Ride to Cherrapunji - High & Dry In The Worlds Wettest Place

They say it takes a village to raise a child. Similarly it takes a lot of people so you can go on a memorable solo ride. My friend William told our mutual friend Abhijeet that I needed a bike in Guwahati. Abhijeet called his brother Riju to lend me his Classic 500, who then told his friends to ensure the right mechanic’s looked it over. If you were wondering why we call it a 'brotherhood', now you know.

I landed early enough from Delhi but a traffic jam of two hours helped me get things into perspective. However thorough your plan, you cannot control anything other than your self. Not the traffic or the unpredictable weather, nor the incidents on the road and definitely not the reliability of a borrowed Royal Enfield.

Uzan Bazar mechanic fits rearview mirrors on Riju's bike. 

Abhijeet, a fellow biker, painstakingly guided me through the labyrinth of Guwahati by messaging me hand drawn maps so I could get the bike checked and ready. By the time I filled up the tank it was evening and my plans to be in the mountains looked dim. Abhijeet suggested I stay at his mom’s house. I was reluctant but somehow better sense prevailed.

By seven a massive thunderstorm cut the electricity off and I closed my eyes for a moment while the dinner was being set for me. I woke up the next morning at 5:00am. As I went out to pack the bike, the dishes for my dinner were still laid out. I felt terrible but my need to sleep had probably been far greater than my need to eat.

5:30am...ready to rumble out of Guwahati

The morning was gloriously crisp thanks to the previous nights thunderstorm. The final map by Abhijeet got me out of Uzan Bazar onto the Ulubari flyover in no time. The 2010 Enfield felt even more excited than me as it roared out towards Shillong for the first time.

I had been here nearly a decade back but it had been a nightmare of a road. This time, I couldn’t believe my eyes! A near empty four-lane highway and a nice nip in the air. It was like having the Gurgaon-Faridabad Road all to myself in November while heading to Delhi Bikers Fest!

Four views from the same bridge

One side had lush green landscape

The other has the Umiam or Barapani Lake

Besides one patchy bit in between, the highway was smooth as silk up to Shillong. In less than two hours I had covered 120km's and it was only 7:30am. So at the roundabout I took a right instead of left, away from the main city, towards Cherrapunji. But a few km’s up I rode past a sign that read “Shillong Viewpoint” so I made a U-turn and headed up there.

Towards the Shillong View Point - Air Force Radar Station.

I congratulated myself immediately when I got on to this quaint little road. It meandered up to the Air Force Radar Station where I was told the gate opens to the public from 10am till 3pm. I was 2 hours early. But the ride had been worthwhile so I turned around and headed back to the main road.

So how can I convince everyone I was there and having a good time? By taking self-indulgent portraits of course!

I was in it for the ride, not just the destination. A little later I took another detour, this time to the Elephant Falls and once again I had arrived too early...in fact a month before the rains started. I’ve seen better waterfalls in Sant Nagar Delhi after a five-minute rain. And the chole-bhature I had at the food stall made me wish I had eaten the dinner left on the table that morning. Lets face it, cholle bhature outside of Delhi are bound to be mere imitations! 

Elephant Falls fell short of the hype but the place is immaculately clean

A man even sweeps off leaves from the waterfall. 

I repeatedly saw tourists get out of their taxis having missed the adventure of the journey and thinking the destination was all there was to the place. Limiting their fascination to some signboard and souvenirs instead of savoring the 360 degree panorama they could have experienced along the way.

As the day progressed I realized such tourist spots were anticlimactic and showcased only a fraction of what East Khasi Hills had to offer. It was better to stop wherever your jaw dropped. Which was like, every 15 minutes or so!

Here's proof that we can build roads that do not disintegrate every time it rains!

What really grips you is how different this place is from anywhere else in India. There are hardly any hoardings selling 3G network, hotel packages, apartments or beverages that litter every bend and curve across various hill-stations of India. Traffic is minimal and most people drive sensibly.


The ML (Meghalaya) number plate is now in my top spot as far as driving sense in India goes. NL (Nagaland) has the natural beauty but no roads. KL (Kerala) has the natural beauty and the roads but drivers are out to murder you. DL (Delhi) has the roads but packed with too many vehicles blocking all the view. Out of the 4 that end with L...ML wins!

The first of many such 'End of the Earth' waterfalls

You can only imagine what this looks like in the monsoon!

Another way to ensure you enjoy this place for what its worth is if you can drop the “Scotland of the East” tagline the Britishers gave when they were trying to explain to friends back home what this place was like. Imagine Scotland got advertised as “Shillong of the West”. 

The other dampener of a tagline is “Cherrapunji – The Wettest Place in the World”. Yes it does rain in monsoon. A lot. But the picture that line conjured up for me was that I'd be soaked to the bone and be perpetually wiping my visor.

'The Wettest Place on Earth' Sohra, Cherrapunji? www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherrapunji

The East Khasi Hills are unique and are unlike any other place on earth. Period. With or without the endorsement from Scotland or annual rainfall calculations. 

Once the novelty of the beauty all around got settled and I stopped clicking a trillion photos. I parked my bike and sat still. The mist cleared and I saw what looked like a hilltop cemetery. People were burying someone.

The ache one feels due to an overdose of natural beauty got pulled into a zone I was not expecting then. As though the mist took away everything and left me completely naked and my soul exposed. “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart." 

I wondered who was being buried? Was it a life well lived and did the person value that which could not be bought or lost? Or did that person live their life chasing after the mist of materialism? I thought of the sum total of my life and realized the most invaluable parts had to do with relationships. The depth determined by how real I could be before the other and they before me. I also wondered if its not true that if you're not ready to die, you're most probably not going to be fully alive?

These sobering thoughts did make me a bit melancholic, but they helped me ask deeper questions on the direction of my life, who I was and whose I was. Which determined what I was after and who mattered most. Then I got on the bike and had a silly smile all the way till Noh Ka Likai Fall. I realized am ready to meet my Maker, any day. 

The view that says it all!

The waterfalls could be heard but not seen

 The story of Noh Ka Likai or the 'Leap of Likai'

(NEXT: Ride To The Living Roots Bridge) http://delhibikersbreakfastrun.blogspot.co.za/2016/05/ride-and-trek-to-living-bridge.html