Laitlum - Where the Hills End

Laitlum means, roughly, the end of the hills, and it is not a poetic name so much as a description. You drive out of Shillong through Khasi villages, the land opens into bare rolling grassland, and then it ends - the ground falls away into a gorge with a river somewhere far below and ridges stacked into the distance.

There is a stone staircase cut into the side of it. It goes down to Rasong, a village with no road at all, and everything the village needs is carried up and down those steps by people who make it look considerably easier than it is. You do not have to walk down. Most people stand at the top for an hour and find that is enough.

It is barely developed - a couple of tea stalls and a lot of wind - and it is one of the few places this close to Shillong where you can be somewhere genuinely dramatic without a crowd.

What's in it

• 01The plateau ending in a gorge, with no warning
• 02The stone staircase down to road-less Rasong village
• 03An hour from Shillong, and almost never crowded
• 04Best in the morning, before the cloud closes in