Our North East Diary!!!

Traveled- May 2016

From Chennai

Mode- Air
No of days- 8 days, 7 Nights

Stayed in Hotels- Cygnett Inn Repose, Hotel Sagar Ratna- Guwahati

Hotel Boulevard- Shillong

Approx budget for a family of 3- Ard 1 Lakh including flight tickets, hotels, cabs, all entry tickets and food. Ps: Flight tickets booked 6 months in advance.

Local Languages- Hindi, Bengali, English

North East, has always been a mystery to us. We knew nothing other than Assam tea and then when I grew fond of Sarees, I started knowing the Mekhala chadors and the Assam Silk sarees! We did quite a bit of research before we could start. 

We booked a travel agent in Guwahati, who took over the entire itenary in Shillong, Cherrapunji and Guwahati.

Day 1: Depart From Chennai to Guwahati

Flight at 11.30 Via Kolkatta

Reached Guwahati at 6 PM

Took an Ola cab to check in at Cygnett Inn Repose, The airport is around 45 minutes away from the main city.

Started hunting for a decent restaurant with some veg food but in vain. None of the hotels were good enough to walk in and have food. 

Highly advised to carry dry food items like Poha, Cup noodles and ready to have food packs.

While we have no prejudices in having Veg food in Non veg hotels, the display of non veg in the counters, was a bit uncomfy for us.

Day 2: A day for Temples- Guwahati

Breakfast in Cygnett Inn Repose- Wonderful breakfast with a huge range of choices.

9 Am- Leave to kamakhya Temple.

One of those beautiful Shakthisthals where one gets to see the Kamakhya devi, in a very dark Garbagriha. A temple, that has a lot of tantric beliefs and rituals happening around.

You have a lot of agents and touts who start troubling you, the moment you enter the temple. Ignore them, Take a special darshan ticket for 500 rs each and enter the special queue. The Dharma darshan queue was too long for us to even think of it as an option.

The temple has enclosures for animal sacrifices. Buffaloes, Goats and hens are sacrificed here everyday. Its in a separate enclosure, in a corner of the prahaara.

11AM- Had a quick tea and left to visit the Umananda Temple. You need to a take a ferry and cross the Mighty Brahmaputra to visit this temple. Worth the joruney by the boat for 15 mins. You reach an ancient, Umananda Temple, The main diety Being Lord Shiva.

12.30 PM- Came back to the banks of Brahmaputra and visited the Sukreshwar Ghat temple. A very beautiful Shiva temple situated in the banks of the Brahmaputra. 

1.30 PM- After checking with multiple people, on whereabouts of a Veg restaurant, we land in a restaurant called Andhra Cafe. To our shock, we see, a beef thali as the special dish of the day. Our driver says, Aapko south Indian khaana tha na??!! By this time, we were absolutely pissed off...Luckily, one of our friends who had stayed in Guwahati, messaged us seeing my FB post, to try Sagar Ratna. What a sigh of relief, to find a Pure veg restaurant, and we were not let down. Had lunch and left to the next phase of our trip To visit Basistha Temple.

3.30 Pm- Basistha Temple- This temple is situated again in the middle of a stream of water.  Beautiful surrondings and scenic beauty, a dense forest surrounds the temple. After spending some time there, we started moving towards our hotel, or thats what we thought.

5.30 PM- Banerjee, shows us our own perumal temple and tells us, Balaji mandir mein aarthi ka time ho gaya. Jaldi chaliye..! The excitement to see mamas and madisar mamis there and an on time entry to see the aarti of Perumal. Signed off a beautiful day 1 in Guwahati.

7 Pm- Reached hotel and now, we were smart ( or thats what we thought) and informed Banerjee ( our guide)  to drop us in a mall near our Hotel. We thought, like in every mall, this mall would also have a food joint but no we were wrong. The Super stores did not have any veg version of Cup noodles also. Came to the roads, picked up some fruits, had chaat and filled our stomach.

Day 3- To Shillong

Morning 8 AM- After finishing our breakfast, we started our journey by car to Shillong.

Absolutely breathtaking mountains, clouds passing by our car, the journey by road in North east is gonna excite you for sure.

Reached Shillong at 1 PM, We were welcomed by nature to Shillong with a hail storm. It was sunny when we parked our car and when we came out of the parking lot, the clouds gathered in such speed, that the shops were all closed with huge plastic sheets and there we had a huge shower.

2.30 PM- After checking into the hotel ( Not worth the name) and consoling ourselves, that we could never go so wrong with our hotel one more time, we started walking down the markets of Shillong looking for a Pure veg restaurant. Luckily Shillong has a lot of options and w zeroed in, Hotel Boulevard for lunch.

Since we were extremely unhappy with our choice of hotel, we shifted our room the very next day to Boulevard. 

5 Pm- After a short nap, we started taking a walk towards the Golf club in Shillong. Little did we expect, it would start pouring down again.We were there inside a small tea shop, shivering and drenched fully, having a hot cup of tea...! Some experiences just happen, don't they!

7 Pm- Walked back to the hotel, amidst the busy market roads. Had hot steaming Jelebis, walked down to have dinner at the Boulevard and came back to the hotel.

Day 4- Shillong to Mawlynnong- Cherrapunji

Honestly, I had never imagined I would visit this place that I remember studying in geography classes. Your drive through the mountains, lush landscapes, clouds passing through your car, pleasant winds, its nothing short of bliss. After a couple of hours of journey, We reach Mawlynnong village. The cleanest village in Asia. Near the Village is where you trek down to watch the Natures Living roots bridge. A bridge that is formed by intertwined thick roots. Crystal clear water flowing down in the stream and a Natural bridge on top..Nature, has her way!

From Mawlynnong, we crossed some water falls and some lakes, all of them breathtaking to the Indo Bangladesh border village, Dawwki. This is the third border that we visit. 

We were mighty thrilled. A lot of Bangladeshi officials greeted and interacted with us and we only realize, borders are only namesake. 

We leave for the day back to Shillong, absolutely contended. We just filled our stomach with dry snacks and fruits cos yet again, we could find no place to have lunch. 

Day 5- Shillong to Cherrapunji_One more day

We had a lot more to explore in Cherrapunji, that we had to go back to Cherrapunji the next day too. The Nohkailkai falls, the five sister falls, Lady Hyadri Park,  let me tell you, one gets to see a lot of small to medium water falls, when you drive around cherrapunji. 

Buy some local spices like cinnamon, Honey, etc and enjoy a leisure trip on the second day to Cherrapunji.

Here we could find small joints that were making Maggi and we almost fell on the aunt's feet who made maggi for our lunch! :)

After visiting a couple of more small falls, we drove back to Shillong.

Day 6- Shillong _ Local Sight seeing
We started our day with a visit to the Air force station that has a museum attached. Relived our memories of our air force days.

Visited the elephant falls that happens to be a very beautiful falls, that has taken a form of an elephant's trunk.

Followed with a visit to the Don Bosco Center for Indigenous Culture, An anthropological museum, very well maintained and gives an in depth understanding of the Tribes and the cultural influences of the North eastern states.

After spending 4 hours there, we had lunch in the Museum canteen and got back to the Golf club near Police Bazaar. Spent a while and returned back to our hotel.

Day 7- Return back to Guwahati.

We started driving back to Guwahati at ard 9 ish and on the way visited the Umium Lake. This is a very beautiful lake and you would remember seeing this lake in some advertisements! If you are interested in some water sports, you get to do that here! It was heavily raining when we visited Umium. So we had to rush back to our car in a hurry.

Reached Guwahati by ard 4 ish. This time, we had booked our room In Sagar Ratna itself for ease of food.

6 Pm- Walked down to the mighty Brahmaputra banks again and sat there gazing at the river for a couple of hours. Did some shopping and returned back.

Day 8- The Assam Zoo and return back to Chennai.

Since our flight was at ard 4 in the evening, we decided to visit the Guwahati Zoo. Was a let down cos we could not spot any One horned Rhino. The variety of animals were also pretty less. Got back to the hotel by 12 Noon.

Had a quick lunch, booked a cab and reached the airport for our journey back to Chennai.

Some Pointers:

The Living Roots Bridge- Mawlynnong

1. Vegetarian food is very tough to find. Pack as much dry food as possible.

2. Keep an umbrella handy always. It could rain any time.

3. Pick up a Mekhala chador, if you are one of those saree lovers like me.
4. You do have shared cabs plying between Shillong and Guwahati, you could try one, if you do not want to book a full cab.

5. Most places are in high altitudes, people with motion sickness, might find it a bit tough to manage.