Living root bridge of Meghalaya - a daredevil trek

The scene was straight out of the Jungle Book, a dense forest teeming with all sorts of insects and other living beings, humidity threatening to dehydrate you slowly but surely. And thus began our adventure to trek to Nongriat village, roughly 70 kms from main Shillong town. In short we were gearing to play Mogli without Bagheera to help us out.

We hit the road from Shillong at around 9.30 am. (Even if you are not a road journey person, do it for the scenic beauty of it). It is the beginning of April and the monsoon season is knocking on the door. Shillong belongs to the state Meghalaya, literally the abode of clouds. So as the sun goes up in the sky, the clouds descend on earth. At Cherapunjee, the erstwhile “wettest” place on earth, the clouds shadows the Noakhali waterfalls and the green valley is turned white. We continue our onward journey as the car drives through series of clouds. We were being told the village would not have anything to much. So we made a pit stop had sumptuous dosas at The Orange Roots and again hit the accelerator. 

We reach Tyrna at around 1 pm, park our vehicles and take the first step down. A middle aged woman is dragging herself up from the stairs, her lungs doing the hard work of supplying oxygen to keep her going. She could not make it to even the first stop – the Single Living Root Bridge. We looked at each other, took a deep breath and started the trek with full throttle on. Midway we realised, it is not going to be easy for the calf muscles and knees. There are some 2000 stairs with a steep slope. A bunch of young college students who went right ahead of us were panting for breath and clutching their knees. Finally the stairs were over and we reached at the entry point for the single root bridge. But our aim was to trek up to Rainbow Waterfalls before Sunset.

We tried to encourage the youngsters to continue the journey further, but they gave up. We continued marching towards our destination expecting more hardships, but to our delight the worst was over. We crossed beautiful ponds with crystal clear blue mineral water and milky waterfalls; encumbered by the green tropical forests and greyish sky, it was a surreal experience. We crossed a suspended rope bridge that swayed with the wind and a single root bridge to arrive at our destination- Nongriat  in the East Khasi hills of Meghalaya. Here we saw a double decker living Root Bridge. An example of commendable bio-engineering of the local people where the condition aerial roots of big trees through their centuries old method of intertwining and weaving them together.

After putting our luggage in the small community guest house in the village – it is essentially a bed, a clean toilet, four walls and roof on your head for sleeping. It was already 3 pm and the question was whether to continue on our trek to Rainbow falls as the sunset happens pretty early in north-east. We continued our forward journey without our backpacks. This stretch proved to be testing for two members of the team with stone pathways wreaking havoc in the calf muscles and humidity getting the best of us. Leaving two of our members to rest, we marched on. Only when we were planning to turn back I witnessed one of the best natural beauties in my life. The waterfall and the natural pond formed by giant monoliths were calling for a dip after the exhausting trek. And it took all our rock climbing skills to get down to it. But it was worth all the sweat we broke and all the muscle pain we had.

Meanwhile our two other members also joined us.  After half an hour of frolicking we decided to head back to our nest for the night. We refilled our by now empty bottles with the best mineral water in the world right at the source! Trekking back was easier and on the way we grabbed some dry wood for the bonfire. At the guest house we opened our wine, put some melodious music on our portable speaker and sat around the water fire as power continued to elude the village during our stay. 

Tips: Carry some energy bars and water bottles. You can get it in the shops in villages but it can be expensive. (Bring back all the plastic; do not ruin the pristine beauty and destroy nature)

Do not get sloshed if you intend to climb back the next day, your calf muscles will be on fire climbing up those 2000 stairs.

You can continue the adventure further by doing Zip Lining on your way back to Shillong.

There is no running water in the bathrooms as ponds are your open bathroom. Enjoy it and besides adventure you can have some romance under the star lit sky. Just one word of caution do not use any sort of soaps and other chemical based products.