Magical Meghalaya

21 March 2022

After the Kaziranga Safari, we finally set out on the journey to the place about which this whole trip is about - Shillong, Meghalaya. We started off early in the morning and reached Jagalbhanda for breakfast. The breakfast was king size - rotis with 5 kinds of side dishes (stir fried veggies, dal, spinach). A hearty meal to start the 250 odd km drive. It was a bright and sunny day, and the highways were a breeze to drive in. We stopped for some Elaneer mid-way and reached the foothills at around 12pm. The ghat roads began thereafter. I was astounded at the number of petrol bunks we saw enroute. There were at least 2 for each kilometer. As we climbed ahead, the temperature started to dip down, and we were welcomed with some cool breeze as we entered the outskirts of Shillong. Another sight that surprised us were the local taxis - the whole car was painted a bright adika vara yellow. I have seen taxis being painted black and a pale yellowish orange, but this bright yellow was so new.

The first thing that you notice as you enter Shillong is the Umiam Lake, which is situated in valley sort of set up, nestled by mountains on all sides. The bluish green waters, that had tiny waves and ripples all over was a sight to behold. We had booked our stay in the Upper Shillong which was at a distance of 10 kilometers from the center. We reached our hotel, the Silver Brooks at about 2pm in the noon, and decided to have our lunch in the restaurant that accompanied the hotel. One of the best things about doing the North-East trip with a 2-year-old kid is - Rice and dal are the staple food here, which makes it a little easier for most of the trip. We had some Dal and Rice for lunch and retired to our rooms. Given that we had drove for 5 hours and that it was noon already, we decided to rest for the remaining part of the day and start our exploration from the next day.

Athi, however, wasn't ready to rest as he had had enough sleep in the car during the drive. V rested, while me and Athi ventured out. The hotel had a small slide and a trampoline for the kids. He played on it for a while, and then took a walk around the neighborhood to watch the cows grazing, mynahs fluttering about everywhere which Athi enjoyed chasing around. Most of the neighborhood was farming land which were just ploughed and ready for cultivation, and a couple of houses here and there. 

As we went back to the hotel, V came out, so we walked further and reached a school playground where kids were practicing football. There was a particular kid, hardly a year older than Athi, who was jumping about and loved kicking the ball around, which intrigued Athi. Some of the other older boys noticed us and encouraged Athi to give a shot at kicking the ball - and boy, he got really excited, and didn't want to leave the place. It was hardly 5pm, but the twilight has kicked in, and by the time we went back to our hotel, it was pitch dark even though the time was only 6pm. The temperature had also dipped significantly, and the chill could be felt. We had an early dinner at the same restaurant and slept off as early as 7:30pm. I believe that is the earliest that Athi has slept for the first time ever.

A day in Kaziranga!

Day 3 of our North-East Trip. To read the previous entry please click here. 

Our jeep safari into the Kaziranga National Park was scheduled at 7AM. We woke up had some tea and waited for the jeep to arrive. The jeeps are big enough to accommodate 5 people easily, but since nobody else in our stay opted for a early safari that day, it was just the 3 of us.

The national park as such is humungous, and is split into different ranges such as Central, Eastern and Western. Our first safari was into the Central Range, which has the biggest jeep trail of the park. There are 2 types of safaris in this range - Jeep and Elephant Safari. The elephant safari lasts for an hour and is limited in distance. However, it takes you quite close to the animals. The Jeep safari covers a fair bit of distance, approximately 20 km, and lasts for 2-3 hours. 

The Kaziranga is most famous for one-horned Rhino. Other inhabitants include, Elephants, Wild Buffalos, Deer, and a whole host of birds such as Storks, Vultures, Parrots, Mynah, etc. The safari began with wide open grasslands dotted with rhinos and wild buffaloes at a distance. The excitement of spotting the animals and identifying what it is, really gets to you, as you progress through the journey. The driver a.k.a the guide does keep an eye out all the time (he's also quite familiar with the usual sighting spots) and is almost always the first one to spot any animal. 

As we were driving through spotting Sambhal Deers and Storks, Athiboy feel asleep. And then the driver suddenly stopped the vehicle - the next moment still feels surreal me. A group 6-7 elephants (including 3 little ones) just walked out of a big bush towards the stream beside which our trail lay. As they walked, a cloud of sand rose above them making the scene look exactly like a movie. At that exact moment, Athi also woke up and was excited to see the elephants. They slowly approached the stream and they stepped into the water; they were smart enough to roll their tails (to avoid them from getting wet). Our guide started off the vehicle the moment they entered the waters to ensure that we don't become a disturbance to them. 

As we drove long, it started getting quite hot, and since most of the national park is open grassland types, there wasn't any way to escape the Sun. The farthest point of the range is alongside the Brahmaputra River separated by some wooden fence. We stopped there to look at the river. The river, which is wide and brimming full in the monsoon, was reduced to a very thin stream during this period. But the breeze there was soothing and cool. 

Our last spotting was of a lone Tusker Elephant who was swimming / bathing in the water, towards the end of our safari. I'm at a loss of words to describe how I felt seeing such a gigantic elephant in its natural habitat. You have to see it to feel it. 

Having had a good 2-hour safari spotting all the animals, we headed back to the stay and had some Assamese Thali in the nearby restaurant. The one item that I was most surprised by was the subzi made of potatoes. I have seen baby potatoes, but these were tiny potatoes nearly the size of a peanut. 

We had almost the rest of the day to kill before we head to Shillong the next day, so we decided to go for another safari - this time, to the Western Range. We started off in the noon. The western range was about 12 km from our stay, and the most of this range was covered with Tea Plantations. I have always seen only Tea Plantations in the mountains, and this was the first time I saw tea plantation in the plains. The neat pattern of the bushes alongside walkways were a treat to an OCD person's eyes! 

The Western range wasn't as big as the Central. It had a lot of wild buffalos and a vast area of marshland where we spotted quite a few elephants and rhinos at a distance. A friend of the driver guide accompanied us. He had a pair of binoculars which got us excited to look through and spot the animals. We even managed to click a few pictures through the binoculars. 

By the time the safari ended, it was almost 4pm and the temperature dip was almost instant. From being scorching hot in the noon, it became foggy and cold, and the skies became dusky, as early as 6pm. 

Just when we thought we'd retire for the day, our stay owner told us about the Kaziranga National Orchid and Biodiversity Park, where traditional Assamese music and dance performances happened every evening. So, we went along, and it was definitely a treat to the eyes. The instruments, the song, the beats and their performance - all of them were just too good. We bumped into an Army personnel from Madras who deputed near Tezpur and had come to watch this performance with his superiors. He was visibly excited to have spotted a Tamilian there after a really long time, kept initiating random conversations with us. Have to say it did feel really nice to converse with someone in our native language outside our native state. 

Munching on some light snacks at the park, we headed back to Maihang for dinner and retired for the night.

Guwahati - Tezpur - Kaziranga

After a good night's sleep, we woke up the next morning and had some amazing Aloo Parathas and Chole Bhatura for breakfast, and that's when V received a call from his friend. We'd thought this friend lived in Dehradun, but apparently he got posted Tezpur (near Guwahati) more than a year ago. He saw V's pictures and status on the social media and called up right away and asked us to come meet him. Since this was just an hour's detour from our next destination we thought we'd go make a visit. And guess what, it was one of the best decisions.

The friend is a doctor in the military hospital and was provided accommodation as a part of the hospital quarters. The home, and the surroundings as such were lovely. Neatly built similar looking buildings, flowers of every colour around each corner, good roads, and one big beautifully maintained garden. To me, it felt like a mini version of Neyveli. I loved the place instantly. Athi started playing and roaming around with the friend's daughter who was a couple of years older than him. After an hour of roaming around, we had a heart-filling lunch of Idli, Dosa, Sambhar, Omelettes and Curd for Athiboy, and ended it with a fruit custard for dessert which Athi thought it to be ice cream and gulped one whole cup happily.

The kids digging through in the Military Hospital Garden 

We took off from Tezpur at around 5PM. Our route to Kaziranga did give us a glimpse of the mighty Brahmaputra. The bridge at the crossing could easily be about 2-3 kms long. I was awed at the width of the river, though as such water flow was not at full capacity. We reached Kohora at 7:30 in the night, Kohora is the town nearest to the Kaziranga National Park, but has very limited economical online stay booking options. We had booked our stay at a place called Sneha Bhavan, which was basically a 3/4 bedroom house, whose 2 bedrooms were converted into rooms for guests to stay. These guys only offered stay, and didn't have food options, so we refreshed and went out for a quick dinner at Maihung, a place considered to be provide authentic Assamese food. Vegetarian options being very limited, we settled in for some Dal, Rice and Papad. 

Day 2 came to a wrap, as we prepared ourselves for an exciting jungle safari the next day.

North East Vacation!

After a two year hiatus, we decided go on an annual vacation this March. Thanks to Venky's friend who was on a bike trip to the North East. He had shared his itinerary with Venky who seemed to have liked it, and wanted to give it a shot of his own. Thus, our bookings for travel and stay were made exactly a month prior. The main highlight of the trip was, we were to talk the little boy along with us. It definitely is an exciting as well as an anxious feeling. 

Ours was a booking with a lay over at Kolkatta and a connecting flight to the Destination from there. We reached the airport atleast 3 hours early, and let Athiboy run around. The boy got so excited seeing all the aircrafts, buses and other ground force vehicles. He spent close to 2 hours roaming about the airport pointing out to the various aircrafts and was bouncing with joy when he saw a flight take off up close. And by the time we boarded our flight, the boy was exhausted beyond measure that he dozed off even before the take off! So much for my worry about how he'd react during take off. After close to an hour of sleep, he woke up, had some food and spent some time with V staring out of the window at some clouds and the sea beneath. He took me off by surprise by not creating a slightest fuss throughout the journey. 

We landed in Kolkatta at about 5:30PM and had our connecting flight from there in an hour's time. We rushed through the exit, onto the food court, grabbed some quick bite and went onto the boarding gate only to realise that the boarding wouldn't happen until 15 minutes prior to the take off time. We boarded onto the flight, and took our seats. This time around the boy wasn't sleepy and enjoyed the take off. So glad he didn't panic or have any other troubles. We kept chatting about random things, and he asked me the question of "where are we going" atleast 30 times in the one hour journey and both V and me kept repeating the same answer patiently over and over again and again till he got distracted with other stuff.

A relatively quicker flight than the previous one, we landed at Guhawati airport at 8pm. Since this was our first time we were travelling with a stop over, both V & I were anxious to have our baggage reach us safely without any mess. We both heaved a sigh of relief as soon as we saw our bags come around in the baggage belt. We picked it up and walked over to the exit and took an auto to our place of stay.

Our accommodation for the night was at a hotel called Hotel Aashiyana just 900 metres off the airport. After a quick refreshing, we ordered in some dal chawal for dinner. The boy gulped in a good amount of the rice and some curd, and called it a night. It took about 30-40 mins of random story telling and playing music to finally make him sleep. But once asleep, he didn't budge much.

Thus ended our Day1 which was pretty much just the travel. Thankfully Athi enjoyed it and didn't have / give much of a trouble. Hoping the upcoming days are better too!