An adventurous week in North East India covering *Meghalaya*Assam*Manipur*

So the day has come which we were dreaming since a year and finally we are off to Gawhati from Chennai early in the morning (when booking are done in advance flight charges comes around 4k).

We reached guwhati around 9am and waited for the others friends who joined us from Bangalore.

We started our journey with a spiritual touch, reached Kamakya temple.

Generally kamakya temple takes more than half a day if you go directly for dharshan. We had booked 500rs ticket in advance with help of a local friend, even though we waited for more than 3hrs to complete our dharshan. So plan accordingly if you wish to visit kamakya. After the dharshan we headed to one of the friends house where we had tasted the best assami food.

After the hectic belly full lunch we rushed to catch the bus which we already booked to kaziranga. We have good amount of buses to kaziranga from gawhati which takes around 6-7hrs to reach(but then they mentioned 4hrs). FINALLY REACHED KAZIRANGA AT 9.30 PM. We stayed at a home stay which is decent enough.

Exploring kaziranga

Started our journey to Kaziranga National Park (We pre booked tickets for Elephant safari which costed 1800 per head and they have jeep safari as well). The best time to visit is the early morning batch starts at 5.00am but we booked the next batch at 6am and started our safari on elephant. All we could managed to see is 4 rhino's and a pack of deers. Thats too costly for 1800. The place is too good where we clicked some amazing photographs and returned to homestay at 10am. We booked a vehicle(Swift Dezire) to Guwahathi(4000 rs for 5 people).

We always wanted to do camping on our own,travel by own and cook our food without staying in accomodations and eating at restaurants. The best way to do it is to book a camper vehicle. But where do you get a campher? Campingco.com provides you the vehicle with attached tent and cutleries to cook basic food. Do visit there site for more information. Also can book them via airbnb.

We collected the vehicle and started our journey to explore meghalaya( Did a small shopping to buy things for the next 3 days like groseries to cook BBQ fish, maggie and other stuff). Camping Co site has few camp sites where we can pitch our tents and use the site for basic aminities like rest rooms and restaurants. Black Bridge resort is one such camp site which looks great in pictures, nearby shillong. So we thought to stay there on Day2.

After a 5 hrs travel we reached near the camp site at 10.30 pm and was calling the camp site guy to provide the exact location. It was pitch dark and very very cold. Network is too bad at that place and after lot of difficulties we found the exact location. He showed us the place to pitch our tent. And we havent had food by that time and thought to cook maggie at least. We requested the Camp Site guy to provide us some fire wood so that we can cook on the camp fire. To our suprise the Camp site guy was so rude and never bothered to help us at that time. At last somehow we got the firewood for which we were asked to pay 100rs. Later we pitched the tent in that cold, cooked maggie and had some fun around camp fire and slept around 12am.

In 40mins we reached Laitlum Canyon and spent 2 hrs there. People also refer it as Switzerland of India.

After clicking some pictures we headed to wei Swedong waterfalls (Saw the picture of the waterfall while I prepared the itenary and the picture of the waterfalls is so scenic people couldn't believe if its real). It took is 1hr to reach the water falls and one should do a small trek to reach the waterfall.

AND FINALLY SAW THE WATERFALL, EVERYONE IN OUR GANG WAS SHELLSHOCKED LOOKING AT ITS BEAUTY.

Later left the place to see another stunning water falls "Nohkalikai Waterfalls". All the places in Meghalaya will amaze you with its beauty. So did Nohlalikai. Since the sun rises early in north east, the day ends very fast. It gets darker at 5pm and we reached the spot on time to see the STUNNING BEAUTY.

So this time decided to camp at our desired place and found a place near a cafe owned by a ex army man. He was so helpful that he never said no to what ever we asked for. Cooked as usual but this time it was fish, chicken and authentic south Indian Rasam with the help of the ex army man. Had some good fun with along side food and slept.

Started off to reach seven sister waterfalls and ended up seeing not even a one sister ????, immediately left he spot with dissatisfaction and reached Mawsmai Cave, Cherrapunji‎

We found it a different experience since that was our first cave visiting experience and from there it was an 1hr journey to reach living root bridge.

Here started our adventure trek of our trip. As Google suggested we reached ramdait village and started off our trek to living root bridge around 11am. People in the village gave us a heads up that it will take us around 1hr to reach and 3hrs to come back. The route was so steep that we cannot move fast at all. It took us 3hrs to reach the spot with lot of difficulties. We missed the route and trekked in wrong direction for almost 2kms, no proper directions to the spot and there were many trails with arrow mark's exactly opp to the correct trail. We were worring about only one thing is our vehicle. Once we reached we came to know that we have taken the toughest trail to reach the bridge. The quickest and easiest trek is from Tyrna village. We were very near to tryna when we started from the cave. Since the network is bad maps were working on offline and we ended up doing the toughest trail.

We were so tired that the double decker bridge couldn't amase us ???? Ate Maggie in the local shop since we didn't have breakfast and the time when we had Maggie was almost 3pm. Later on met a solo traveler who was about to leave to tryna village, asked her if she can guide us till tryna. She said yes and we followed her. The trail from tryna is also tough but distance matters. Its has around 3k steps and the one which we descended had more than 6k steps approx. At last at 8pm we reached tyrna and booked a taxi to the place where we parked the vehicle(camper). As I said eaier the only thing we were worrying was about the vehicle. Our bags are in the trolley with has no lock. Finally reached the spot and the vehicle was safe. Found a place and camped there that night.

I've took over the driving seat since everyone was tired. Drove like ghost to reach dawki village and surprised to see the water so clean even after people swimming in it. Since we had less time we just saw the beauty of the lake and spent few minutes at the border and left to karan suri falls.

OH MY GOD was the expression on everyone's face when we saw the falls. Immediately removed our clothes and rented the life jackets to swim around the naturally formed swimming pool.

Took the go pro with us and swam for almost 2hrs. That was the best moments of trip after having such a bad last day.

Once we are done our muscles starting paining since the muscles are not completed recovered from the stress which we gave the other day. Started our journey to gawhati to return the camper and we had flight the next day to imphal. We already had booked an service apartment to stay at gawhati and reached guwhati at 12am.

FLIGHT TO IMPHAL

Started off to airport after having a good sleep.

Places covered: Loktak lake

Landed at imphal airport and booked to taxi to the place where we have already booked ( Floating Aqua Marine Homestay at Loktal lake).

By the time we reached it's almost dawn and we were spellbound looking at the sunset. The homestay is the coolest thing that you can get floating on the loktak lake. Spent whole night looking at the sky and stars. People at the place don't understand our language but they are very kind. The owner of the homestay dont stay there, he just communicates via phone. We were allowed in to the kitchen to cook some amazing fish again! To our surprise they were also cooking fish for our dinner. Had some good food that night and slept early to see the sunrise.

Woke up early and the day was cloudy. We have had plans of doing dozuku valley but majority of friends couldn't come out of the ultimate adventure we had at living root bridge. So we skipped the plan of dozuku and planned to cover imphal and shopping at imphal is fun. We covered fort, ima market and tasted lot of local food.

Places covered: Burma

I was excited to see Burma since that was my first foriegn day trip. It's a 4hrs journey from imphal to Moreh the last place before burma. Reached the border in the afternoon had to show our ID card to enter burma. We went to to burma to see some beautiful monasteries. Food in burma is so good. The local beer costs just 50rs. After seeing the places nearby we were totally in to shopping. Spent more than 5hrs to shop. After some serious shopping we bought many things which were too much to fit in to our vehicle. We were so tired slept all the way to imphal and slept immediately after having dinner.