outside Darjeeling. 150 INR total.
Day rating: 7/10. Jet lag plus car sickness, but the arrival energy is real.
Day 2: Don Bosco Museum and Cafe Crawl
Spent the morning at Don Bosco Museum (100 INR entry). It's an ambitious seven-story museum covering the ethnography of all northeast Indian tribes. The sections on Naga headhunting traditions and Khasi matrilineal culture are genuinely fascinating — this is India's most culturally diverse region, and most Indians know nothing about it.
Afternoon at Cafe Shillong. Live acoustic set by a local band playing a mix of Hindi covers and original English songs. The musical talent in this city is absurd for its size. A cappuccino was 120 INR and actually good.
Ward's Lake (30 INR) is a quick, pleasant stop — 30 minutes max. But Laitlum Canyons, 23km outside town, is the real move. We drove there before sunset. The canyon drops away into infinity. No railings. Mist rising from below. I sat on the edge — not too close — and watched the light change for an hour.
Day rating: 8/10. Don Bosco was surprisingly good. Laitlum was unsurprisingly incredible.
Day 3: Cherrapunji — The Waterfalls
Hired a car with driver (3,000 INR for the day) for the 54km drive to Cherrapunji. The road from Shillong climbs, dips, twists, and at one point seems to dissolve into cloud.
Nohkalikai Falls hit different when you're standing at the viewpoint (20 INR) and looking down 340 meters to the green pool below. India's tallest plunge waterfall. Photos don't capture the scale — the cliff face beside the falls is taller than most skyscrapers.
The Eco Park viewpoint (30 INR) on a clear day shows Seven Sisters Falls cascading down the escarpment, with the plains of Bangladesh visible in the distance. Not clear today — patchy cloud — but still dramatic.
Mawsmai Cave (20 INR) was quick — 15 minutes through a lit limestone tunnel with some tight squeezes. Good fun, not life-changing.
Stayed overnight in a Cherrapunji guesthouse (800 INR). Rain started at 8PM. Didn't stop.
Day rating: 9/10. The waterfall alone is worth the entire trip to Meghalaya.
Day 4: The Descent — Double Decker Root Bridge
The big one.
Drove to Tyrna village and started the descent to Nongriat at 8AM. The 3,500 steps down are uneven stone, frequently wet, and bordered by dense subtropical forest that steams with moisture.
Two and a half hours later, drenched in sweat and with legs already protesting, I reached the Double Decker Living Root Bridge.
I don't know what I expected. A curiosity, maybe. A quirky natural phenomenon.
What I found was a 200-year-old piece of living architecture grown by the Khasi people from the aerial roots of rubber fig trees. Two levels. Strong enough to walk across. Still growing. Still being maintained by the village.
It's one of those things you stand in front of and just... stop thinking. For a while. You let it be impressive without trying to articulate why.
Swam in the natural pool below the bridge. Ice cold. Perfect.
Stayed in a Nongriat homestay (500 INR/night, dinner included). Electricity cuts at 9PM. Fell asleep to the sound of the river.
Day rating: 10/10. The bridge earned it. My quadriceps disagree.
Day 5: The Climb Back Up + Mawlynnong
The climb back from Nongriat took nearly four hours. There's no shortcut. There's no cable car. There's just 3,500 steps going up, your burning thighs, and the knowledge that Khasi children do this daily for school.
I stopped counting steps at 1,000 and started counting rest breaks instead. Eleven. Eleven rest breaks.
Back in Tyrna, I could barely get into the car. But the plan was set: drive to Mawlynnong, Asia's Cleanest Village.
Mawlynnong is 90km from Shillong, but only about 35km from Tyrna. The village genuinely is spotless — bamboo dustbins, flower gardens, swept paths. The Sky Walk (20 INR) is a bamboo platform giving treetop views. There's a single-decker root bridge a short walk away.
Homestay in Mawlynnong (600 INR/night). Dinner was rice, dal, fish curry, and local greens. Simple and satisfying.
Day rating: 7/10. Mainly because my legs were a war zone. Mawlynnong was lovely though.
Day 6: Dawki — The River That Broke My Brain
Thirty kilometers from Mawlynnong to Dawki. The drive was quick.
The Umngot River was not.
I've seen clear water before. I've been to Maldives atolls and Thai islands. But a river — a freshwater river in northeast India — with this level of transparency? The boat doesn't look like it's on water. It looks like it's floating in air, casting a shadow on the riverbed below.
The 30-minute boat ride cost 700 INR for our boat (shared between two of us). November is ideal — the monsoon has passed and the river has settled. The water was pale green, almost luminous.
The Bangladesh border is visible from Dawki. You can wave at the guards on the other side.
Afternoon at Shnongpdeng, a nearby village with camping and cliff jumping into the same crystal river. I didn't jump (30-foot drop, and I'm not that brave), but I watched others do it and lived vicariously.
Drove back to Shillong. Four hours on winding roads. Fell asleep in the car.
Day rating: 9.5/10. Dawki is the real deal. No filter needed, no exaggeration required.
Day 7: Shillong — The Goodbye
Lazy morning. Lewduh (Bara Bazaar) for breakfast — the oldest market in Shillong, a chaos of produce, meat, betel nuts, and handwoven shawls. Bought a bag of dried Lakadong turmeric (Meghalaya's famous high-curcumin variety) for 200 INR.
One more coffee at Dylan's Cafe. Shared taxi back to Guwahati airport (300 INR). Flight home.
Day rating: 6/10. Departure days always score low. Nothing to do with Meghalaya.
Would I Go Back?
Absolutely. Without hesitation. I'd go in monsoon season next time — not because it's practical (it isn't), but because I want to see what 11,000mm of rain actually looks like when it's happening.
Meghalaya is one of the most underrated destinations on Earth. It doesn't have the infrastructure of Bali, the PR of Patagonia, or the name recognition of Reykjavik. But it has things none of those places have: living bridges, transparent rivers, and a matrilineal culture that quietly challenges everything you thought you knew about India.
Go before it changes. It will change.
Total trip cost: Approximately 25,000 INR (~$302) for 7 days, including transport from Guwahati, accommodation, food, car hire, and activities. That's absurdly cheap for what you get.
