Chasing the clouds
Meghalaya in Sanskrit means ' Abode of the clouds' .
We reached Shillong on a really cold and wintery evening . We went there in search of clouds (though it wasn't monsoon time!!) and was lucky enough to catch it cloudy and misty .
The trip to Meghalaya was more of a relaxing one . We checked into the Army Guest House , lined with a couple of nice cottages and relaxed after a bit of tough backpacking trip across Assam. I don't know how it works out but this happened to me for the 2nd time (the last time it was watching the French Open Final between Nadal and Federer at Krabi on my backpacking trip across SEA, the first TV access in 3 weeks) that I got to watch some wonderful tennis matches while traveling , not having read the newspaper or had TV access for couple of weeks and suddenly switching on the TV and Volla the floodlights were on !! Watched the semis and finals where the underdogs Novak,Tsonga overcame Federer and Nadal and my favourite Novak eventually taking the crown
The couple of days we spent in the cold of Shillong was spent inside the warm quilt watchning some great tennis matches, having some piping hot food, catching up on some books,walking across the pine tree walkways nearby and also becoming a tourist for a change :( and visiting the usual places - Shillong Peak,Smit Village,All Saint's Cathedral,Golf Link,Don Bosco Museum at Mawlai. I would strongly recommend visiting the museum one of the best ones I have seen in India.
A trip to Shillong also meant a drive to Cherrapunji, known to be the wettest place on the planet but because of all the changes happening with the climate , the rainfall has come d down drastically to half of what it use to be in the 1950s but it still the 2nd wettest place, next to a village near by that has taken over the first place. The drive to Chera was quite beautiful and we were lucky enough to catch in on a cloudy day . However, the waterfalls that we stopped by wasn't spectacular and the Mawsmai Cave that I tried to get into wasn't that easy and accessible.
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