Summer Vacation in NorthEast India - Part 17 (Kalighat Kali Temple - Never visit again)

The train journey in the next morning was already started showing the fate of our trip in Kolkata, yes early in the morning I could notice the white sun with no pleasant message, it was a fortune teller about the hot day ahead.

The rail roads reached its destination, we were about to touch Howrah station. Every one was ready and packed the stuffs.

At first I thought I will find another hotel in downtown Kolkata instead of Howrah, as staying in the city may give some opportunity to travel in the Tram. A quick taxi drive into the esplanade area showed us the most congested Kolkata city, I was spotting a concrete made tub shared by at least 30 men for bathing on the road(unfortunately I was in moving cab and couldn’t pickup the camera from bag before we passed the scene).

The taxi trip also gave a quick glance of heritage beauty the Tram network in Kolkata, We (I) for sure enjoyed seeing it. The tram(m)way in the middle of the road negotiating with cars, rickshaws and pedestrians, Great.

By then my family was already tired and wanted to go back to the old hotel itself, so the U turn to reach Howrah, once again we reached Hotel Meghdoot.

The weather god in Kolkata was very unfair with us, our summer holiday was kind of over, I watched the TV at the hotel room to understand the weather forecast and Kolkata was hotter than Chennai by 5degrees. My kids were already saying Aaiiiyooo! , seeing all the drama I decided to cancel all the plans in Kolkata and just stayed clam at the hotel room to keep the North East memory safe.

We only went to the Kalighat Kali Temple in the evening, I’m extremely sorry if my words below hurts anyone’s sentiments but I felt very much disappointing by the way we were treated in the temple by the Pandits. The Pandits (mostly) seemed well trained in day light robbery. Here is the story, we reached the temple by a taxi and a shop keeper at the temple entrance asked us to take all the Pooja items including some sweets (packed in a leaf cup), bangle like stuff (4 nos), Aroma sticks, Flowers and a Coconut. At first he was telling me 50 for bangles, 150 for sweets and rest are 10 and 15 rupees. We agreed and I was about to pay, he said I need to pay after coming back from the temple and send a guy (Pandit) with us to do the pooja.

We went with the guy and he took us inside the temple, the moment we entered another pandit inside was asking money I thought this guy and he are associated and I asked why? He told me this is thakshina, Hmm something fishy my father took some money (few 10 rupees bills) and tried to pickup one from the bunch, before even we realized the other pandit grabbed all the 10 rupees bills from my father and vanished from the scene. I was at great shock, even before I asked the other pandit who accompanied us he moved near the sanctorum and asked me to get in, but then another pandit on the entrance of sanctorum asking me Rs.200 and once again it was a great shock and I said no, he bullied and pushed me away while grabbing a Rs.20 from my hands which I was about to donate to the Hundi basket. While all these things were happening in sub one minute gap, the Pandit who walked with us went outside and took us into the hall before the Santorum, and another elderly Pandit came and started doing pooja in a corner of the hall without any statues of any god. I didn’t realize that he is doing the pooja, I thought he is taking out names etc for doing the actual pooja at the Santorum, after two minutes he completed the pooja without even breaking the coconut and asked us Rs.250 @#$%, I was out of my temper and started shouting at him, there were many other pandits came together and finally we have to pay Rs.250.

When the scene inside the temple like that, we went out of the temple and reached the shop he had a bill for Rs.950 for the items he provided. ****, I really hated the entire people around the temple, after a larger debate we have settled for Rs.600 because the useless pandit who walked with us got a price tag of Rs. 200 and the bangles in the basket was priced at Rs.50 each. I don’t want to loose my temper any more and through the money and pushed away, just because I was in an alien terrain with in my country.

I’m sure with this kind of cheap money making activities with no signs of devotedness to the Goddess the Goddess in the temple would have long before vanished and she lives elsewhere in the hearts of lovable people.

Once again this information is narrated here only for prevent anyone going through the same hurdles and not to hurt anyone’s sentiment. I’m extremely sorry if I did by posting this very unfortunate experience in here. (I’m not going to post any picture here as the entire blog will loose its charm for me)

Summer Vacation in NorthEast India - Part 16 (Eastern Railway trip)

All good so far, we reached the last day of our trip in NE, the Train scheduled to start at 12:45 and we were prompt to board into the train. The entire journey to cover 1024kms in train, and this is going to have good amount of day train trip in the very comfortable climate, what else one need to enjoy the window seat.

The trip was excellent, right from Guwahati to New Jalpaiguri and little above distance we had sun light and enjoyed all the sceneries en-route.




The major attraction to me on the train journey was the fishing nets used by villages on the sides of rail track. The technology the followed had a similarity to the larger Chinese fishing nets used in Fort Kochi.




Most of the places in Assam was flood surrounded due to the recent rains, can see many places the corps were submerged in water.


Life in village were badly affected least to mention.


As always we had a good time in the train journey and kids were happy too.

Summer Vacation in NorthEast India - Part 15 (Assam Spoil Sport)

When we travelled back from Sohra to Guwahati we crossed Shillong and stopped at a village to get some fruits, obviously the fruit was Strawberry as kids really attracted by the color and shape of it.

As usual we enjoyed the whole trip through the Megalaya’s road, when reached Guwahati I had to waste little time in arguing with the taxi driver (already reported the issue in my previous posts), and checked in the same Starline hotel, but then this time the hotel didn't have 4 bedded room vacant hence I was settling for two double bedrooms in 2nd floor.

The next day morning the hotel staff provided hot water in a bucket but the cold water in the tab was as bad a ditch (complete black in color), I really had a bad time and after 5 hours of delay the hotel people shifted my parents to 4th floor in an other room. By the time we were ready at 11AM, I noticed the rain god also in tour to Guwahati. Looked like he came with his entire army and pouring like anything, we were waiting at the hotel for the rain to get over but nothing happened. It was continuously raining till 3:30PM.

We ordered our breakfast and lunch at the hotel and around 4PM we started towards the Zoo (used 2 auto rickshaws), the whole scene Guwahati was bad as knee deep water everywhere. The autos took many roundabouts and finally reached a lane opposite side of Zoo.

We had to walk on the water to reach the zoo, though I didn’t like the idea but then kids were disappointed last time also in the zoo hence we decided to walk while I was carrying Adhava in my arm.

Many vehicles sailed on the roads that were converted as water channels and we slowly reached the Zoo at around 4:45PM. You know what once again we were denied access to the Zoo stating that the Guwahati Zoo ticket counter closes at 4:30pm, My Bad @#$%&*. Kids were started crying, I got no answer to them.

Finally it was my father who took them around showing some monkeys (though enough of them are there in my home town). The mokeys in Guwahati looked little different compare to the ones seen in Tamilnadu.

I followed my father's idea and distracted the the children by letting them play with the Snails on the ground which were popping out due to the rain.

Once the kids cooled down, we closed the day and returned to Hotel, again the trip from Zoo to Hotel was not so good except a stretch were we took Cycle Rickshaw ride.

The next day noon in our plan is to travel back to Kolkata, hence Guwahati Zoo is kind impossible to visit.

Summer Vacation in NorthEast India - Part 14 (Nohkalikai water falls - Sohra)

Though I liked North East food, most of the tourist locations had not much of restaurants. Options availed for the people on the move was really thin. At time I found it very difficult to find a food stop so we carried a packet of Bread, Jam and Butter as a fall back arrangement and we had to use it many times. Here in Mawsmai cave, the restaurant served wonderful food though I was settled with Maggi cup noodles only my wife tasted the hotel food and gave a very good feedback about to food served.

We moved straight to Nohkalikai falls, for some who have never heard this falls may raise eye brow. For me seeing this falls at first had the same feeling of seeing Taj Mahal first time in life.





It it it is wonderful nature; I love to spend my rest of the life infront of this place. My god no words to describe the flair of nature. The tall waterfalls and the turquoise water comes underneath the rocks around were simple awesome.


Spotting the vegetation on the mountain top and the valley just below the steep side of the hills completely looked contrasting, Just that the top portion gets rainfalls but water runs away but the valley gets all the water so the flora and founa is firm in that groud.



This place has got many watter falls one after one and the height of the falls is adorable giving a unique look to the entire area. See the pictures here to scale the height of the falls, I have tried to take pictures of the same falls in different height levels and looked like different one at every picture.




The water that is harvested from Cheerapunjee rain adds more source for the waterfalls however to our bad luck these waterfalls are actual gateway to Bangladesh for the precious Cheerapunjee water, once the water passes through the falls directly runs into the lush green forest and reaches Bangladesh.



Straight opposite to the place we were standing and admiring the beauty of the Nohkalikai falls above the waterfalls is where the Eco Park is located. So we moved to see the water before jumping into the water falls, here also the car parking, toilets were maintained utmost clean and the park itself wore a nice look with just lawn every where with the waterways crossing it in multiple places farming multiple waterfalls underneath.




There was a small well (that was what I assumed at first), when approached near to that read the board claiming it to be "Missing Waterfalls", Huh Missing waterfalls ? eagarly went and saw inside the round wall to only spot the water going down into the gap of a rock cluster and the water is not seen anywhere on the other side of the mountain, I guess it goes direct below the mountain somewhere.



You can go to the edge of the mountain to witness the jumping water that goes at least 600-1000ft height down. It was sad to see every drop of water that jumps on the edge towards neighboring nation as if some one trying to commit suicide, I know this is different prospect to describe most beautiful element of nature, I can't help it as my origin is a place most talked for water scarcity, and many of the headlines news about our place (Tamilnadu) only about rivers and water share.




While we were on the top of the mountain looking at the valley below noticed white fog formation on the lines of water way and with in 3-5 minutes the entire area was covered with curtain of fog that formed and popped up from the valley below. Then the entire area was completely inaccessible by cameras. Some one around the parking yard was telling me that they have been playing Hide and Seek with the nature for the past few hours as it shuts the beauty with fog for few minutes and again reopens many time in that day.





We were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of all the gorgeous aspect of the place before the fog curtain raised, in fact that was just before we stepped out of the park.

With this spot we rolled our Megalaya schedule and zoomed towards Guwahati on the same route which we traveled a day before.

Summer Vacation in NorthEast India - Part 13 (Magical Mawsmai Cave)

The most exotic and family friendly adventure spot is what I was talking about in my last post. If you all followed me in the thread carefully, you would have already understood I made this trip with 2 elders, 2 youngsters, 2 kids and a teenager hence it was my commitment to all the members that I will make the trip memorable to all the age group.

The Temples in Guwahati was for my parents, the hill stations like Darjeeling, Shillong are for self and wife, toy train, zoo are for the kids, shopping once again for my wife and niece then what was in the package for the teenager in the trip? That is it; we were at Mawsmai caves, a thrilling yet unforgettable experience for the whole family.

I have first heard good English from the ticket counter personal at Mawsmai cave, the people sat inside the counter was cool and soft spoken. They response to all your questions very politely and also gave lots of information about the cave.

After paying and collecting the ticket and camera permission fee, I was also requested by these people to leave all the footwear in the counter itself before proceeding. One more thing, don’t let kids to walk inside the caves and also be careful as the cave floor is slippery. Enough caution words from the gentlemen, I nodded my head like saying yeah and moved in the concrete path.

My parents were already tired in the travel, and asked me if they really need to be coming with me, Oh yeah it is mandatory I said. I captured their tired faces in the camera and climbed few steps to only find the huge cave entrance.

My wife took the camera and asked me to pose from inside the cave entrance for scaling purpose, that’s a good idea I said. The cave entrance looked grand, and my parents didn’t show any fear as a big corridor followed the path inside the cave.

The family moved about 25ft to only understand that the journey inside the cave will not be the same as we did till now, as the path started reducing its height and width.

We found the first obstacle (obviously not for me and the kids); where one need to climb a rock about 4ft and down then go ahead of the path.

I was looking at my parents, visibly they are worried Ohhhhssssh. I said no worries, let us experience what next, and while I was telling these words, there were two foreign nationals jumped on the rocks and went inside. I followed those people to only find them removing the shoes and carrying it with their hands to proceed next as the cave floor was filled with water like a pond.

Oh no, not only the water that makes the concern but now the caves ceiling is shrunk to only three foot height and the width of the path also narrowed to a small hole.

Though my father didn’t say anything but his jaws dropped after seeing it. Eeeerrrrrr, may be a mistake I felt inside my mind.

Just to divert all of their concerns from the narrow path, I started talking to everyone about the textures created by nature in the cave walls. I forgot to tell you all that the Mawsmai caves is one of very unique cave in India that is formed by limestone.

Wify knows my dream to visit Mulu caves in Malaysia which is the world’s largest lime stone cave and also worlds largest cave corridor, as soon as I revealed the Mawsmai cave is a limestone cave, she started telling to all of them no wonder why we are here with my plans.

We paused for few minutes on the same place finding a solution for the narrow pass, Ok that was me again to try crossing the narrow pass and come back to the family side to only covey to them that it is not so tough (but it wasn’t that way).

Little Adithya went back and forth in the narrow pass, I know he could do

The other side of the narrow path got division in the route, one towards right which looked taller and other one is towards left side that was very small and slopping downwards with completely slippery rock, I didn’t know what was in the other side. The taller side path had a board claiming that no exit and no light, hmmm we again need to do another circus, as our path is in the unknown left side. The most important part there is very little place so only one person can stand or sit in this point, so my family was still unaware of the issue.

I called my niece and wify to pass first one by one, just to send them down first so they can keep Adhitya and Adhava and I can call my mother and father slowly. This picture my wify can explain you the difficulties in passing the narrow pass.

It was tough but very interesting, not my words but my mother said after coming out the narrow pass. Smilingly I told her, you are yet to see the most interesting part now and moved a bit to show her the down slope, ha ha ha now it’s the Jaws of my Mother that dropped.

By then my wife, niece and kids were managed to reach the floor next side the left route, so my mother was. Finally my father, he had trouble in passing the first narrow pass due to his body built, but then he could squeeze to come out of the first obstacle.

What next, I told him that mother just went in this way pointing the route. Oh he didn’t show any expression in the face as I expected. But he started moving inside, what a surprise to me.

After we all reached the next side, almost unanimously everyone said this is just great. The cave walls are perfect example for the artistic skills of Mother Nature, Superb sculptures made with perfect sense of arts; we admired every single shape we found inside the cave.

Like this there were few more obstacles, one place had a metal bridge and other places had wooden boards as water crossing arrangement. There was one larger water pool which is good enough to have at least 4ft of depth. Eventually you will have rocks (slippery) to carefully cross the water without getting wet. I’m sure many would have slipped and took bath in the icy cold and clear water inside the cave.

With kids and elderly, I was much worried but they were enjoying the cave crossing experience. The ceiling of the cave is mostly close to the ground only at 4ft or 5ft tall and had very sharp structures which can easily puncture our skin and skull.

After having good time in the caves, some one in my family shouted we are reached the end of the cave by pointing to some sun light. I forgot to tell you, the cave had CFL lights in every 15ft distance which can only used for navigating the route and mostly the tunnel wore a dark theme(picture were taken with flash assist so don't get carried over by the pictures), but with the bright sun light I saw the faces of my family, one more surprise awaited for me as they were all looked fresh. I expected them to be more tired but no I was wrong. Since I carried Adhava all through the caves, my hands were in little pain so I thought everyone was tired.

Ok, now the bright light was not from end of the cave but a larger cavein that caused sunlight from top of the cave to intrude inside the cave.

Adhava wanted to take a picture in that place, I don’t know what attracted him, but he wanted to take picture of him near to that stone in the background. With the help of another tourist we all took our first family picture in the trip inside the cave.

Once again we moved in the cave to find another tunnel of light from before our path

AAAH AAAAaaaaahhhhh I know this is really end of our cave journey, yes it was the end of tunnel.

But then, the tunnel end was not like the cave entrance but very small like a Rabbit’s burrow, want to see how we came out? There you go!

Once we ejected out of the 150mts tunnel, it was all green that surrounded the burrow and I spotted a plant something similar to famous fly trap Nepenthes plant.

After clicking few pics of the lush green environment, the lovely and lonely path pushed us towards the entrance where we started.

Overall adventures and very interesting part of the trip came to end with most satisfying mask covered at everyone face in my family (I know it was time for them to go for lunch)

With Maggi cup noodles that were served in the shops in car parking area we completed our quick lunch. Driver was already in the car to go to the next location in our plan.

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?

Summer Vacation in NorthEast India - Part 11 (Scottland Of India)

Scottland of India is a proper term to address the Shillong in all the aspects be it hygiene or climate, I loved travelling on the admirably beautiful roads with lush green on the sides of shoulders of the road greets like mother nature is in happy mood. The conifer family plants made arches across the divisions of internal roads while we approached the highly secured Airforce officer’s enclave kind of location.

One need to sign the register before entering into the Shillong peak which is inside the quarters, the atmosphere inside was excellent and I love to be part of the place now.

We reached the parking lot which was again a properly organized setup with a hut to sit and relax.

The Shillong peak had a corridor to walk around and a watch tower for the tourist to admire the beauty of the city, I had a feeling that Shillong is a small town only till I climbed up the watch tower but then my perception changed and Shillong is a full-fledged city spread across the mountain massively.

The view from the watch tower gives a panoramic picture of the entire city, only thing my tiny Canon Powershot S3IS didn’t support such a large wide angle shot.

Once again it is souvenir shops and few fruit shops on the peak with which we did some window shopping and stepped down towards our lunch break at 4:00pm. The whole family enjoyed the pine trees with in the airforce complex.

Now the driver took us to the center point of the city that showcased very familiar name such as “Chennai Central” and “Madras Café”, that was awesome I spotted fellow south Indians here. With no thinking we entered in the Madras Café just to understand no seats are available to take immediate lunch and the queue inside was really big, I met the owner of the establishment who introduced himself as Manoj of Trichy a Rtd. Officer from CPT or something else.

Since the place was over crowed I asked him if he can point to any other place, we landed in Arun Hotel next to his restaurant a Bengali one, but I did a mistake in that part as none of the food served tasted good and we were the only people sitting on the 15 tables they had. Hmmm I understood why only we were there.

The center of the city seemed always busy like T. Nagar streets in Chennai, So much of people walking on the streets around the corner and my father were asking me if there is a movie theater and the show ended now.

When we had finished our lunch it was around 6:00pm and the dawn set to dusk, that is the time I realized that I missed room booking in Shillong and started hunting the hotels for accommodation and found most of them were booked due to Bihu season, those which available are like Rs.2500 per two person and we were seven. I went to the Magalaya Transport Corporation office which had facilities for accommodation at cheaper tariff but then you need to climb three floors without lift to reach the rooms and you know with 63 year old father it was not going to happen.

I went back to Manoj and he pointed me to a gentleman next to him, who introduced himself has AB (A Bhattacharjee) and an central government employee who also runs a furnished apartment in Shillong. Thank God I met Manoj, AB had his furnished apartment in the residential area that was around 4kms away from center point of the city and it was two bedroom with on Diwan bed on the entrance and two attached bath rooms and one kitchen in it.

A neatly white painted house with good interiors, the kitchen had tea bags, whiteners and instant coffee packs. Also kitchen was equipped with Gas stove, Toaster and all the utensils. You know what all of these for only Rs.1500 for 12 noon to 12 noon day schedule.

In the morning before we checkout the place, I spoke a lady(owner of the premises) stayed in the same compound who also own a smart Chester (name of the dog) stating that this house is around 94 years old and also got some heritage value with it, The great poet Rabindranath Tagore paid a visit to this house in one of his 3 Shillong visit during his life time. I was proud that I found this place, only thing that Mr. AB didn't like the driver staying in the same place and I need to pay for driver’s accommodation elsewhere.

Mr.AB also shared information about Cheerapunjee that the unscientific illegal mining of coal makes lot of cave-ins and the precious Cheerapunjee rain water makes floods in Bangladesh a complete disaster to the environment, a pity state of administration is what he mentioned.

That was the end of our Shillong trip and the car zoomed towards Cheerapunjee aka Sohra.

Shillong furnished apartment accommodation could be booked by calling A Bhattacharjee aka AB(in the picture below) at +91-94361 02252 (Arunavabhattacharjee.2009@rediffmail.com), he also stated he can arrange food if pre-requested.