Have you ever seen or even thought this can happen? Man, science and nature working together to create heaven on earth
When that happens, the result is 'Meghalaya'
After visiting Meghalaya I realized and became clear that pics we see related to Meghalaya are not worth or even close to describe it, man made cameras can't capture the beauty of nature to fullest. We just need to personally experience through our eyes and relish those with our heart
Prologue : Few years back we used to say 'Guys, lets meet and plan for some outing or party or trip'. Now, the situation is that we need to plan (many times in fact...) to meet itself, forget about outing or trip with a gang of more than 10 people
Amidst busy schedule - the gang of 6 couples, 3 kids and a bachelor planned and realized a dream trip to Meghalaya
To realize our dream, a tour operator 'Go Adventure' also helped us a bit. Review (what went well and what didn't go well) about our package will be mentioned at the end of this story
They offer 4 nights 5 day package (in their website) and due to leaves constraint we customized it to 3 nights 4 day package and were charged on pro-rata basis
Itinerary:
Day 0 - Bengaluru to Guwahati (we booked Indigo flight from Bengaluru)
Day 1:
1. Kamakhya temple, Guwahati (included on request),
2. Umiam lake view point
3. Zip lining
Day 2:
1. India - Bangladesh border
2. Krangshuri falls
3. Dawki river boating and cliff jumping
Day 3:
1. Wei Sawdong falls
2. Mawsmai caves
Day 4:
1. Nohkalikai falls
2. Garden of caves
3. Guwahati to Bengaluru
Looking at the itinerary itself we can make out how beautiful and adventurous it would be.. lots of walk, water, trek and pictures :-)
Tips:
1. During our planning phase we observed that domestic flight fares bump up much just 1 month prior to the date we are booking, so we booked just a month before to get best possible fares
2. Browse in incognito mode/private window/Duck duck go browser to block trackers and get best air fares
3. Check in different websites/apps to get the best fares and offers, keep an eye on offers across various debit/credit cards to lock best fares
4. We booked cab to airport from Deepam cabs/taxi, which offered best price on that day (750/- from Chandra Layout, Vijaynagar to Airport via non toll road)
5. Lastly, make use of lounge facility at airport for dinner (Charges - 2/- for Visa card and 25/- for Master card) in case you are travelling at night. People at lounge are kind and patient enough to check all your cards and provide you the best of services even if you are not aware which card offers that benefit
5 people had different credit and debit cards and with that all 14 of us could enjoy unlimited buffet at airport lounge. Enough options to fill tummy of both vegetarians and non vegetarians
Credit cards swiped by us get to Lounge access:
Axis bank flipkart credit card, HDFC Regalia credit card, HDFC platinum debit card, IDFC platinum debit card, HSBC master credit card, DBS Visa signature debit card, HDFC Millennia credit card, ICICI platinum debit card, HDFC Diner club credit card and Axis bank Rewards+ debit card
The above info holds good for Bengaluru airport lounge, where as Guwahati airport lounge started newly and accepts very few cards as of now i.e. HDFC Diners card, Priority pass card, Platinum RuPay card etc. Visa not accepted and Master card would be accepted in near future. Also it had very less options in food like rice, dal and egg curry
We booked 08:40 pm Indigo flight that reaches Guwahati at 12:30 am so that we can cover Kamakhya temple at Guwahati. We booked rooms at Dekapara Airport Guest house on our own near Guwahati airport (excluded in package) for our stay. It was hardly 700 mts from airport and walkable with trolley. Need torch as light of street lamps are not sufficient to reach at night. Food is bit expensive, so please check before booking/placing order there
Note: For passengers who had 1 dose vaccinated and having Covid negative report (< 72 hours old) also , they are forcing to get Rapid test done at airport and putting seal and recommending home quarantine for 5 days. So no point in getting RTCPR and taking a report, beware of rules of different states before departure to save some money and have peaceful trip
As requested earlier, they shared Tempo Traveler (TT) driver contact a day before and we informed him to pick us at 07 am in the morning and they were prompt on time
We were taken to Kamakhya temple from the Dekapara Airport guest house. To get the Darshan, we need to show vaccine certificate (2 doses mandatory) and get pass to enter inside of temple (Garbha Gudi). Else we can have darshan from bit far distance and depart as we did. There was a huge crowd and it would take around 4 hours as per the volunteers who were collecting pass before entering queue
Chappals would be charged at 5/- per pair when negotiated and free if we buy Prasadam from that store, its our choice
After Devi darshan, we started towards Meghalaya and had breakfast at 'Hemalatha Dhaba'. Food was good and breakfast was served quickly
We need to get E-Invite to enter Meghalaya, like Visa process we need to download Meghalaya app from play store and upload or enter below details to get the e-invite
a. ID proof - Passport, Voter ID, Aadhar card etc.
b. Vehicle details
c. Accommodation details
d. Itinerary
e. Photo
So, first attraction in Meghalaya is Umiam lake view point (to ensure we do zip lining on the day 1 itself), we didn't visit lake and just clicked few pics at view point of that lake
Tip: As it gets dark in Meghalaya by around 04:30 pm itself we need to be an early bird to cover more attractions, spend less time for food so that we can spend quality time at visited attractions
Most attractions at Meghalaya gets closed before 5 pm during his period of the year, so we need to be on our toes to see more of it
After view point we moved towards Zip lining i.e. an adrenaline rush! East India's longest Zip-Line it is! The total length of the zip-line is around 2600 ft & the maximum depth is 1200 ft.
Zip line costs 1000/- per head (excluded in package) for 4 lines or we can opt for 2 lines (i.e. to and fro) at 500/- per head price. When we opt for 4 lines one, we can see water falls during zip line and the same can be visited if we time permits. Unfortunately, we were late and could not cover that. People could see that during zip line only
By the time we completed zip line time was around 5 pm and this is how road and sky looked after having snacks at near by shop i.e. around 05 :30 pm
Post zip line and snacks, we started towards Pynursla where our accommodation was arranged. Hillside highway cottages, location in East kashi hills Pynursla. Dinner was cooked by locals at the restaurant at the stay. Fire camp was set up there as it was chilling cold during nights. We had temperatures of 5 and 3 degrees during mid night at this location.
Bamboo cottages here are their specialty, unfortunately we got unfinished brand new normal rooms which didn't had cots, heaters and even geysers. We were allocated 1 bamboo cottages and 2 normal pucca rooms, one with 8 people sharing and another with 4 people sharing.
Second bad part of the trip was this accommodation which didn't had hot water facility and one big room roof used to absorb water and leak during nights and while first remains uncleaned Tempo Traveler (TT). During this covid pandemic, everyone is speaking about sanitized rooms, vehicles etc. but these people arranged us an un washed Tempo Traveler. Ideally we should have fought and forced for change even before getting in on Day 1, we thought they would oblige and make some arrangement but no luck, after trip started no one responds properly we just need to depend on trip coordinator who accompanied us
After few complaints via chat in WhatsApp group, they did some work around for roof by covering on the top to avoid water leakage and changed bedding. Also, they asked room attenders to arrange hot water by boiling using wood. Which was not at all sufficient to get fresh up for 12 people. TT remained same and no use of reaching out to organizers
After dinner which included the below we went to sleep in chilled room
Veg: Roti (was very hard and elastic), Daal, 2 veg curries, Pappad and Rice
Non-Veg: Egg curry, Fish curry and Chicken curry
Package Organizers need to understand the dynamics of different groups like only bachelors boys, both boys and girls gang and a family group in order to satisfy the customer which was totally missing here
If the article or blog is too long its boring to read and if its too short, there will not be much info. So, lets continue to pen down the memories of remaining days in the articles to come..
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