Summer Vacation in NorthEast India - Part 12 (Cheerapunjee aka Sohra)

Pleasant weather and almost flat but winding road in a Toyota with family, there is no other reason required to say that we have enjoyed while we were on the move towards Sohra.

We crossed several Strawberry farms while we were closure to Shillong, later it was only the roads and small villages.

Most of the stretch from Shillong to Sohra was wearing deserted look and its like going on a lonely ride, but the Mother Nature always engaged us in some or other discussion about the plants, hills, sky, color and the birds we spotted.

There is a strong reason to believe in a short time the Shora or Shillong may loose its charm as we witnessed the entire road side from Shillong to Shora been looted by mining activities. Mostly the mines are for Coal or Sand or Granite, but it is in a sad condition for sure. I’m only hoping this will not remain this way for a long time, otherwise the generations to come will not be seeing the beautiful and unique part of the world.

Children from any part of the world are always an attraction and they give the most stunning pictures to my collection. I always like to record them in my camera; here is some from Megalaya kids bunch that I clicked in Shillong to Sohra trip.

We stopped at a tea shop on the way and I got this picture of Tata 407 nosed bus on the opposite lane.

One more thing which was always in my mind, how in the earth these trucks spotted in North East manage to see what is in front of them on the road? Most of the trucks are decorated with ornaments, colors and stickers and height of all many of them had too many stickers including cheap quality and too dark sun film on the windshield. See the truck below which had a combination of sun film and reflective stickers on the windshield covering the entire windshield area, adding to that there is also a Sun shade that covers a quarter of the front face of the truck.

We passed lots of the mines and reached a canal that looked beautiful with no water and a hanging bridge above it for us to cross, when the Innova passed over the bridge the driver pulled the car to park on the road side.

I saw there was lot of tourist looking at the side of the road and moved towards them to see a huge congress of mountain valley with green carpet before me.

That place supposes to be a tourist attraction with the name “Duan sing syiem view point”, it had staircases down the mountain to stand and watch the beauty. After spending few minutes in admiring the place and clicking few family pictures, our driver moved the car and that is the time I realized we were already reached Sohra aka Cheerapunjee from the view point board.

With in a short while, we have reached a road that is elevated by the mountains and nothing above us, I felt like driving in plains. Slowly the winding roads revealed clouds underneath the tyres of the car, means I could locate the thick white smoke below the ground level in the distance. Driver indicated saying that the areas covered with the white cloud in the distance are part of Bangladesh.

I also witnessed the cave-ins and water caves that is created by unscientific coal mining by local which sends all the water from this side of the mountain to Bangladesh side.

At distance I also seen a small town that is Sohra, to precisely describe the way I looked place like a town with a cloud umbrella over it as if the rain god is always read to pour when Cheerapunjee wears dry surface, when approached closely I found that there is a huge Ramakrishna Mission established in there. With a short break in Cheerapunjee we passed the place towards the most desired spot of our trip, before revealing the name I wish to describe the details of reaching that place.

The more closure we have approached that place, the more plains and water channel we found, there were some burial grounds on the ground and up the hills.

In a short while we reached a very small town and a civil construction of a bridge that made us to an uneven road diversion.

The car further moved and reached very narrow village streets but clean and neat place, I guess since Cheerapunjee is always raining all the dirt is cleaned off and making the cleanest place in the world like rainiest place in the world title.

We traveled through the narrow streets for half a kilometer distance and took a right side turn to witness a destroyed sculpture of elephants

Then once again a short lonely slow drive that ended in an entrance of that place, which had display of parking fee information.

Once we moved in the entrance of that place, we found couple of vehicles parked and my kids are already excited with the weather and jumped out of the car as soon as the ignition was set to off mode.

What is the place that excited my family the most, why did I say this place is the most desired one in the entire tour?