Transportation in Shillong

It can be classified into two major types
(1) Public transport
(2) Private transport

Meghalaya government runs different varieties of vehicles for mobility. It even includes one of the oldest TATA vehicle which will have engine at the front like old lorries. And the body of the bus is made of wood. I haven’t boarded this bus as it feels unsafe.
Next they have these modern days TATA morcopolo (Shillong Public transport service) and mini van (Shillong supplementary public transport service). In most of the public transport they are not at all giving any tickets. Even people don’t care to ask for ticket as he charges less price without ticket; we insisted for ticket and he gave us.

Meghalaya state bus

Private transport includes taxis like Maruthi 800, Alto and few Alto 800 cars. They also come in reserved and sharing mode. In sharing mode you can see upto 6 people inside alto.

One thing you can observe irrespective of public or private transport is the driver will switch off the engine whenever they see down steep road. And the gravity will drive us rather the engine :)

Food in Meghalaya

Majority of Meghalaya dishes are non-vegetarian. Their major food is with pork, chicken etc., Since we are vegetarians we have not tasted. For veg only few options are left but it is good.

For breakfasts local people mostly eat poori-sabji, paratha-sabji, bread-omelet, jalebi, sooji, tea, coffee.

We liked veg momos very much. I have tried it in Bangalore but momos in Shillong tastes different and so good. Also we tried vegetable chops, it is like a cutlet but it is deep fry. Samosa and puff are available. They call samosa as Singara and puff as pop.

It is their custom to have betel leaf and betel nut after every meal. The kashi people always have bettle leaf and nut with them and have it often. Even we can see many road side shops which sells betel leaf and nuts. The nuts are called as sopla in local language.

We tried following restaurant and are good
(1) Hotel City hub – ambience and varieties of food is good, you can try some dish in Bamboo shoot which is Naga/Burmese food
(2) Hotel Broadway
(3) Madras café – for south Indian foods. The owner is from Trichy city in Tamil Nadu. Taste is not exactly same as Tamil Nadu food but better Tamil Nadu food when compared to other hotels. Even you can try Dosa in Regal restaurant. 

For TamilNadu style food

(4) Café Shillong – very less options for vegetarians
(5) Dejavu

If you want try authentic kashi food then must go hotel is Trarroria in police bazzar. The restaurant looks like a canteen/mess inside; they have bench and table for eating.
Rice is the staple food in Megalaya and their rice is very small, it is called Jowai (is name of the place in Jaintia hills) rice.

Authentic Kashi food hotel

Pineapple and orange are cultivated locally and it tastes nice. Many roadside shop sells orange and cut pine apple to try. Teas are not cultivated successfully in Meghalaya but the horticulture department is doing some research on it.

Trip to Umiam lake

It is day 5 of our stay in Shillong. We planned to visit Ward’s lake in Shillong. After reaching Ward’s lake we came to know that every Tuesday it is closed. Without knowing what to do, we opened our trip advisor app and came to know about Umiam water sports complex.

After seeing about the place in trip advisor we headed towards Megalaya tourism department in Police Bazaar (which is near Madras café) and inquired how we can reach that place. The people in megalaya tourism are very helpful. They told us it is in Guwahati road and asked us to go to the end of GS Road in Shillong where we can find plenty of sumo services. From Police Bazaar we went to BaraBazzar from there to Motphran and then to Garikhana; some 15 to 20 mins walk in busy roads of Shillong. In Garikhana you can find lots of sharing jeep services (either TATA sumo or Mahindra Maxx). Here is where you can find yellow painted sumo vehicle and the fare is very cheap. Normal capacity of sumo is 9 but here even though 10 people are sitting inside the sumo, the driver tells 2 more can come !!! finally we 12 are there inside that sumo (thanks to TATA for pulling more people that quoted :D)

We should get down in Orchid Lake resort and water sports complex which comes after Barapani dam bridge. But we got down before the bridge and unknowing even entered military/defense land because there is no sign saying this is army land and entry is restricted. As soon as we enter one guy was running towards us and asked who we are, once we told we are tourist and coming from southern India he smiled and told ‘you should go to water sport complex which is after the bridge and this is restricted/protected area’. We shook our hands with him and exited the defense land. Since the taxi which took us from Shillong left we need walk some 1 to 1.5 kms to reach that place.

After some 15 mins of walk we reached the point, there are three places of interests in this point 
(1) Nehru park
(2) Umiam water sports complex
(3) Orchid lake resort

We didn’t go to Nehru park as we are grownups ;) we went to water sports complex and lake resort. Entry ticket is Rs20/- per person. Inside you have a decent snacks shop and wash rooms. The place is well maintained with plants and grasses. Don’t go craze by the word ‘water sports’ the only entertainment it has is boating. They have different types of boating ranging from River Boat, Motor boat, Speed boat and few others. It is a good place for people coming in group because they even have place for cooking and having food. They charge 500 to 1500 for cooking depending on the group size. It was wonderful to see group of families comes together and enjoy cooking (ladies are peeling and cutting vegetables, boys are serving coffee to other, gentleman are making fire for cooking), playing (kids are running here and there), dancing (yes they came with their sound system!!), boating, talking with each other.. it is a perfect place for family get together..

Boating in Umiam

Boating in Umiam

Cooking in Umiam

After spending our time in the lake we went to Orchid resort for food (no group invited us for food :D). The restaurant in the resort offers a good view of the lake and the ambiance was good. The quality of food is decent but they took more time to serve. We were roaming the resort and found a beautiful location for selfies :)

After spending some time in resort we were heading to Guwahati-Shillong road to catch taxi to Shillong. Luckily one taxi was standing in the main road and it was empty; even if a taxi is not standing outside for sure you will get a seat in any of the passby taxis from Guwahati. We 2 of us boarded and waiting for few more people to start the taxi as it is sharing. After 5 to 10 mins, 3 Kashi girls came and boarded the taxi. On our way to Shillong, we were talking to them about language, food and culture in Meghalaya. And they told interesting stories of Meghalaya.

PK movie in Shillong

Shillong has three theaters
(1) Gold cinimas
(2) Payal cinimas
(3) Bijui cinimas

From these three only Gold cinimas is decent and good. We went to PK movie in Gold cinimas. We wanted to go to Linga since the theater was not good, we went to PK.

Trip to Mawlynnong

Day 3:

It is third day of our trip and we planned to visit Living root bridge and Mawlynnong. The Megalaya tourism didn’t provide tourist bus to this place instead they offer only reserved vehicle which will be costly. So we hired local taxi.

It will be some 3 hours journey and it is better to have breakfast in Shillong only as there is no good restaurant on the way. On our way there is a beautiful view point called Rngain view point, so we stopped the vehicle and took few snaps. First we went to Living Root Bridge in Riwai village, there are lots of living root bridge in Megalaya but this is the nearest one from Shillong. Since it is winter there is not much of water flowing below the bridge so we went down and took lots of photographs. It was an amazing work done by kashi tribal people to build a natural bridge which will take centuries to see the result.

Rngain view point

Living Root Bridge in Riwai Village

After that we went to Mawlynnong which earned the distinction as the cleanest village in Asia. This village has 100% literacy and they maintain the cleanliness of the village. It is Sunday afternoon and there are many tourist came to visit the village. There are many hotels inside the village but most of them have a ‘Sunday Closed’ hanging board. So only couple of hotels were serving the guests. We waited for long time and had our food. After having food we walk through the streets of the village, there is one beautiful church in the village.  There is one sky-view of Bangladesh point, this they have built on top of the tree. We need to climb the artificial bamboo ramp to reach the top of the tree. Once we reach the top we can see beautiful landscapes of Bangladesh. From Mawlynnong, Bangladesh is just 8km away.

Landscapes of Bangladesh

Tip: Turn off your 2G/3G internet connection in your mobile when you reach Mawlynnong village. Because my friend received a message 'Welcome to Bangladesh' from his network operator. If we use data packets then it will charged as International roaming price.

Sightseeing in Meghalaya

Day 1:

It is better to book a day package through megalaya tourism department. They have varieties of package. First day we didn’t know about that, so we booked a private taxi for local sightseeing. We went to

      (1)    Cathedral church

      (2)    Hydari park (nothing much inside except play areas for children and few animals)

      (3)    Elephant falls

a.       It is a nice waterfalls very near to the city. Since we went on December the flow of water is very less. Apart from the waterfall, we spent more time in dressing up ourselves in Kashi tribal attire. Yes, there is a shop where we can rent Kashi dress with all accessories for Rs50/- and can take as much photo as we want. This was a real fun there.

      (4)    Shillong peak

a.       It is the highest peak point in the state and we get a complete view of the city. Don’t forget to take a panoramic photo here. It was lunch time and we were hungry; in the near by shop they serves poori-sabji, rice-dal, maggi, pakora, cut fruits, chai. Even here there was a shop to rent kashi dress.

      (5)    Airforce museum

      (6)    Don-bosco museum

a.       7 stories museum covers the history, culture, musical instruments, weapons, dresses of all the state in north east.

Day 2:

For the second day, we booked tickets in Meghalaya tourism for Cherrapunjee package and they covered below places. Cherrapunjee is to the south of Shillong and is also called as Sohra.

     (1)    Mawkdok valley

a.       It has beautiful scenic view. And here is where most kashi movie will be made. Near to it we have zipper ride.

     (2)    Eco park

     (3)    Nohsngithiang falls

a.       It is also called as seven sisters falls. Because from the view point we can see seven beautiful falls. Since we went on winter we could not see the water flow, in monsoon it will splendid view to our eyes. In northeast they refer another group as seven sisters and it is the group of north east states. Assam, Megalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura, Arunachal, Mizoram as seven sisters. Also they call Sikkim as adopted sister.

    (4)    Ramkrishna mission

a.       There is a small museum on northeast culture, history and more

    (5)    Mawsmai caves

a.       It is a natural caves and inside you can see lots of shining rocks and natural sculptures. All these are because of the minerals in that rock. Water was dripping inside the cave.

    (6)    Mottrop

a.       Here we can see a rock in the inverted kashi basket position. And also we can see the Bangladesh landscape from this place.

    (7)    Thangkharang park

a.       We have not went inside this park. It is more like a picnic spot, it is more crowded than other place we visited. Lots of school excursion vehicles are there. Also people came with all the cooking utensils and were cooking for their lunch. We entered a small shop (BK Phanbuh) to have tea, the owner is very welcoming and offered fried cake which was very tasty and asked for one more.

    (8)    Nohkalikai falls

Trip to Shillong

Myself with my friend Nagaraj planned for North East trip and we decided on Shillong in Meghalaya state.

Travel date : 25th December'2014 to 02nd January 2015

We started from Bangalore Airport in SpiceJet. If you would like to have food in Bangalore Airport the best place is the Airport canteen which is just outside the Departure terminal, here you will get quality food at reasonable price. Inside departure terminal all foods are very costly. There won’t be any signage for canteen, please ask some people. And one note, if you enter the departure terminal you cannot get out for any reason.

We reached Guwahati airport around 3:15pm though the actual time to land is 2:45pm. Guwahati airport is very small and it is far from the City (around 25 km). Inside the airport you can find counter for Arunachal Pradesh state tourism, cab booking, hotels etc.

Once you are coming out of the airport, cab drivers will surround you for taxi. Be careful, they may charge high price. We took a private a/c bus which was there just few meters away from airport and goes to Guwahati city. They charged Rs130/- it’s reasonable for 25 km travel in A/c bus. On the way to city we enjoyed the beautiful scene of Bramaputhra river which is very big.

Guwahati to Shillong is just 100km distance but the travel time differs based on the mode of transport. Below are the travel options

1.       Govt Bus – which will take around 5 to 6hrs
2.       Sharing taxi – travel time is 3 to 3.5 hrs but need to wait till sufficient people boards the vehicle. They charge Rs300/- per person from Guwahati city, Rs500/- per person from Guwahati airport
3.             Private taxi – Upto Rs2000/-, you can stop in between and take photos

We boarded sharing taxi (Swift Dezire) and thought we can enjoy the scenic beauty of hill drive but sun sets very fast here, even at 4:30 pm city becomes dark and streets light will be switched on. So it was a little disappointing for us.

It won’t happen always but anticipate breakdown of vehicle. We would have travelled 1 hour uphill and on the way we saw a taxi vehicle brokedown because of gear box problem. We are already 4 in our cab and we invited 3 more guys from that vehicle and we 7 are travelling in swift dezire !!! (luckily 2 people got down after 15 mins as they reached their place) One of the senior most person (guess 60+) of GSI joined us in the cab and we were talking to him about north east and whole of India. It was a wonderful knowledge gaining session in a cab from such an elderly person. We were talking and talking till we reach our point. We greeted new year wishes and shook of hands with him.

On your way to Shillong you will cross Barapani dam and near to it only Shillong airport is situated. From Barapani it will hardly take 30 mins to reach Shillong.

Panoramic view of Shillong Police Bazaar