Trip to Meghalaya: Part 2: Mawlynnong - Living Root Bridges: Guest Post by Nidhi Rana

So, the next part of our journey to the North Eastern State of Meghalaya took us from Mawlyngbna to Mawlynnong. 

Since we started in the evening, it was already dark by the time we got there. 

Our local guide Chalzing helped us find a guest house.

We checked into a guest house named Bangladesh View (Rs 1000/night). Nice room & awesome bamboo bathroom. We had dinner & called it a night.

Day 4:

People in Meghalaya are not early risers but we are. 

So we got up early to see this cleanest village of Asia, which looks like a garden. 

Not only is this village spotlessly clean, it also is one of the prettiest I have seen.

We spotted a bamboo watch tower in front of our cottage. 

Well, one has to pay Rs 20/person to climb that 80-85 feet tower to have a good view of the Bangladesh plains.

Since nobody was up yet, we climbed up & explored it all for free.

We bought some biscuits from a local shop for breakfast & headed towards Riwai to see the oldest living root bridge. We took a shared cab from Mawlynnong to Riwai (Rs 10/person). 

These root bridges are made by twisting the roots of the gigantic rubber tree. 

The roots make a pathway across a stream, for villagers to commute.

From oldest living root bridge we trekked to the nearest village.

We reached a man-made machan perched at a height of 44 feet.

At the village, we had a traditional Khasi breakfast.

So, we hitchhiked to Mawlynnong. Since we were satiated, we felt strong enough for another trek. Also, it was only 11 AM. Our getting up early had led to us having a lot of time on our hands.







So we headed to see the youngest living root bridge (15 years) near Bangladesh. We met a local guide named Leader and started trekking towards Bangladesh.

We encountered a lot of interesting things in the villages.

As we neared Bangladesh, the temperature & humidity were increasing.



Not to mention, the trek was getting more difficult.

After visiting the root bridge in Rewai, we halted in some obscure village on the India-Bangladesh border. I passed out due to the heat & humidity. We spent nearly 2 hours in the village, had some snacks and trekked up to Mawlynnong. We reached Mawlynnong at about 5 pm.

We had to reach Shillong the same night to do an early morning trek to Nongriat  to see the double-decker living root bridge. But since we did not booked any cab, we had to go to Mawlynnong taxi stand to book one but there was no cab. One driver finally agreed to drop us to Cherrapunji and told us that it’d be easier to go to Nongriat from Cheerapunji.

We agreed, but again we had no place booked in Cherrapunji either. So we asked the driver if he could help us. 

He said if we are lucky we’d get a place in Sa-i-Mika. We reached Sa-i-Mika at around 10 pm, but the manager told us that the whole place is full and the only beds are available in common dormitory. 

We hardly had any option and were happy to settle. We were the only 2 girls with 8 other boys in the dorm. It was a clean dorm with nice bathrooms. We freshened up & went to the restaurant to enjoy some live performances.

By the way, we paid only Rs 400/person for stay, drinks & dinner.

Day 5:

At 6 am we took a taxi to Nongriat. 

We reached the starting point of the trek, had breakfast, deposited our backpacks (Rs 100/bag) and started the trek. 

It’s a 10 kilometer hike, starting from the village of Tyrna, consisting of some 3500 steps, two suspension bridges, and a smaller living root bridge.

After all of this walking, one sees this:

We chilled here for 2 hours, had lunch and enjoyed this mesmerizing beauty.

We trekked back and hitchhiked till Cheerapunji. 

From Cherrapunji, we took a shared taxi to Shillong (75/person).

We made some friends in Cheerapunji, who helped us in finding a place in Shillong. We freshened up & went to explore Shillong’s night life. To our surprise, we could not find anything in Shillong. So we chilled in our room. 

Day 6:

In the morning, we went for shopping in Shillong, which also turned out to be a disappointment. 

Anyways, we took a shared taxi (500/person) from Shillong to Guwahati Airport. I got down at Guwahati market, because I had to meet an old friend who stays there. He took me to Radisson Blu for lunch and dropped me to the airport. 

A great end to an awesome trip.