I had a grand adventure when I went on a trip to Assam and
Meghalaya in the winter of 2014. It was my first trip to the North-East, a
region that has fascinated me, and I have to mention the food was yummy
throughout.
On the safaris into Kaziranga National Park in Assam, we
watched huge rhinos grazing placidly and for all their armour I was reminded of
cows! :D Apart from the one-horned rhinoceros and the elephants, we spotted many,
many birds. Of particular delight to me was spotting the Great Hornbill. The
other highlight was viewing great stretches of grasslands (through binoculars from the Donga Watchtower) across the Brahmaputra, where rhinos,
wild buffaloes, hog deer, swamp deer and wild boar all grazed together, at
peace.
I have not seen a more serene sight in the wild and I hope
we can all do our bit to preserve it for generations to come. The days in the
wild were cool and pleasant, like inhaling large gulps of oxygen or eating
fresh, cool strawberries. J
While I found the Assam landscape similar to Kerala, the
vegetation changed to bamboo and thick forests as we wound our way up to
Meghalaya. We reached Shillong in the late evening and were delighted by this
beautifully-lit hill town, like a fairy hill, with its pretty houses and warm
people. In Cherrapunjee or Sohra, we
trekked to the beautiful double-storeyed living roots bridges, formed of
entwining roots of trees on opposite banks.
Those 3000 steps to the bridges has been my toughest climb yet. Not because I was
that out of shape (ok, a tad :P). But mainly because I went on that trip after
a bout of food poisoning the previous day. I had already missed going to the
Sacred Grove which are untouched forests from where visitors are not allowed to
take away a single thing. So I was determined to make the trip to the living
roots bridges. The going was easy, just climb down those 3000 steps.
But the steps that go down also go up, my friend! My
friends, Sur and Anu, coaxed me up every 50 steps, munching on dates and
sipping water to keep up my energy. My legs were trembling so badly that I thought
they would have to just leave me there to live out my days in the wilderness.
So you can’t imagine how glad I was when we stopped at a
village along the way that kept bee hives and sold wild honey. I thought the
haggling would take some time or I could just settle in the village and keep
those bees company. Or perhaps they would build a palanquin for me or just air
lift me. :D
But nothing doing. Determination thy name is Sur and Anu.
Everyone had long reached the top and were munching on snacks while we, the
last of the group, put our foot on the last step of what then seemed like a
never-ending climb. I might have felt like kissing that last step or digging it
out and taking it with me. My brain, never on one tangent at any given time,
was shooting off in celebration. And it was just over climbing 3000 fairly
shallow steps. :D
Our next halt was Mawlynnong where a board then proclaimed it is
as the cleanest village in Asia. What I liked best here was going up the bamboo
tower and looking across the treetops to the plains of Bangladesh in the far
distance.
A trip for the soul—on this journey I met many inspiring
people passionate about conservation, preventing poaching and preserving the
culture of the land, courtesy the group Journeys With Meaning. A trip to
remember, 3000 steps and all. :D
Image Courtesy: Bitopan, CC BY-SA 4.0
<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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