Hello All,
I have traveled quite extensively throughout my life and the end of every trip I always felt like jotting down my experience. Procrastination, maybe but somehow I never did it. Then came my latest hurrah to the North East and I could not resist documenting this lifetime of an experience which will be my first ever travelogue.
So here is the part 1 of my North East India Trip which would cover Meghalaya.
It all started on 13th April’19. I took Go Air flight from Terminal 2 of India Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi to reach Guwahati’s Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport. The flight was scheduled to depart at 1050 hours, so I left from my home i.e. Gurgaon, Haryana 0700 hours to reach slightly ahead of time. I reached IGI Airport at 0930 hours. This being my first air journey, I was a bit confused about the whole process at the Airport. I checked in my saddle bag for luggage and kept camera bag with me in the flight. I paid extra for a window seat on the left side so that I can catch a glimpse of Himalayan Mountain Ranges such as Mt. Everest and Mt. Kanchenjunga but Thor was not in a good mood and due to foggy weather we couldn’t see mountain peaks. Finally the plane landed at Guwahati Airport and It was quite a small airport in comparison to IGI. Some of the Assamese artists were welcoming the tourists with local folk songs. It was the first indication that I am in a completely different region now just after a 2.5 hours of flight. After collecting the saddle bag I rushed to reach Shillong via road. The cabs were readily available right outside the airport for Shillong. I shared my taxi with a couple and their child for 500 rupees. The temperature was reaching 35 Degree Celsius at 1500 hours. The distance between Guwahati Airport to Shillong was 115 kms which had to be covered in 3.5 hours. As we approached towards Shillong I saw some sign boards on the right side of the highway mentioning Meghalaya which was merely 15 kms from the airport. I asked the driver has Meghalaya started? He replied, on the right side of the highway it is Meghalaya and on the left side it is still Assam. It was amazing experience as I was going through 2 different at the same time. Actually this highway acts a border between the 2 states. After covering 25 kms more, we stopped at a Dhaba where I took tea and parantha. The entire meal took just 15 minutes but I was completely shell shocked by the weather when I stepped out the Dhaba. The heat wave turned into cold as heavens started opening up. Its like the Abode of Clouds are welcoming us. We continued our journey quietly with very few vehicles around. Finally, I saw vehicles piling up in lanes thinking that it was a traffic jam but it was not a jam and it is just that vehicles in shillong don’t over take and they just drive in a lane. It is a good thing that we should learn from this as we usually don’t follow this driving practice in most of the Indian cities. Soon we reached Shillong and the driver first dropped my co-passengers and then me at Police Bazar which is the center of Shillong. I had already booked a hotel room in advance for that night. I plugged in the GPS location of the hotel and it was showing just 700 meters from my current location. So I started walking following the GPS but after walking to 300 meters GPS diverted me to some other way and It kept diverting continuously. After wandering for a while without any luck I decided to eat something as food gives my secret finding powers. {When in doubt, I eat}. I had an egg wrap for my dinner and ventured out asking locals too about that hotel but none had a clue. Finally, a local boy showed me the right way and found the hotel. As I entered the hotel room, the hotel staff had their eyes glued to the door as they were only waiting to complete my check in formalities and close their books for the day. Virender Sharma, the hotel manager called out my name and greeted me very nicely. I was escorted to my room after the check in and I hit the bed straight away after taking a quick shower.
Now its time to say good night from my first ever night in North East India.
