I’ve wanted to go to Shillong for a very long time now. Well I wanted to go when we’d done the family holiday in Assam, and places like Shillong were not as crowded as they are now, and (since that was in May), would have been awesomely cloudy and damp and all:o but that didn't happen. so, when work came up there, I jumped:)

Anyway, finally landed there for a day last week. It’s a nice little town, albeit a little crowded as hill towns tend to be. But it's very pretty and green and full of little waterfalls everywhere and a lake and a botanical garden and flowers.

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I also managed to squeeze in a trip to Cherrapunji. It’s known to be one of the wettest places on earth, but it’s rather dry this time of the year.
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The road en route is pretty though probably much greener during the rains.
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The place to be is at these awesome cliffs. During the monsoons, the water falls all the way down these cliffs into a river at the bottom of the valley:o
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There’s spelunking to be done too. The state of Meghalaya has a 1000+ caves. The Mawsmai cave at Cherapunji is just one of them. It’s all lit up inside, a nice yellow light that makes the whole picture look very Alan Lee-ish.
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And what I loved the most...

Enroute to Shillong falls Umiam Lake, also known as Barapani. When I was a kid I'd read Lila Majumdar's Barapani, about a little boy who lives with his mother and his granduncle in a small village in the hills. his ftaher is a forester in the western himalayas I think. It was a lovely story and full of these nature facts kind of things – all about trees and animals and a picnic at a forest department thingy where they’re taught all about forest fires, and all through the story the kids keep eating! The name comes from the granduncle wishing to go down to Barapani for something. I’m not entirely sure whether it had a symbolic meaning or not, but the book was really, really good.

So I was pretty excited to actually see the lake. It’s amazingly beautiful, and as the wikimapia link shows, it’s HUGE!

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I’ve been meaning to post this for a while now – pics from a monsoon trek to Tadiyandamol in Coorg way back in August, but then I seem to have spent most of the last few weeks hopping all over the western part of the country, and not on holiday. This resulted in solemn resolutions on holidays, and peace and calm and the like, but that’s about all:)

Back to the pics...

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Yesterday, we set out to climb this mountain. It's called Brahmagiri and it's in South Coorg, near the Kerala border. Those lines are apparently the border markings.



After trudging 7+ kms through coffee estates, grasslands, and woods, across streams, waterfalls and minor cascades, braving leeches and sundry other insect life, we reached the base of the peak. And then had to stop and turn back because these guys decided to have a bit of a party on the mountain.



First there were two of them, and then a mommy and her kid followed, so prudent minds terminated the journey, and once the camerawork was done, we set back. This is rather depressing. Much as the elephants might be impressive and all that, we still left the mountain unclimbed. *sigh*

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Mondays bore me.

This is unsurprising but I feel compelled to state for the record that a Monday seems to bring with it all the pointlessness of the routine, and a reminder that the work you lugged home for the weekend never got done anyway.

Anyway, one more hike this weekend - to Rangaswamy Hills, part of BR Hills, and therefore a part of the Kaveri wildlife sanctuary, about an hour and a half down from Art of Living on Kanakpura Road.
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Edit: Also saw what was apparently a bear trail - the bushes had been manipulated into a sort of archway, at about waist height. Imagine bear on all fours ambling through the foliage. They apparently have a few regularly used trails which they use to go to the watering holes or to the villages at night, and hence the bushes remained shaped that way. There were no paw marks though.

The local wing of the yhai had a moonlight trek two weekends ago. It was as lovely as it sounds.

We drove up to Skandagiri, a hill outside the city, opposite the more famous Nandi hills.



It’s a reasonably small trek, 4 kms one way and not very steep at all. It was a full moon night, so plenty of light along the way, aided on by torches, barring the odd encounter with mist. There was some cloud cover too, and plenty of light drizzles on the way, which made walking up the smoother rock surfaces all the more interesting!

There’s a tank at the top of the hill, which steps going down to algae-filled water, and a small shelter near that. It turned out to be surprisingly windy and cold, so we needed a campfire at the shelter. We stayed there till a little before dawn and then climbed down. I wish I could say we got to see dawn over the hills but there was far too much cloud cover for that.

The group turned out to be a nice, fun one too, so nice yay trip:)
Pics here though not many of the moonlit phase!

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These pics should ideally have gone up well, ages ago. But I’m lazy.

So, a couple of weeks before I handed in that pretty little letter to the employers, there was a long weekend. Long being translated as 1 day extra for Republic Day. And so, we finally put into action the Chembra trek, which was originally planned for some time last year. This was of course partly motivated by the fact that there were some of us who were planning, nay, hoping that we’d be out of here soon, and there aren’t after all too many 3 day weekends visible in the next few months, and all that. Anyway, pics of the Chembra Peak Trek ahead.

We took a night bus to Bangalore, and then the next morning a long day bus from there to Kalpetta in Wayanad, the town closest to base camp, which is Meppady. We did the climb the next day. The climb up took 4 hours. The climb down also took four hours, because I wasn’t the only one with a tendency to bruise her toes while going downhill. And then we returned to Kaleptta and took a night bus out of there to Bangalore, all aching toenails, limbs and all.

The trek starts in a tea estate, called Chembra estate. Surprise!

The trek is uphill all the way (no up and down’s). You climb some nine or more hills, each taller than the other, with very few flat stretches.

The lake comes midway up (and down, since we took the same route back). It doesn’t have a name, so is referred to as the heart shaped lake.

The weather stayed good all through, never too hot, mostly pleasant. And at the summit, there was mist!!!

( The part where it is proved that pics speak louder than words )

Re. The toes: The toes are healing and all now, and while I had threatened to photograph the broken nail with scabs underneath, I promise that that photograph is not here. In fact that pic is unlikely to exist because I never photographed it and now the scabs have healed.

These are by now a couple of months old, but I decided I wanted them up here - pretty, pretty pics from the Ladakh holiday in June.

I'm a little distressed though that we didn't indulge in foodie pics. I'm guessing I was overwhelmed:) This was after all the long, long desired holiday to Ladakh:))

( All those pretty mountain places... monasteries... a lake... and a few yaks... )

There were still a lot of places that we didn't see, and a lot of things we didn't do. Sooo.... do I want to go there again? Yes! :)