Meghalaya in Full

The journey at a glance

7 days, shaped around you.

1. Day 01

   Guwahati → Shillong

   Guwahati → Shillong

   

   Met at Guwahati Airport or Railway Station and straight up into the hills - about three hours, and the temperature drops the whole way. Umiam Lake, the reservoir the Khasi call Barapani, is the stop worth making: a wide sheet of water in pine hills, best in late afternoon. Reach Shillong by evening and check in near Police Bazar.

   • Airport pickup
   • Umiam Lake (Barapani)
   • Shillong arrival

   Shillong - 3★ hotel, Police Bazar Breakfast next morning

2. Day 02

   Shillong, and the edge of the plateau

   Shillong

   

   Laitlum Canyon first and early, because it is a viewpoint where the plateau simply ends and the cloud does the rest - and because the tour buses arrive at eleven. Then Shillong Peak for the panorama over the whole town, Elephant Falls in its three tiers, and the Don Bosco Museum, seven floors on the indigenous cultures of all eight North East states and the fastest way to understand where you are. Evening free in Police Bazar.

   • Laitlum Canyon
   • Shillong Peak
   • Elephant Falls
   • Don Bosco Museum
   • Police Bazar

   Shillong Peak sits inside an Air Force area and closes to visitors without notice on security grounds. If it is shut we substitute the Sacred Heart viewpoint, which costs you the altitude and none of the view.

   Shillong - 3★ hotel, Police Bazar Breakfast

3. Day 03

   Shillong → Mawphlang → Sohra

   Shillong → Sohra

   

   Check out and drive to Mawphlang, where a Khasi sacred grove has been protected by community law for something close to six hundred years. Nothing may be removed from it, not a leaf or a stone, and you walk it with a local guide who explains why - it is the most interesting hour in Meghalaya. From there the road runs south across open grassland to Sohra, still widely called Cherrapunji, and you check in on the plateau for the next three nights.

   • Mawphlang Sacred Forest
   • Khasi guide walk
   • Grassland drive to Sohra

   Sohra - plateau resort Breakfast & Dinner

4. Day 04

   The Sohra waterfalls and caves

   Sohra

   

   A full day on the plateau, done in the right order. Nohkalikai first - India's tallest plunge waterfall at 340 metres, and it wants morning light. Then the Seven Sisters Falls dropping off the escarpment towards the Sylhet plains, the Garden of Caves at Laitmawsiang, and Arwah or Mawsmai cave, limestone passages with fossils in the walls. Finish at Thangkharang and the Khoh Ramhah rock.

   • Nohkalikai Falls
   • Seven Sisters Falls
   • Garden of Caves
   • Arwah / Mawsmai Cave
   • Thangkharang Park

   In the monsoon the falls are at their most spectacular and the viewpoints are inside the cloud - you hear Nohkalikai and see nothing. Both are true at once, which is why we tell you the month matters more here than anywhere else we sell.

   Sohra - plateau resort Breakfast & Dinner

5. Day 05

   Nongriat and the double-decker root bridge

   Sohra - Tyrna - Nongriat

   

   The day the trip earns its length. From Tyrna village a stone staircase drops roughly 3,500 steps into the gorge to Nongriat, where two living root bridges have been grown one above the other from the roots of rubber fig trees across the Umshiang - the only double-decker of its kind. There are rope bridges and a natural swimming pool on the way. Then you climb back out, which is the hard part, and the plateau resort is waiting.

   • Tyrna descent
   • Living root bridges
   • Double-decker at Nongriat
   • Rainbow Falls (optional)
   • Natural pool

   This is a genuine trek, not a walk: about 3,500 steps down and the same back up, four to six hours round trip, and the climb out is unforgiving in humidity. If it is not for you, say so at enquiry and we will run the single root bridge at Mawlynnong or the Wahkhen bamboo trail instead - both are real, and neither needs the gorge.

   Sohra - plateau resort Breakfast & Dinner

6. Day 06

   Mawlynnong, Dawki and back to Shillong

   Sohra → Dawki → Shillong

   

   Check out and head east. Mawlynnong has been called the cleanest village in Asia for twenty years and has organised itself entirely around deserving it - bamboo bins on every path, a sky walk into the canopy, and a single root bridge at Riwai on the way in. Then down to the Umngot at Dawki and Shnongpdeng, where in the dry months the water is so clear the boats appear to be floating on air. Back up to Shillong for the last night.

   • Riwai root bridge
   • Mawlynnong village
   • Sky walk
   • Umngot river boating at Dawki

   The famously transparent Umngot water is a November-to-April phenomenon. In the monsoon the river runs green-brown and fast, and boating is often suspended outright - we will tell you which one you are buying.

   Shillong - 3★ hotel, Police Bazar Breakfast

7. Day 07

   Departure

   Shillong → Guwahati Airport

   After breakfast, check out and transfer down to Guwahati Airport or Railway Station - about three and a half hours, so we time it against your flight rather than against the clock.

   • Check-out
   • Transfer to Guwahati

   Departure Breakfast