Meghalaya With The Khasis

Exploring the bright blue hues of Meghalaya

- Monalisa Barkakoty

Meghalaya is synonymous with rock music and great shopping. It is also directly proportional to clear blue skies and raw nature. My agenda was only to see the latter and because North East is familiar territory, we were guided by the best. Nomads, from Shillong knew how to leave their clients speechless and then bowl you over some more with only picturesque locales. No wonder they came highly recommended.

Three of us set out from Goa to the matrilineal state and it was nothing short of adventurous. Not only did it show us the glimpse of what the far east really looks like but also took many misconceptions that one carries, generally and also about any place. Meghalaya was much more than you can imagine. The dialects change, the food gets tastier and the layers of warm clothes increase. The nature is constantly mesmerizing and the vistas are continuously surreal.

The first glimpse of Phang, our guide was with him on top of the Sumo tying up all our luggage and readying it for our eight hour long journey to Mawphanlur. He kept it simple, asked us to be warm as we entering one of Meghalaya's coldest regions. He spoke less and let us be. The next few hours were lots of Eminem and old school rock and numerous stops for photos and snacks. The sun sets early here and it gets colder with every passing minute. We reached a small town circle and stopped to eat lots of warm food because we were shivering and we wanted to dig in for a few more sweat shirts and mufflers to coziness. A huge plate of boiling hot maggi noodles and black tea later, we were only two hours away now.