Our trip to Meghalaya - the house of clouds Part 2

                                                         -  Part 2  -

After boating in Umngot river at Dawki we headed towards  Riwai and Mowlynnong villages which are just less than a km apart. It takes around an hour or so to reach this place by car from Dawki and we passed 5 waterfalls on the way. Three of them were really big. 

The village Riwali is very clean and nice. At Dawki we did not see a paid toilet but here we found very clean toilet and they were charging Rs.5 and some were charging Rs.10 even.

There are about 250/300 steps to reach down the living root bridge. Since our knees were not strong enough, we just went little ahead and came back. We could not go to see the living root bridge. We had tea. We also ate pineapple and jackfruit and I must say that I have never had such a sweet pineapple, simply awesome. 

Mowlynong is also equally clean and beautiful. There are n number of homestays in Riwai and Mowlynong village. I felt that we should have stayed in a homestay at such a beautiful area, but we had booked hotel in Cherrapunjee. So we had to move. I would recommend a night's halt in Riwai/Molynnong. There are small restaurants offering only local cuisine, So if you are ready to taste local cuisine, then it is a paradise. 

We reached Cherrapunjee after sunset. We checked in at Laiaiker Inn hotel. It is not great but not bad also for the price we paid. The locals have built nice structures but they do not have professional knack to run it.

Rooms are big and clean but very simple things which make your life easy and convenient are absent. In my room, I had to place the bag on the floor and for opening it either I have to seat down on the floor or bend it while standing or place it on the bed. A simple wooden platform to place luggage would solve the issue. I explained this to the owner and he agreed to make a provision for it. It is not that they do not want to do but such an idea never crossed their mind. We have to bring it to their notice and then they will do it. It may take some time for them to learn the tricks of the trade as tourism in this area is in nascent stage.  

We had planned to go to Jiva resorts for dinner. We went there at 8.30 p.m. and we were shocked to see that they are not allowing any outsider after 8.00 p.m. on that day as there was some programme by a big group of tourists and they had booked the whole restaurant. 

8.30 pm in Cherrapunje was sounding like past mid night in Mumbai. We came back and the owner of Laiaiker Inn was very nice and he arranged freshly prepared roti subjee from their kitchen which was in adjoining property. 

DAY 5 - 

The day dawned with lots of showers and we started around 10 am. It was raining all the way. Afterall we were in Cherrapunji.  Our programme was to cover Cherrapunji local sight seeing and leave after lunch. We tried couple of sight seeing spots and realised that it was full of mists and clouds and visibility was poor. It may or may not be clear even if we wait. So we decided to head towards Guwahati. It was not our day. On the way just before Guwahati we spotted a restaurant and had our lunch. 

We arrived in Guwahati by 3.30/4 p.m. and checked in at Hotel Vivanta by Taj. We decided to just take the rest.

DAY 6

In the morning we decided to visit Pobitora to see the Rhino. We were told that they close the entry in the safari from 15th May onwards. Our Bikramjeetsing insisted that we should go even if it is closed as he would take us by the parallel road to the sanctuary and we can see rhino. We went by his advice and realised that he is right.

The road to Pobitora is beautiful and scenic with lush green meadows full of cattle and birds, storks etc.. We met some boatmen at the gate of Pobitora and they took us for boating (2 kms. from the gate) in Brahmaputra river. There was group of 8 tourists and we joined them and hired a boat for 10 persons and had done boating for an hour. (Usual charges are Rs.2,000/-  for 10 persons.)

On the way back Bikramjeet took us by the road parallel to the safari and we could see everything from the outside road which we could have seen by their jeep from a close distance.

On our way back we had our lunch on the highway and headed for Guwahati city. The menu card in a restaurant on highway, where we had our food,  had a dish "piegeon masala".

 We spotted saree shops selling Muga silk produced in Assam which is very costly as the starting price is 6,000 rupees. We just had a look in couple of shops and came out without buying anything. I found the shopkeepers were reluctant even to take a sari out of the shelf and show it to us. It seems they were sure that tourists do not buy these sarees.  

 Then we went to Al Fresco, the boat company for our evening river cruise. We have upper deck tickets for the cruise and it was quite calm and we could feel the breeze on our face. We were told to book ticket in advance on line. I requested travel desk of Vivanta and they did the booking without any service charges. Very nice of them. They were serving tea, coffee, snack and also alcoholic drink on the cruise.. The rates were reasonable. On lower deck, there was live music and singing. The entire young crowd of tourists interested in music and dance were there.

Continued to Part 3 ....