Apologies, I incorrectly posted this once before, and corrected the mistake asap. Now its correct...

On my return form Kaziranga national park to Barah Bhavan Guesthouse in Guwahati, Mr Nat contacted me to tell me that my permit for Arunachal Pradesh would be ready in 4-5 days .


Whilst this was great news, I still wanted to see this in my hand before I really believed it. Raj Barah was also equally suspicious. Consequently as I needed to wait a further 4 days in the area around Guwahati, so I decided on visiting Meghalaya the state between Assam and Bangladesh. Originally I had planned to do this after Nagaland in late December, but this seemed the ideal opportunity.


The following morning I left the guest house at 6.30 and travelled to the bus station where I picked up a shared taxi. It took the driver I chose a full two hours to find three other willing passengers, so we did not leave until after 8.30am. Several other drivers tried to poach me (one insistent driver was particularly keen saying he could leave sooner), but I felt this transfer would be bad form as I had promised my driver my custom . In Darjeeling similar shared taxis operated a booking system, which quick easy and professional. Here it was just a free for all, with many drivers squabbling over passengers whilst pushing and shoving each other.


The 100 km journey to Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya was very windy and as the highway was being rebuilt, very dusty and full of delays. The road snaked up over the hills and there was some shocking examples of driving as many cars raced past buses and trucks on what was in essence, a one track road. We past three accidents on the way to Shillong, one which could have been fatal with two overturned vehicles, but it was not until the out skirts of the city when we saw a really bad one, which just had happened to involve the driver who had tried to poach my custom at the taxi stand in Guwahati. He was wondering around dazed, but looked OK. I failed to see any sign of his passengers as I thanked my lucky stars that I had not gone with him .


In Shillong I changed shared taxi for one going to Cherripunji, the hill top town situated at the highest southern most point of the Kharsi Mountains. This time the taxi was full of friendly Kharsi people, the local people from this area. They were almost Thai looking and the women were noticeably different, with most travelling alone, independent and not wearing saris.


The 90 min journey took us out of Shillong and along the tops of a vast gorge. The river at the bottom eventually led out into the Bengali plains, Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal. The grand escarpment and views on this journey were stunning and there were many straight waterfalls descending into the jungle below just visible from my taxi seat. The landscape at the top of the plains heading into Cherripunji was almost like moorland. Brown and beige with little rocky streams, bushes, boulders and the odd settlement. As the road wound towards Cherripunji, this landscape became dotted with limescale mines and the ubiquitous cement factory. Cherripunji itself was built on the southern most tip of this plain, with views over the stunning escarpment to the north and the vast plains of Bangladesh to the south. It had a sort of ramshackle uninviting aura as we pulled in, but this was market day, held once every eight days and the centre of town was buzzing with a completely different feel .


I managed to find a restaurant who was prepared to look after my bags (I was unsure if this was inviting theft, but I was not going to cart my heavy backpack around the market, so I had little choice). The market however, completely lived up to my expectations. It was less about what was being sold, but more about the visitors, who came from all the surrounding Kharsi villages, dressed traditionally. Everyone was quite small, some around I guess 4 ft 10 inches. All the women had head scarfs with traditional designs and bright skirts. Everyone chewed beetle nut with their red stained teeth and chatted loudly. The men were less colorful but many of the older generation were smoking the ‘Sherlock Holmes’ pipes for which they are famous - apparently copied from the Welsh Presbyterian Missionaries that converged on these hills in the mid 20th century. The whole market was well worth the effort of leaving Guwahati early and the only unfortunate part was that only one group of three women would agree to posing for a photograph .


I had a quick Momo lunch at the restaurant which had kindly looked after my bags and then took a taxi the 18 km to the Cherripunji Resort, in the village of Laitkknsew. This was one of the most highly anticipated places in which I have stayed and it did not disappoint. Set some 1000m below Cherripunji it was situated on a hillside above the quaint Kharsi town of Laitkknsew. The owner Denis was from Bengal and had married a local Kharsi woman and started this business some 15 years ago. He was instrumental in promoting the area and working with the local village people. He now employed 19 staff from Laitkknsew full time, whilst ensuring the town had a good sustainable water supply. He also managed a sponsor a child program and organised treks for his guests following the old British pioneer’s Donkey trekking routes and down to the valley, to see the famous living bridges.


The living bridges were what I had come to Cherripunji to see. So the following morning with Ebenezer, my local Kharsi guide (who was tiny and surely around 4 foot 9 inches) we started to walk along the 16km route down to the village of Nogriat which was the majority of these living bridges were located. This route offered fabulous views of the valleys and escarpments of these Kharsi Mountains, but the jungle was so think that any animals and birds were rarely glimpsed. This was not the case of the many enormous spiders that spun their webs just a few feet higher than my head. Beautifully coloured these spiders had a long body the size of a small sausage and if you included their legs in their size, they were the size of a large side plate. I later met a lady from the Natural History Museum of Frankfurt who arrived to study these spiders. She explained it was the strength of their webs that made them interesting to the scientific community as attempts had been made to make bullet proof vests from their silk and that the locals here used them as hygienic dressings on large skin and flesh wounds. Butterflies were the other big draw in these valleys, as their variety and size were extraordinary.


Ebenezer led me down the 3000 plus steps to the valley floor where the humidity was high and the cicadas were loud. During this wonderful trek we saw five bridges all centered around the town of Nogriat. These live bridges are gown over large rivers and creeks from a rubber tree’s roots. The roots are trained, initially through bamboo poles across the rivers and then after some forty years these totally organic bridges are ready for use. They are surprisingly sturdy, some up 18m long and able to hold great weights. I was there in the winter, when they were brown. In the summer they are covered in leaves. The most famous one is the ‘double decker’ just outside Nogriat. It is an extraordinary sight and still used by the locals. These bridges last some 3-400 years Ebenezer said.


There was also some rather scary steel rope bridges that needed to be crossed to reach Nogriat. These were some 20m above boulder strewn rivers and provided a somewhat hair raising experience. Ebenezer merrily skipped over them in his flip flops. I was less cavalier. However the biggest challenge was getting back up the 3000 steps towards the resort. This was hard going, but I managed it and we completed the return trip in good time. I was though exhausted and slept extremely well.


The following day I had a different guide, Frederick who took me off to another valley to see a further two bridges, despite my aching legs. The first of which was one of the oldest bridge and the second was a living bridge which was under construction. Descending down to the first bridge was not a long a journey as the first trek, but this time there were no steps and it was just a case of clambering over boulders. These were covered with a thick green moss, protected by the jungle canopy and were very slippery. The bridge itself though was great and appeared older and much less used than the ones I had seen the previous day. It made the slippery journey down worth it. The ascent was arduous again but afforded great views of Bangladesh and at the the top we found the bridge under construction. This was very interesting and Frederick took time in explaining it.


I left the following morning knowing that I could have spent longer here. The food in the resort was terrific, Denis organised a Kharsi dinner for me each night, the final night’s being a sort of chicken with turmeric and cardamon risotto, which was delicious. I retraced my footsteps to Shillong and planned on a one night stay there with a friend of Raj’s - Farouk at his Summit Guest house. This turned out to be excellent, a self contained guest house in the grounds of a Shillong cottage on the summit road over looking the sprawling city. It was run by Farouk Hussain and his Kharsi wife, both in their late 60s. I made myself at home and then raced off to see the archery at The Shillong Archery Club.


This archery is a daily Shillong Institution. Attended by over 50 archers, they gather in a semi-circle and fire (seemingly indiscriminately) at a barrel like target. Once all their arrows have been fired the judges select the scoring arrows, calculate the scores and announce a single grand total. The spectators and the bookies (lined up around the course) bet on the final two digits of the total score. Bets are placed throughout India on these two daily shoots.


I was expecting a bit of excitement, but it was more like watching the horses, with the only suspense coming as the scoring digits were announced. The man who did that, rather theatrically launched the appropriate number of arrows in the air, by hand. It was the punters who were enthralled, the archers apparently less so. I spoke to one, after he had fired his batch. I did expect a stance similar to that I had seen at the Olympics, however all the archers fired their arrows from a kneeling position. This appeared somewhat haphazard, but when questioned the archer answered, “yes I am a professional here. I practice everyday at home for three hours before I arrive here.”  I must have looked quite surprised, especially considering the size of the target, but he ignored my expression and went onto say he had been an archer since five years and joined the club here at fifteen. He then mentioned he hadn’t won any money in a while. I assumed he meant from the betting rather than his talents.


That evening I had a long conversation with Farouk and a fabulous chicken curry. The next morning it was up early, and a shared taxi back to warm Guwahati and Raj’s place.