Return to South Asia: Chapter 2 - Meghalaya

Chapter 2 - Meghalaya

Saturday December 10, 2016

After spending the better part of two weeks together, Lil and I bid adieu to our budding bromance and went our separate ways. He had a very long 10-12 hr drive back to Tinsukia and I had an actual vacation to get to. A few of the local VK workers helped get me squared away – we took an auto rickshaw to the Guwahati bus station where there were scores of people yelling “Shillong, Shillong, Shillong!!” which I quickly realized was code for “Get Yer Ass In Mah Vehicle if Yer Headed to Shillong”. The VK folks ushered me into a shared SUV, where I was promptly placed in the middle seat of the front bench, straddling the gear shift and getting my hoo-haa brushed up against every time the vehicle was due for a gear shift. On top of that, my heavy backpack was leaning on my left leg, my right leg was tucked behind the driver’s clutch foot and my knees were touching the console. Calling this merely “uncomfortable” is putting it way too nicely, and at the moment I was in line for 3 hours of this discomfort. On the plus side, the ride was only costing me 170 Rs ($3 USD), but I would have certainly shelled out a handful of additional bucks for some reasonable comfort.

I was debating on whether or not to raise a fuss or chalk it up to a new experience but then my rapidly-numbing left leg made the decision for me. Parsing together some undoubtedly unintelligible Hindi words, I managed to convince the driver to let me in the third row of the SUV. What’s really strange is that the back row was COMPLETELY empty. Why anyone in their right mind thought I would rather sit in the front row cramped like that is beyond me. I hadn’t even realized that there was a third row, honestly. There was a married couple in the middle row (normal back row in our US SUVs) and they very clearly couldn’t be bothered to offer up any assistance or acknowledge my existence, even as I was trying to enter the third row which required the lady to move a smidgen so I could pull her seat forward. I half contemplated trying to squeeze through the rear window.

Indian people can be funny. To someone they know, or know through someone else they know, they are incredibly hospitable and friendly. But if they don’t know you, you essentially don’t exist. I wonder if perhaps this is a mental survival mechanism, since locals undoubtedly regularly come across people in situations that Westerners would likely consider to be disturbing and appalling. In any case, it was clear that I didn’t exist to the rest of the folks in the vehicle and I definitely yearned a bit for some of that Midwestern/Southern US neighbor-level friendliness to random strangers.

I later figured out that the couple in the middle row paid extra (three fares) to get the entire row and were more understandably protective of their paid territory. It was a bit comical though later on because as we neared Shillong, the driver picked up 3 guys who wanted to get into the city and all 3 of them joined me in the back row. By Western standards, this would be a no-no and a fire hazard or something. By Asia standards, this is a par for the course and they didn’t even flinch at the discomfort.

As we arrived in the city of Shillong, I learned that this shared taxi was only going to take me to the outskirts and I’d have to find my own way to the inskirts… I mean, city centre. Strangely enough, the small taxi rides in Guwahati and Shillong (10 mins each, AT MOST) were in total more expensive than the shared Sumo between the two cities (3 hrs).

The driver dropped me off at the main bus terminal because I knew the hotel was close by and he had never heard of it. So I walked up “Jail Road” for about 15 minutes before deciding that I must have gone the wrong way. After I made my way back to the bus terminal, I saw the EC Hotel smiling at me across the street from where I had exited the taxi in the first place. Dummy.

After checking in, I wandered around the area a little bit. This part of town is called Police Bazar, which pays homage to just how easy it is to bribe policemen all around India. Ok, not really. I have no idea why it’s called this, but it is clearly a shopping mecca for those who live around here – that at least explains the “Bazar”. And I saw a policeman standing around too, ostensibly in wait for a bribe to then stand somewhere else instead. All in all, the area was quite drab and kinda sucked.

I was looking forward to finally having internet access – not only to be able to stay in contact with Julia and family via WhatsApp and e-mail, but also to know what was going on with my fantasy football teams and UK Basketball. You know, important stuff. But as my string of WiFi luck would have it, the internet at the hotel wasn’t working at all because they are renovating. I also had to piece together my travel plans for the coming days and lack of internet since I arrived in the country was definitely not helping. And I was also having lots of difficulty finding any group tours to join at the local tourist agency offices.

Boy this is hard.

Every other country I have travelled to, it’s been fairly easy to meet other travelers and join forces to make a plan. Naturally, I assumed it would be the same here. Instead, it seems that 80%+ of the tourists are Indians from the mainland area, and that basically everyone comes with a group and travels within that group. So I think I’m just SOL (if you don’t know what that means, look it up). The receptionists at the hotel have been looking at me funny too – not because of my dashing good looks, but because they don’t come across single travelers who don’t have their own transportation or cell phone either. And so they’re basically thinking I’m a big dumb bozo because obviously I should have been prepared with both – again, I’ve NEVER traveled anywhere that either were a necessity.

On the plus side. I got to have a much needed change of scenery when it came to both food and sleep. I had some really nice Chicken Tikka barbeque for lunch and Chinese food (strangely enough, at a restaurant named “Barbeque”) that was really just kinda ok. But the bed… wow. Finally a bed where I could get a proper night’s rest in. The mattress was heaven – it was at least 4” thick, which is easily twice the thickness of any mattress to date. Actually, at one of the places I slept last week, I was having a particularly rough time falling asleep on a ridiculously firm/nonexistent mattress – and it turned out that the mattress was really just 3 non-fluffy comforters covered with a bed sheet. That’s not even trying to be comfortable.

Sunday December 11, 2016

After convincing myself to crawl out of the warm bed and then figuring out how to get hot water for a nice shower (there’s a light switch that turns on the in-bathroom water heater), I ventured out to try finding a travel agency to book some day and/or overnight trips. I’ve got plenty of time, so plenty of flexibility. The problem I quickly found is that everything is closed, including the nearby internet café, owing to today being Sunday. It seems that a good 90% of folks here have converted to Christianity over the past century and many take the Sabbath to heart. I have no issue with that at all, it just means that I had bad timing.

I returned to the hotel a bit frustrated and dejected – no internet, no phone, and everything was closed. Fortunately for me, Hemant at the hotel reception was feeling particularly generous with his time and helped me find an open internet café to do some research. He also helped me purchase a SIM card for my travel phone and book trips/accommodation for the remainder of my time. The SIM card was perhaps the most difficult thing – it seems that getting a fresh SIM card for a foreigner requires an act of God and a local to mortgage their first born son. Given that there’s a fair amount of illicit criminal activity in the region, along with some rebel factions creating trouble, it makes sense that the government would want more control over things like “disposable” SIM cards

But, it being a Sunday of course, the SIM card wouldn’t be activated until Monday, so I was still SOL for connectivity for a bit. You may have noticed that connectivity in general has been problematic this entire trip. It’s beyond frustrating and a key learning for future trips, quite honestly.

One of the sites in Shillong that was nearby and worth visiting is Ward’s Lake, which as you deft readers have undoubtedly surmised is a lake that was named after someone named Ward. After getting simple and very accurate directions from Hemant, I completely missed the entrance and walked a few extra unnecessary kilometers and entered the park from the opposite side instead. Some street signs would be helpful, but of course that is asking too much.

After paying entrance and camera fees of what amounted to about $0.50, I walked into an urban oasis. Wow. Just wow. All of a sudden, I couldn’t hear the hustle and bustle of the city, the air seemed cleaner and more breathable (it wasn’t too bad to begin with though), and I was surrounded with greenery… and I suppose bluery as well from the lake. A green lake really just wouldn’t look as pleasant. I found a park bench and relaxed for a good 30 minutes and then wished I had brought my iPod or a book or something else. When boredom hit, I found the entrance closer to the hotel and strolled back to my room.

The rest of the day was pretty nondescript. Outside of eating lunch and dinner, I read an e- book I had checked out from the Cincinnati Public Library. This week’s selection was “Confessions of a B-List Actor” by Bruce Campbell. I’ve been a fan of Bruce’s work, mostly owing to my old high school friend Daniel, who has harbored an unrequited man-crush on Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell for decades. As for me, I just like their brand of silly humor – it speaks to me on a deep emotional level and gets me in touch with my inner qi.

Monday December 12, 2016

This morning, I had a quick breakfast and packed my backpack for an overnight trip I was taking with Pioneer Adventures to a spot near the Bangladesh border called Dawkhi. Near Dawkhi is a riverbed that is excellent for camping and all sorts of adventure sports. As their business became popular over the past 5-7 years, the locals began to take notice and started picking up on trying to make Dawkhi a tourist destination. While it’s not there yet, it is definitely on its way. Of course, I did this trip because of the adventure sports. Generally speaking, things that make adrenaline flow are the things I’m excited to do.

Normally, tourists are supposed to make their own way to Dawkhi since that’s the norm for local tourism here. Fortunately for me, one of the tour operators was driving in today from Shillong and could give me a lift. So I got picked up by Adrian and we had a nice conversation on the route. Along the way, we saw lots of the mountain tops being carved up for the limestone to be shipped off to Bangladesh to make concrete for what must be Bangladesh’s massive construction boom. Adrian shared with me that the overwhelming majority of land in this state (Meghalaya) was privately owned, unlike in other states. As a result, the government can’t stop the limestone harvesting unless they outright ban it. Every short bit, Adrian would point to another open pit of a mountain that had existed a mere week ago the last time he had driven on this road. Interestingly enough, if the government had actually owned most of the uninhabited land and wanted to scalp the mountains to harvest the limestone, it would have taken much longer since India is well-known for its central government’s corruption and inefficiency.

After a few hours, we arrived in Dawkhi – which was a small little town with nothing much at all for visitors. It just served as the commercial center for the surrounding area, like most little towns do. Adrian took me into a simple cramped slightly-dingy hut and ordered food for us. I don’t recall exactly what we ate, but so much of the “meat” was joint/ligament/cartilage non-edibles that it was difficult to enjoy. Well – it was un-edible for me because I’m a spoiled Westerner.

After lunch, we waited in town for an hour or so while the other 6 tourists trickled in for this 2-day/1-night trip. Five of the others rode in on rented motorcycles while the last one rented a car + driver for about a week while she traveled solo. Then we played follow the leader and drove another 15 minutes towards the campsite on tiny one-lane roads that hugged the mountainside cliff. We did run into a bus or truck or three along the way and had to slow down to somehow find a way to squeeze two vehicles through without one of them plummeting to their doom. I’m so glad I’m not driving any vehicles in India. Outside of the near-death experiences, the scenery was generally pretty nice.

Bangladesh itself is right over there. Like literally right there. There was no fence or wall or anything like that. It’s just right over there. At road crossings, there were military border patrol folks stationed and clearly visible, but it didn’t seem like there was anything Trump-wall-like that was blocking entrance between the two nations. This was surprising for a few of the others because apparently India and Bangladesh have not always been on cordial terms.

To get to the campsite, we had to walk down a hundred steep-ish steps or so from a parking lot down to the riverbed, which was teeming with other tourists who had rented tents and pitched them wherever they so well pleased on the public riverbanks. Pioneer, however, rents a separate private campground from locals so that we are away from the masses a bit, thank goodness. Along with tents, there’s a dining hut, makeshift kitchen area, and two toilets (one squat and one Western). During the monsoon season, everything washes away and they have to rebuild from scratch. I haven’t mentioned it yet, but this region’s monsoon is the wettest in the world… so much that plenty of tourists actually come for the monsoon itself to be able and witness the ferocity of it first-hand.

After we canoed to our private campsite, we had to wait for a good 30-45 minutes for a small family to vacate the premises. Apparently, the dude was a government minister of some sort and his assistant called early this morning Adrian to “request” that Pioneer give access to the campsite during the day. They were supposed to be out before we got there, and it was clear that Adrian was pretty peeved about it, but also felt as though he had no choice in the matter either.

By the time we got settled, it was already dark and it was clear that we wouldn’t be doing any adventurish activities that evening. I briefly considered calling the government minister and asking him to partially refund my money. After all, my limited Hindi skills did include being able to call him an idiot monkey. Well, to be honest, I don’t know if calling someone a “pagal makad” would actually make any sense in Hindi but it would have sounded funny as hell.

Since it was dark, we got our stuff settled into our tents, had a cup of tea, and sat around the campfire to get to know one another a bit more. I pulled out my iPod & portable speaker and at the request of everyone, didn’t put it on random since this crew didn’t seem to like the idea of listening to completely random crap from song to song. The Beatles and then Billy Joel and then Micheal Jackson would have to do.

So the group… there’s Pali from Mumbai who is a Strategy Consultant about to embark on a new job in a few weeks. Pratik and Tejashree are a young couple on their honeymoon and are from Mumbai and Pune (about 100km apart) – they’ve known each other since middle school, but only started dating ~4 years ago and now will have to figure out how to live together while they work in IT in different cities. And the last group were these 3 guys from Chennai: Sureshkanna, a guy with a name so long that everyone (including us) calls him KSP, and a fellow whose name I can’t remember so I’ll just call him Desmond. These three are high school buddies who take a vacation every year together; usually it’s a group of about 10 of them but it seems that many couldn’t take enough time off or something. Desmond also just finished his civil service exams and is planning a lengthy career working in the government as a non-corrupt official. And given the way we were seated, we just needed Adrian to sit amongst us and we would have had our initials spell out PPAP.

I quickly realized that this was the first time I had ever spent any amount of time with young Indian professionals in India. All of my prior interactions were either with my cousins or through business, which isn’t the same. So I took the opportunity to ask all sorts of questions to try and understand their world. I learned that none of these folks had any thought of having an arranged marriage – that was a very antiquated concept to them, which was especially interesting to me since that’s still the standard in my parents’ families. I learned that it’s very difficult to take more than 1 week of vacation at a time for many of them. I learned that I was actually the only one of the group who believed that spirits existed.

This last point was kind of interesting actually. I shared with them that I believe that there is something that happens with your soul after you die and that some souls linger... and that I was fully aware that the scientific method would likely never be able to prove this. The line of questioning from the group made me remember something that I don’t believe I had ever told anyone. When I was a young kid (~8 yrs old), there were many times that I would struggle with sleep. I would wake up and see my body lying in bed… as though I was viewing my body from the bedroom door. A split-second later, I would be viewing my body lying in bed from a millimeter away. My viewpoint would cycle rapidly back and forth and it would freak me out. The same happened to me a in a few other places as well, generally when I was trying to go to sleep. I learned later when I went to Hindu camp that out-of-body experiences are not uncommon. This group of folks found this revelation absolutely fascinating. And I found it fascinating that they found it fascinating… as though I were the most Hindu/spiritual of the group even though I was the American.

When we first sat down at the campfire, Adrian took our orders for any alcohol and had a few of the workers run back to town to get it. One of the guys he sent was named "Forceful" - we thought that was a joke, but Adrian explained that in this village, parents (who clearly don't speak English) will see a word or name and just name their babies that... including curse words. He knew a guy named Adolf Hitler, who ended up becoming a real jerk of a politician. Anyway, it took Forceful, Bashful, and Prince Charming about two hours to return. And then we sat for another few hours still just listening to music, drinking a few beers, and passing around a homemade cigarette that Adrian rolled. It was an absolute blast to be with a group of English-speaking folks at least somewhat close to my age.

Somewhere around 9pm, we realized that we were all quite hungry and noticed that the food was sitting in the dining area ready to be eaten whenever. I have no idea when the cook put the food out there… it may have been sitting there already for 60-90 minutes for all we know. We had a few helpings and then sat back down at the fire until near midnight. After all of the beer was finished, KSP had gotten a small bottle of whiskey, so we each grabbed a teacup to share it from. No one drank it straight – everyone added water to the whiskey in their glass. It wasn’t very good whiskey, so the water was probably very necessary. Either way, I found that interesting as well since there’s a common stereotype of Indian men loving their whiskey (and Black Label at that).

Sleep came very quickly likely owing to the alcohol starter, but unfortunately it didn’t last too long. I really should have brought my inflatable camping mattress because the mattress pad just wasn’t cutting it. Come to think of it, I could have used the inflatable camping mattress at all of the places the last few weeks when I was sleeping on the thinnest mattresses known to man. I’ll have to add that to my list of must-pack items for next time I travel.

Tuesday December 13, 2016

Because the sun comes up quite early (~6am), I ended up getting out of the tent before too long. There wasn’t a ton of activity going on anywhere as most were still in their tents, so I took a little hike up the beachline to explore a bit. Near the campsite, there was an inlet to the river that was full of large smooth boulders. During the monsoon season, these boulders would be covered with water, but now there was just a small trickle stream running through. I could also see that our campsite piped their fresh water way upsteam of this inlet – they piped in water for cooking, washbasins, toilets, and even a shower. It was quite remarkable given where we were at.

There were a few inflatable kayaks on our beachfront, so I checked with Adrian, put on a life jacket and hopped in one of them to paddle around a bit and Pratik/Teju hopped in the other one. It was a bit windy out and as a result the river was moving reasonably fast, so I couldn’t just lounge around on the kayak either. It was a nice little workout to get to the other side and back.

When we returned, Adrian set us up with harnesses and we took a very short hike up a nearby hill to go ziplining across the river. It was a pretty quick zipline, but was still loads of fun. Most of the others had never ziplined before, so there was a bit of panic/comedy with them as well. The great thing was that we could zipline to our hearts’ content since the line belonged to Pioneer and the workers there woud canoe us back and forth across the river as desired. Even with that opportunity, no one went on the wire more than 2 times. For me, that’s because there were more interesting things to do… like cliff-jumping.

There was an area for a low jump (~10 ft) and a higher jump (~30ft) that would not normally be very scary. What made it hard was that the water was so crystal clear that it was difficult to tell exactly where the water began, especially on the higher jump. As a result, the higher one appeared to be 50+ ft even though it was nowhere close. Only a few of us ventured up there. I went twice, the second undoubtedly after succumbing a bit to peer pressure.

A few of us tried snorkeling as well, but there wasn’t all that much to see. Apparently, there’s a lot more fish when the river is higher during the rainy season. Before we knew it, it was nearing noon so we headed back across the river to dry off and grab some lunch before heading back to Shillong. Pali had hired a car & driver for her short vacation in the area and was headed back to Shillong herself and offered to let me ride along in her car so that I didn’t need to get a taxi. It was a good thing she offered, because after paying Adrian for the trip, I was really quite low on cash.

All in all, this overnight trip had fun activities but really was nothing much. But since I had been craving any sort of peer conversation for about 2 weeks now, honestly the price could have been 5x and it still would have been worth it. I had considered staying another day, but then I definitely would not have had enough cash nor would I have a ride back to Shillong.

In Shillong, Pali & driver dropped me off back at Police Bazar where my hotel was. She was staying in a different area of town called Laitumkrah and she was raving about the many cafes and restaurants available there, which is about the polar opposite of this place. I’ve got another trip planned for tomorrow, but was thinking I’d switch hotels when I return again.

As we departed and said goodbye, she extended a hand to shake… which struck me as interesting. I think in the States, even after spending barely 24 hours with someone in a group setting, we’d still depart with a half-hug type of farewell regardless of gender. Given that Pali comes from a more progressive and Westernized slice of India, I wasn’t sure what to expect really. I don’t think one is right or wrong… I just found it interesting.

I stopped by a restaurant called Trattoria that the hotel recommended for local Khasi cuisine just at 7pm. It seemed odd to me that Trattoria wasn’t the name of an Italian restaurant, but maybe that’s just me. Apparently, 7pm is also when the restaurant closes, so the owner pulled together whichever bits of food they had left and offered it to me for the paltry sum of 100 Rs. Most of the food was really quite tasty, but the pork left a lot to be desired for my Western palate. The pieces of pork were leathery tough and appeared to be entirely skin and fat with nothing that we would generally consider to be meat. I suppose I shouldn’t expect any differently here given that developing countries tend to use every inch of the animal when they slaughter one, which is a practice that I deeply admire while also acknowledging my own hypocrisy. I tried a bite out of politeness and was hoping to be able to stomach it and get a somewhat reasonable quantity down the hatch, but I just couldn’t and regretfully left the two pieces virtually untouched.

And the final piece of the day… my new Indian SIM card was still not working. The kiosk had told me that it would be activated Monday evening and here it was on Tuesday night and nothing. This was getting beyond frustrating, but I had a sneaking suspicion that my Nokia Windows phone was largely to blame. I couldn’t get the thing to come off of airplane mode, nor was I able to do a factory reset. And so, my connectivity frustrations continued. It’s a strange sensation not being able to connect while in a completely foreign land. Not that long ago, this type of connectivity didn’t even exist, and in a mere decade (or so) the needle has been lodged in quite firmly.

Wednesday December 14, 2016

After discussing a bit with the receptionist Hemant, I opted to take a private taxi to a nearby town of Cherrapunjee vs hopping in a shared taxi for far cheaper. The private taxi would allow me to take in some of the sights along the way vs just a one-way transport.

My taxi driver for the day was a young fellow named Ricky, who I learned is 26 and has been driving for more than a decade. I did the math and it didn’t seem quite right, but I figured I’d let it slide for now. Ricky’s English was fairly decent – he is largely self-taught, learning mostly from tourists and by watching TV and movies. Most local people here don’t speak Hindi, so even the Indian tourists from the main part of the country are often conversing in English with the locals. Ricky grew up quite poor and he told me that he wanted to go to school and maybe college, but his family couldn’t afford for him to not work. He wore his hair quite long in a punk Mohawk style and reminded me of my old friend Akmal in college who was from Malaysia. Ricky clearly spent a good amount of his earnings on his mobile phone as well as a sound system for his taxi. He also seemed to know every single other one of the thousands of taxi and rickshaw drivers on the road.

At Ricky’s suggestion, we skipped visiting Mawphlang, the sacred forest, because apparently it was just a bunch of trees that were important to old people. Instead, we took a shorter detour to Shillong Peak where I was treated to a beautiful view of the entire city. It seemed like lots of local schoolchildren were on a field trip to this location too because it was packed. It was interesting, but I think these types of lookouts are far more interesting when you actually know the city, the neighborhoods, the landmarks, and the roads. For me, it was just a bunch of buildings scattered across a valley and I had zero idea where Police Bazar was and I kinda didn’t really care either, sad as that sounds. Instead, I spent more time people watching. Observing what locals and Indian tourists find interesting is kind of interesting in itself.

With Shillong Peak complete, we headed down the road to Cherrapunjee. I suppose it would have been worth mentioning that Meghalaya as a state is really a buttload of mountains that separate the plains of Assam to the north and Bangladesh to the south. The mountains strangely seem to have relatively flat tops as well, though the mountain sides are very steep and jagged. I would have loved to ask my guide more information on this, but I don’t think Ricky would know the answer let alone even understand what I was asking to begin with.

As I mentioned, Meghalaya has terrific monsoons, and Cherrapunjee in particular generally receives the award each year for most rainfall on earth. And yes, there’s an award ceremony where Trump gets to grab your crotch. During wetter times, the drive to Cherrapunjee is littered with waterfalls around every other turn. Since we were in the dry season, Ricky stopped at the ones that still had water. Some of the less memorable stopping points had names like Elephant Falls and Wah Kaba Falls, the names of which I only remember because I have receipts for paying admission and camera fees. One of these two (Wah Kaba, I think) had some impressive scenery from a very steep mountain cliff that the walkway looked down from. I guess it was memorable after all.

The final stop was at Nohkalikai Falls just outside of Cherrapunjee. These falls are famous for being the tallest plunge waterfall in India, and indeed they are beautiful. The name comes from a legend that a young lady jumped off the cliff after her second husband killed her daughter (his step-child), or something gruesome like that. To get a better view of the falls, I spotted an entry to a bunch of concrete steps going down the side of the mountain, so I naturally followed them. The stairs kept twisting and turning and so I figured this should be getting somewhere good. Except that the stairs inexplicably stopped, as though the next set of steps fell away in a landslide or something and the space was reclaimed by the jungle. So I turned around and went back up 200+ steps for largely no reason. Joy.

Why is this kid white?

One of the consistent things I saw along the drive and in both Shillong and Cherrapunjee was a concerted push to keep it green and clean. It seems that the state recognizes the importance of being environmentally friendly and is actively marketing to the population to try and educate everyone. Unfortunately, this will take a long time as there are still plenty of people burning garbage by the side of the road and tossing out trash as they drive by in their cars. On the flip side, I haven’t really seen anyone defecating in the gutters or in an alleyway, which used to be quite rampant the last time I was in India.

As we arrived into Cherrapunjee, I quickly realized that the town was quite small and there was really nothing there. The hotel that Hemant had helped me book was a place called Coniferous Resort just south of the town on the side of the road. Being mid-day, there wasn’t a soul around except for a few people at reception. And I quickly learned that the hotel didn’t have WiFi. So now, instead of being in Shillong with no hotel WiFi and no cell phone, I was now in the small village of Cherrapunjee with no hotel WiFi, no cell phone, AND no internet cafes. I just went from bad to worse and an additional wave of frustration set in.

After getting settled in the hotel, I asked the hotel reception guys if they could help me with my Indian SIM card to figure out why it wasn’t working. One of the fellas popped it into his cell phone (many cell phones in India apparently have dual SIM slots) and told me that the SIM hadn’t been activated, which meant I was SOL on this SIM card for now. Luckily, another hotel reception dude took pity on me and let me borrow an extra SIM card he had that was already active – I’d just need to put some money on it. After putting that SIM card in my travel phone, I was still having no luck – my Nokia Lumia phone still wouldn’t get off of airplane mode for some reason and I still couldn’t do a factory reset. And then the first hotel reception dude said he had the same phone in the past and was able to mess with it to get it reset. I know this isn’t terribly interesting to anyone but me, but I’m hoping you get the gist of how amidst a feeling of helplessness, I caught a few lucky breaks from compassionate souls. After resetting the phone and buying phone minutes and cell data (separate transactions in India) plus some additional tinkering from the cell phone whisperer dude to get the internet to work, I was finally in business and I could call my folks, send Julia a WhatsApp and check my e-mail at my own pleasure. This whole experience was definitely an exercise in humility for me since I was entirely at the mercy of these local folks. 

Thursday December 15, 2016

After a quick breakfast, I chatted with the hotel reception about how to get to Nongriat, my hike of choice for today. And then I learned that it’s too far and that I’d definitely need to hire a taxi to the entry point to drop me off and also to pick me up. These guys too were a bit surprised as well that I was traveling alone and that I didn’t have transportation of my own. Super.

So I asked them to call a cab for me and I met my taxi driver, Nam, who drove me for about 30 minutes along a terrible dirt road and a good number of switchbacks to the small village of Tyma. He was also kind enough to give me directions on how to get to Nongriat and an estimate of how much time it would take to get there and back. Basically, it was about 9am now and he’d meet me back here at about 2pm.

The town of Nongriat is nestled deep into the valley and is not accessible by vehicle because the mountains are too steep. As a result, the only access is a very long paved sidewalk with a veritable buttload of steps… about 3000 according to multiple accounts on the interwebs. Sure, the trek there was downhill and should be easy-peasy, but I often find that downhill is more stressful to my knees. So I quickly shelled out 20 Rs without a second thought to the entrepreneurial young boy at the entrance who was selling nature-made bamboo walking sticks.

I made fairly decent time getting to Nongriat and was there in 90 minutes after crossing a couple of steel cable single-person bridges and a quick detour to see and walk across a living root bridge. Yes, that is exactly what it sounds like – it’s a bridge made from live tree roots spanning the river. This doesn’t occur naturally of course, it’s something the locals have to shape and coerce from strategically located strong large trees over multiple years. However, once these root bridges are finished, they can last for hundreds of years from local traffic. Since this is kinda cool and unique, when non-locals heard about these, they quickly became a bit of a tourist attraction, myself included. And because foot traffic increased dramatically, the concrete sidewalk I had just descended was funded by the government along with some steel cable reinforcements underneath the root bridges as well.

Nongriat is a simple little village with absolutely nothing to offer except nature in all directions. It was peaceful, green, and simply gorgeous. I finally came across a few Western travelers here too – apparently, they are the only ones who feel that this place is gorgeous and is paradise. It seems that the Indian tourists don’t view this area as a vacation at all; they see it as taking a major step backwards to go live in the villages that many have spent so much time escaping in the first place. Since Westerners are generally awash in infrastructure, we see this as a beautiful (if simple) retreat.

I had originally planned to stay here in Nongriat for a night, but Hemant and I could not find a working phone number for anyone in the village to book a room. And now that I’ve arrived in person, there are rooms everywhere, except that I didn’t pack for it. I seriously considered just staying anyway and wearing the same clothes for an extra day, but I didn’t have contact lens solution and didn’t bring my eyeglasses, and I was kind of short on cash as well.

I stepped onto the balcony restaurant of one of the local family’s homes and it took a while for the strangely uninterested hosts to take my order. I was a bit hungry after getting what probably amounts to the first real exercise of this trip for me, so I just had some ramen noodles to get some carbs in me. After I was done, I had to figure out how to get my strangely uninterested hosts to tell me how much I owed them. As much as everyone else seemed to be saying that the locals are extremely friendly, I didn’t feel like I was much on the receiving end of that hospitality. Looking back, it’s entirely possible that it’s because I’m not Western. Ultimately, the lack of hospitality was the final reason I decided not to test my luck and stay the night. Another group of tourists had saline solution and offered to lend me a few hundred rupees to get me through a night, but I politely declined. Sometimes you just have to go with your gut, I guess.

On the way down the grand staircase a few hours back, I had passed a couple of Dutch backpackers who had spent a week relaxing in Nongriat. So I naturally asked them if there was anything that I definitely needed to see in my day trip here and they quickly advised that hiking to Rainbow Falls was an absolute must. I was a little concerned about taking a 2+ hour hike given that I’d still need to climb up the ridiculous staircase at the end of the day, but YOLO, you know? So, off I headed towards Rainbow Falls.

First though, was the necessary trip to the local root bridge, which was really the main attraction of this area to begin with. The reason this one was so special is that it was a Double-Decker Root Bridge… it really was quite special in real life. Not so special that I flipped out and filmed a clip of me losing my sh!t about it like the Double Rainbow guy, but close enough. Seeing that each deck of said Double Decker Root Bridge basically went between the same places, I’m not exactly sure just why the locals felt it necessary to build two levels. Perhaps foot traffic was so high that it necessitated an additional lane? Or perhaps there was a terrible accident on the original single-decker where two people ran into each other in a head-on collision and plummeted to their doom below? Or perhaps they just figured that this would get the tourists flocking to them. I’m guessing it’s the last one. It worked, by the way.

The hike to Rainbow Falls appeared to be the only trail on the other side of the Double-Decker Root Bridge, so I followed it for about an hour, not always knowing if I was on the right path or not. Along the way, I walked through the village soccer field and the village graveyard. I also walked by some of the largest spiders I’ve seen in my life. The hike itself was nice, but a walking stick would have been supremely helpful and I realized a wee bit late that I had left mine back at the hotel restaurant in town. I’m pretty sure my knees are going to seriously hate me tomorrow.

Finally I started hearing the sound of crashing water and I knew that I was close… and all of a sudden, a glorious vision approximating paradise magically appeared and took my breath away. And true to its name, there was a very solid rainbow hanging out right near the base of the falls. I actually looked around to see if I could find the Lucky Charms leprechaun because I figured if he was going to exist anywhere outside of Ireland, it would certainly be here.

But seriously? How is this actually part of India? The India I know is full of people, dust, pollution, trash, squat toilets, open sewage, beggars, unbearable heat, and a strange side-to-side head nod movement that takes years to decipher and likely closer a decade to adequately master. This was heaven on earth with zero people around, clear skies, and zero pollution (and zero side-head-nodders). And I had it all to myself… well for about three minutes until another Western couple happened by. I sat and relaxed for 15 minutes before getting up to head back. I thought about jumping in the crystal clear water, but I couldn’t easily find a clean way to get down from the boulder alley I had arrived atop and I didn’t want to risk it since I was an hour from civilization.

The walk back to Nongriat was quite fast… though it too took the same hour as the hike in. Somehow when you are walking on a known trail or driving a known highway, time always passes by much quicker. That being said, the climb back to the top of the mountain took a hell of a lot longer than coming down, for obvious reasons. I ended up counting steps as a sort of mental game to both try and pass time and get farther between taking rests. I had already called Nam and rescheduled our pick-up time to 3pm and I didn’t want to have to call him again.

I ended up finally making it up at about 3:10pm. Along the way, I passed a large extended family of Indian tourists, many of whom had no business walking down so many steps, especially in chappals or dress shoes. This walk clearly screams for sneakers for those who don’t run up this canyon on a daily basis. I also passed by a small group of younger Indian guys heading down who had clearly motorbiked in. They were wearing leather-ish jackets, boots, and carrying helmets and I can’t imagine what their hike back up would be like in that gear. They did, however, stop to chat with me and asked me to join them for a selfie that they promptly posted to their social media accounts.


When I got in the taxi with Nam, I more or less collapsed in the front seat. I shared with him that I had made it all the way to Rainbow Falls and back and he was utterly shocked. Apparently, he’d never had a tourist do the whole thing anywhere close to as quickly and was surprised that he wasn’t picking me up closer to 6pm. I’m guessing that he didn’t transport very many tourists that were in true hiking shape because I know I’m crazy out-of-shape. Even so, I appreciated the compliment.

My FitBit confirmed at the end of the day that I had taken about 25,000 steps during the day and walked up 275 flights of steps. Not too bad.

Friday, December 16, 2016

After eating breakfast this morning, Nam picked me up to drive me back to Shillong. A few kilometers from the hotel was a place called Eco Park, which didn’t really seem to have anything particularly “eco” about it other than just being a park, but I’m guessing that calling it “Park” would not have been as marketing friendly. But the park did have a distinction of jutting up against a mountain cliff, allowing for some spectacular views down into the plains beyond known as Bangladesh. I guess that in itself made it a worthwhile stop-off.

The next stop was at a cave that was found a few years back. Owing to the limestone mountains and torrential annual downpours, there’s lots and lots of caves around and many are either unknown, only known to a few locals, or very difficult to get to. This one was one of the larger ones more recently discovered and was only about 3km off the main highway… so there’s a terrible gravel driveway connecting the two. I told Nam that we have lots of limestone in Kentucky where I grew up and about Mammoth Caves which is so mammoth that the entirety is still not completely mapped out. At least I think that’s right. I have no idea and I’m too lazy to look it up before writing this down. I just know that the current cave system is gigantically larger than what we thought it was when I visited as a kid in elementary school. I think.

This cave system was neat, but really nothing special. There were a few nice sights along the way and all, and some neat paths to walk down. But I have some minor claustrophobia issues, so it didn’t take long for my gentle solo stroll exploring the meandering cave system to become a race for my visit to be done and over with.

Since we had a few hours to kill, Nam and I got to talking a bit. He grew up in Cherrapunjee but lived in Shillong for a few years and got a degree in Geography because that’s what he was genuinely interested in. After graduating, he quickly learned that there weren’t many jobs available in geography and moved back home. He also enjoyed small town life better (he seemed to know everyone in town) and preferred to remain close to family anyway. So… he started working for his father as a delivery driver, saved up enough money to buy a car and now drives the car as a basic taxi. He’s saving money to buy a nicer car to use as a more luxurious option that is preferred by most of the Indian tourists to the area.

This was a stark contrast to any semblance of a conversation that I had with Ricky, who drove me to Cherrapunjee from Shillong a few days prior. Ricky was born and raised in Shillong to a poor family and didn’t seem to have any living hopes and dreams… or perhaps better worded, any dreams he had were shattered by the reality he faced. Nam, on the other hand, had a very supportive slightly better off family, does a very similar job to Ricky, but has all sorts of dreams that he is actively working on. I also couldn’t help but wonder how much environment played a role as well. Nam seemed to be living more of a “wholesome” life with a stable family, which is generally easier to do in a smaller village. Having the same type of stability in a city like Shillong inherently requires a higher level of finances, not to mention any negative influences that might exist in the city as well. I know it’s far more complicated than that, but I guess it felt as though Nam had extra help from growing up in the community he did.

Along the drive back, Nam pointed out a town that had decided to go green and clean – they had wastebaskets along the roads every 50-100 meters and employed street sweepers to pick up any trash that passer-bys might toss out of their cars. Apart from dust/dirt, the town was spotless. As I was admiring the nice job they had done, all of a sudden there was trash strewn everywhere. I asked Nam and he said we had just passed into the neighboring town. Absolute night and day difference.

Nam dropped me off at my new Shillong hotel in a different area of town called Laitumkrah that Pali from the Pioneer trip had been raving about a few days back. From Cherrapunjee, I was able to find a hotel on the internet and call them to make a reservation, all due to my borrowed SIM card. Connectivity really makes all the difference in the world.

After settling into a triple room all for myself (that’s all that was available), I walked around the neighborhood and there was definitely more restaurants than in Police Bazar, but it was a far cry from being a tourist haven as I had been used to finding when I’ve traveled anywhere in the past. There’s just not really a foreign tourist trail here. And I’m really pretty sick and tired of hanging out on my own, so I opted to just read or watch TV and hope that the time would pass by quicker. By the time I went out for dinner, everything was closed and I ended up getting a pizza that I had to take back to the hotel. That sounds really sad and pitiful but I was actually perfectly fine with that.

The room was really really cold though. You know how when you get really cold to the bone, it becomes really difficult to get warm? That’s kind of what happened to me. Since I had decent WiFi at this hotel, here’s an actual gem of an exchange when I texted Julia about this problem:

P: It’s frickin cold here. Damn lack of heating…
J: You can rent a heater for your room. Cough up 300 rupees.
P: True.
J: PARAAG MADDIWAR!
P: Yes?
J: That’s less than $5 dollars. I just looked it up. You already saved a lot by using this hotel. Go rent a heater!!!
P: J
J: I have no sympathy.
P: I’m a real man.
J: You’re a turd.
P: That reminds me.
J: Yes?
P: I need to use the bathroom.

If any of you actively follow my Facebook feed, you already know that this is a common type of conversation between us. I did end up renting the room heater. I was very glad I did, but I’m also mildly surprised that it didn’t burn the place down. One look at it and I think you can understand why. I made sure to keep a clear 3ft perimeter around the thing at all times.

Saturday, December 17, 2016

Today was a pretty chill day. I had all day to kill really, and I did that by doing a whole lot of nothing and not even really venturing out that much. I wandered along a street for a bit in the morning but it got boring real quick, so I wandered back. That’s really about it. I’m done with Shillong and ready to move on. Yes, that rhymes.

So the more memorable things of the day were really the meals. For breakfast at the hotel, they had the standard staple of poori (a fried dough-style bread that poofs up) and sabzi (a potato-based curry dish) that every hotel basically carries. It might as well be the oatmeal of India. What was memorable about breakfast is that there were apparently about 50-some men staying in the hotel that were part of some sort of travelling Indian orchestra. I thought about striking up a conversation with one of them to find out more, but I didn’t have the energy. As I said, I’m ready for this phase of the trip to just be over.

For lunch, I went to some Caribbean-hut-like looking place a few blocks from the hotel. The food was not that great. But what was memorable was that they apparently only owned one record and chose to play that one full blast. And the machine they were using was also apparently stuck on single-track repeat mode. So after listening to some random Coldplay song about 6 times in a row, a restaurant employee took some mercy on us eaters and changed the track so that we could listen to a different Coldplay song multiple times over. I think this must be their tactic to keep guests from lingering too long. However, the food being crappy is probably already handling that job for them, so they may as well either turn off the music or figure out how to turn repeat off.

Dinner was at a Chinese restaurant nearby called Déjà vu that got super-high ratings on TripAdvisor. That’s a really strange name for a restaurant… it makes me think that patrons vomit the food and get déjà vu from tasting it twice. Either that or maybe it may have once been a strip club. After being seated, I was beginning to think it was the latter. The place was swank and tricked out like they would have a dance party at a moment’s notice. I ordered some pork dish because it sounded good, but the owner quickly came over and asked me what I was looking for. After I explained, he made a suggestion to adjust my order and I went with it. I’m so glad I did – the food was absolutely amazingly tasty. On top of that, there was a live solo singer in the other room that was providing accompaniment for many of the diners, and I quickly wished I had been seated over there. I considered asking to be moved there after my meal was complete and just having a drink and listening. But then I remembered that I just wanted to go to bed and get the hell out of Shillong. This is really unlike me, I know. 

Sunday, December 18, 2016

My only job today was getting to the Guwahati airport for an 8pm flight. That’s it. But that also meant that I had a lot of time to kill. So I killed time in the morning and then checked out at noon to go off in search of a shared taxi to the Guwahati airport. The hotel reception told me that the shared taxis leave from Police Bazar, so the bellhop flagged down a shared taxi for me and I crammed into the back of a Maruti Suzuki clown car with 3 of my new best personal brown friends for a 7 minute ride in pain for the low price of 20 rupees.

At Police Bazar, the hawkers were yelling out “Guwahati, Guwahati, Guwahati”. They weren’t, however, clicking their red-sequined-shoe heels together, so they didn’t disappear and wake up from a bad dream. Instead, I yelled back Guwahati Airport and a small gaggle of hawkers fussed and fought over me. I followed the winner to a pretty nice sedan and then waited patiently in the back seat of the car for about 30 minutes while he tried to find other passengers. He tried to convince me to pay 1000 Rs and we could leave immediately, but since I was in zero rush I was happy to wait and just pay the quoted 400 Rs price, much to his dismay.

And when two other riders finally showed up, I sang out loud “Shillong, Farewell, I hate to say goodbye” from Sound of Music as the city faded away in the rear window. I was really looking forward to seeing some familiar faces after the chaos of the last few weeks and I was just a short flight and a few hours away from just that.


Tidbits:

1. Nearly all of the meals I have been served in restaurants come with the very Indian condiments of sliced green chili peppers and sliced raw onions in a small plate. When I was growing up, we always had the same plate of condiments at the table as well, though we also usually had cucumber slices as well.
2. Indians here refer to ramen noodles as “maggi”, which is the prevalent brand name of ramen sold in India. And even though it comes from a 15 cent pouch, it’s somehow often seen as higher status that homemade food, which is far far better.
3. Personal space is not a thing here in India. Even in airplanes, the window passengers are expected to squeeze by seated aisle and middle seat occupants because it’s not a big deal if the window passenger’s legs rub up against yours or if their butt passes by inches in front of your head.
4. I haven’t really seen much road rage here, even though people drive crazy. I think it’s because not everyone drives here which limits the pool of drivers (the meek either have a driver or get in a taxi) and that most drivers here drive similarly enough that the other drivers know what to expect from them. I’ve seen drivers get upset at an action from another driver, but they seem to get over it quickly. Then again, they probably have to so that they don’t get in an accident.
5. I’ve seen almost no one here drive while on their cell phone. At home, it seems that greater than 75% of drivers (and nearly 100% of women below age 30) are on their cell phone without a headset or speakerphone. Not only that, I’ve seen multiple people pull over to talk on their phone when they receive a call.
6. People here seem to wake up really early with the sun (6-7 am), but somehow work doesn’t seem to start in earnest until nearly 10am. As a result, lunch is generally around 1-2pm and dinner 7-8pm.