goa to meghalaya

the journey started with an unexpected flight. Second train journey cancelled. no 3 day train travel to kolkatta and then guwahati. I cut it short and for good reason. Nana turned 90 on the 23rd of dec and I changed my mind and I wanted to be there. So leaving all other plans aside, the stay in Goa was unexpectedly extended. So I land in Shillong on Christmas eve with nothing more than a plan to have some delicious food. The plan was to be out of the city but every place was booked out...had nowhere to go and the only beds available were in the youth hostel! Spent Christmas week in the city...more like town; binge eating chinese food, pork momos for breakfast, pork chow for lunch and slow roast pork with fried rice for dinner. Met some really nice people in the city, spent new years getting hammered you may not believe it but all it took were 2 over filled glasses of Irish Cream(after more than a couple of glasses of rum) Live music at every BBQ more spirits more happy people.

From exploring the city, moving into the interiors was really an experience to take home. I seem to have left a big part of me behind when i came home this week. I want to be back there...not there or any place in particular but somewhere like this where people you meet everyday fascinate you and the overwhelming beauty in the nature inspires you.... that's the high I want to live on. Those are the memories you wake up to in the morning that make you want to pack your bags again.

It's funny that sleeping in a bed to me is new. I had 2 restless nights in the warmth, no sleeping bag, room to roll around and the ceiling no longer within arms reach. So we pitched a tent most places we went, and i loved every day of it. Early mornings with jadoh(rice and meat) or maggi and lal cha (black/red tea) with pop (biscuits) treks out to nearby waterfalls or ravines, jadoh for lunch at local tea stalls, back by sun down to the warmth of the bon fire and steamy hot food for the wretched souls. I was famished almost every evening I got back and even a plate of plain boiled rice was the best sight.

I moved from village to village seemingly in search of beauty in the nature we wanted to surround ourselves by, but what I found was beauty in the simplicity of the people we met. I lived with a few families on my journey and found generosity in the poorest of homes. We were invited to share roofs and meals with them and they showed us with extravagance what nature really had to offer. Vegetables and spices grown in the back yard, fish from the river, poultry from the pen, fruit from the trees in the yard. It was a dream. This was the first layer.

Town to village were long walks down the valley, climbing down a set of probably a thousand steps. See, every village has been set up in valleys where the soil is fertile, so the walk to and around is quite a treat. So, if you visit in the winter like i did, you walk down a narrow stone laden path through the woods with trees bearing oranges, lemons and star fruit adorned like christmas buntings and light bulbs in shades of orange and yellow.

The Musical Village: What's in a name? A long drive into the interiors, i'm sure there's just about a handful of us who've been here outside of those who actually live there. 5am rooster call. 5:30am sounds of birds chirping rather loud..in repetitive succession..i wake up..peel myself out of my sleeping bag and walk into the kitchen as the singing gets louder, to find deng(sister- one of the girls in the house) singing a tune out of the window so i sit myself down in silence so not to disturb her. i'm a little lost for words and then she turns around and giggles when she sees me. But the calls get louder and everyone in the village seems to be awake by now, calling out to each other as deng explains to me how this works. It was just like Ba Alan said, they don't call each other by name, they have a tune for everyone there. So, when they call out to each other, they sing out the tune"

And just like every other one, this village has tiny people. My being all of 5'4" seems to be towering a head over every woman in the village. I keep my shoes out in the sun to warm up while i go to kitchen to return with a cup of cha(tea). I peep outside the door and there's a huddle around my shoe. I watch as one after the other put their feet along side my shoe to check for size. Giggles follow as they call one of the men from the village. So i stepped out to join in the fun; but before you know it, the crowd's dispersed with the laughter and they could not understand that even the guy with the biggest feet in the village had feet smaller than mine!

The first trek down to the valley was in Sohra. The breathtaking walk down the countless steps along some of the edges was exciting. The walk to Nongriat was enchanting. The first living root bridge before Nongriat going over a little flurry of a stream that trickled under those life like gigantic boulders transported you to another world. The more you walk along the steps the more you end up focusing on your foot steps. Its only the chirping of birds around you that make you stop and look up and away from your feet. The first thing you experience is being light headed. Theres a rush of oxygen that goes straight to your head. It can be real fun running down the steps provided you don't have a camera or a heavy bag to keep slow you down. Before we know it we're down in the valley and again we fail to look around. There's a long wire bridge right in front of us. We look to the other end wondering how the bridge is going to hold, so we're deciding to go one by one. But voices come from down below and what do you know it's a few locals enjoying a really nice picnic. At one of the most beautiful picnic spots...those beautiful wallpapers you see...with the beautiful waterfall right in front of you. It is so beautiful, you melt at the sight of that blue. If I have ever experienced the effect of colour. It was on this  day. I found myself a nice rock to sit on, with a spot just right for me to dip my feet into the chilly water. And of course the picnickers were nice enough to share some fresh soh le (fruit salad- oranges and lemons with salt and finely chopped hen chilli) with us.

The transition was pretty smooth- the food, the people, the stay. I would have had a very different experience had I not injured my fingers. But then again, I think it kept me in check. It kept me humble. It made me feel fragile and it made me careful....very unlike my reckless self.


......to be updated.

Local Ja doh stall. You find these almost everywhere..along every highway and town. 

No matter what time of day, there's always tea brewing in the pot and a hot meal of steamed rice and meats.

Wild cat..the little ones they hunt for meat (they say they kill them before they attack the children in the village and then you see a glint in their eyes that tells you just how much they enjoyed the meal)

Wire bridge at Nongriat...the first one. 

The view from under the bridge. The picnic spot at sun down!

Local village cemetery. The tiniest graves i've seen.

Traditional Khasi house- made off the forest...except for this one that chose a steel roof. There's few of these left

This is what the newer houses look like. They're prettier of course. But there's 2 reasons this is happening. One- it's more profitable for them to send bamboo and bamboo products and wood to the city for export and use that money to build cement houses which increases employment. But the down side is, there's soon not going to be much left in the forest. Greed seems to be eating into the reserves including the abused year round water supply. The money they can now afford to buy detergent with is going into the water...the rivers, the streams, obviously where they have a bath and wash their clothes. 

Rural development going wrong.