Summer Vacation in NorthEast India - Part 10 (Elephant Falls - Shillong)

When we arrived at the parking yard of Elephant Falls, I really found amazing with the cleanliness maintained, all the places in NorthEast tourist spots had properly maintained paid toilet arrangements which is a welcome fact.

In the parking yard I saw an old lady selling some striking blood colored fruits, at first from distance I thought it was Shillong Strawberry but I was wrong after going closure I understood it is something else. The fruit had a texture that is similar to our taste buds, we had no time to think any further I just grabbed some from the lady and she offered the fruit with salt in a paper.

She didn’t know Hindi and we had to stop in another souvenir shop to know the name of the fruit that is Shofie a berry family one.

With a pack of Shofie fruits in hand I moved down the stairs to reach the water falls, the fruit had a real delicious taste. ah once again a board asking armed personals to obey the rules here!

After passing the ticket booth, we reached the first waterfalls. The water flows through three stages farming three water falls in a same place.

Some information on the board about the name of the falls here, I must admit at every 3 meters the management of this place kept dust bins and it was so much useful and I could not see any plastics spoiling the environment. Hats off to the management for maintaining the environment so clean.

After seeing the first falls, we reached the 2nd falls which again below some 10 meters, then the last one; to reach the last and larger falls one need to step down in steep staircases, my parents backed off at that stage as they couldn’t go down and climb up. So the rest of the family proceeded down and had a look at the beautiful but lean (not much of water) water falls.

While we were returning back, we noticed one of the shops that provide the traditional Megalaya custumes for rental to take pictures, hmm they had all the sizes and many took the chance to jump inside the heavy dresses, no one from my side had interest in wearing them. So I had to click a picture of some children who had enjoyed the dress (there were some adults who also wore them but I didn’t click)

Oh I forgot, while I was asking the name of fruit with one of the shops there I also requested the cute girls in the shop to pose for my camera as they were in Megalaya’s regular costume.

Finally we moved out of Elephant falls and proceed towards the Shillong city, but then my kids after seeing the Airforce establishments which had few old aero planes parked on the lawn wanted to check that out. Luckily I came to know that it was Airforce museum and the car parked at the gate, no entrance fees but one has to enter the personal information before getting inside.

The museum had good amount of stuffs on the display from rocket to helicopters and cultural pictures and statues of northeast life. We thoroughly enjoyed and found very informative while the kids spend quality time in running around the aero stuffs.

When we out of the museum everyone was completely exhausted and lunch was the immediate need, but then I only came to know from the driver that we need to visit Shillong peak before heading for lunch as it is on the way and lunch will be available only in the main city, hmmm tough call but I had to shudder to his words.