It’s been a while since we did Kashmir, also a random group trip!
Was held up with a lot of other things at my college, but finally free; and always wanted to check this thing from my bucket list - North East🫶🏼, before I leave my college.
And things came rolling nicely, it’s again Zostel Trips that I had chosen for Meghalaya - after a great experience in Kashmir with an extraordinary lot of people; now my expectations were higher for this thing.
So, below was the itinerary for a 6-D trip in Meghalaya, starting Jan 25, 2025. Price was close to Rs. 19k, for a closed group of 12 maximum. I had to get my transport done for to-fro from my college, Indore, to Guwahati, that’s where the trip was planned to start.
Of course, later to realise, Guwahati is the ‘Gateway of North Eastern India” - one of the major airports to visit the Seven Sisters (other option is Shillong)
To be very honest, never did I check was it the right time to visit, climate, safety, nothing. I was just excited and wanted to get done with Meghalaya somehow🤌🏼
But things were lucky for me, and I’ll enlist those details for clarity here -
On-Season - October (ideally, last week) - December
Off-Season - March - June
Heavy Rains - July - October
Luckily, January to February, second week is like the closing of the season, and is a different angle to Meghalaya’s calmness - this is the time where you will not see so much of tourists - and there is ample water in every waterfall and river for boating.
You won’t have gushing water in waterfalls, but a pleasant and calm time at every space, given crowd is also less there❤️
I had taken a flight to Guwahati, a day before the start of the trip, since it asked us to reach the start point at 10 AM, and there aren’t much of flights reaching at right time.
NOTE - More often, flights can be rescheduled, depending on the sky conditions at Guwahati, so precaution is to reach early there.
Guwahati Airport to city is easily an hour. So, plan accordingly
If you are taking a flight from Delhi (which I did!) to Guwahati, don’t forget to pay and reserve your seat in the left side of the aisle, TO WITNESS THE HIMALAYAN RANGES😍, you can see the Everest, Annapurna peaks, etc.
Once you reach, Guwahati Airport, there are multiple ways to reach the city - Uber, Ola and local operators, have their kiosks just outside the arrival gate.
If you are on a budget trip, you also have continuously running Government Buses; proper AC buses, with space for your luggage, just costing Rs. 100 to centre of the city, Kamakhya Temple, etc.
I reached Guwahati around 4.30 PM, and took the bus to the city, close to Railway Station, where I had booked a hostel for the night stay - decent enough for one-night, for budget travellers. It’s close the Paltan Bazar, a commercial market street.
P.S. It gets dark very early in the North East; if you recall the 8 PM skies in any city of India where you live, you can witness the same around 5.30 PM in there🌝
I reached my hostel around 7 PM, to meet a solo-traveller in my dorm, and spent some time talking his experience, whole last week in Meghalaya; and also I didn’t have any plans to explore Guwahati as such.
Still, enlisting some places my trip friends had asked me to visit there.
Kamakhya Temple
Situated on the Nilachal hills, this temple is an important pilgrimage centre for tantric worshippers and Hindus. It is also considered important as it is the temple where the beliefs and practices of the Aryan communities coincide with non-Aryan communities.
Often, there is so much crowd and actually, a very badly managed crowd handling. It would easily take hours to complete the queue and reach the shrine. My friends had asked me to meet some priests at the temple, give them some money (in their case, it was Rs. 1500 per head) who will take you on a special route, cutting all the waiting time, and very close to the shrine, unlike regular queue.
There are a lot of bazaar streets in Guwahati - and can explore the Assamese food in the evenings at most of these places. There are also cafes facing the river, to enjoy.
I had my dinner, and dozed off for the day, to wake up early and get ready for the 6-day madness in Meghalaya🫶🏼
So, let’s officially start the trip(py) things from the next blog in this series🙌🏼
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