Tuesday morning, our day began at 4:20 in the morning in anticipation of the week long trip to Meghalaya. The three of us and SIL started from Hyderabad and the brother’s family started from Bangalore.
Those few moments when we waited in the same flight, that we had traveled in from Hyderabad to Bangalore, so that the brother’s family could join us, with bated breath and the moments of surprise on the nieces’ faces and the moments of excitement were priceless.
After we landed in Guwahati we had two options to choose from, one a straight travel of 5 hours to Cherrapunji and the other with a stop at Kamakhya temple which would take 5:30 hours. We chose the latter option in unison as it was taking only 30 more minutes. We have also agreed that we would offer our prayers to Devi from outside the temple if the Darshan would take more time because of the crowd.
Since we have booked a 12 seater for the entire week upfront, we set out to start the trip smoothly. But the first reaction on every one’s face on seeing the vehicle was not a positive one as it was quite an old vehicle that didn’t seem to be in a great condition. We started off for the temple while trying to get the vehicle changed in parallel.
There were two lines for the Darshan at the temple, free one and paid one but the minimum time to get out of any line was around 2 and half hours and we obviously couldn’t afford to spend that much time as we needed to travel to Cherrapunji. So we talked to people over there and got to know about the third option, where we could have Darshan without any line, but the only difference is that we would be having the Darshan through the bars. This option was acceptable for all of us and we took the blessings and moved onto the next step.
We stopped for a late lunch at Viswaratna hotel, a very nice place that’s close to the temple. All this while, we tried to request for a change of vehicle through different mobiles as the owner stopped responding to our request. Coming to a conclusion that this vehicle wouldn’t suit us for the week long trip, we started looking out for other alternatives and finally booked two Swift Dzire vehicles through the staff at Viswaratna hotel.
Since plans don’t have to get executed without any hiccups always, our real drama started when the vehicle owner wouldn’t let us cancel the reservation. Our luggage was stuck in the vehicle, all of us were done with lunch and were waiting in the hotel parking and the booking for new vehicles was confirmed and the arguments with the vehicle owner went on and on. Finally our luggage got released and we started our trip to Cherrapunji at around 6 in the new vehicles.
Initial two hours or so must have passed smoothly with our driver describing how Guwahati was the centre of supply for the seven states, how one side of the road belonged to Assam and the other side belonged to Meghalaya, how one could experience the fresh air of Shillong after about two hours of travel from Guwahati and so many other stuff.
We called up the staff at Smoky Falls resort and requested them to keep aside dinner for us. As we crossed Shillong and moved further to Sohra, the roads narrowed down, the darkness increased, the cars on the roads reduced, the fog intensified, the driver looked tired and my restlessness started taking a shape. I kept looking at the time, calculating the distance, counting the hours, tracing the other vehicle in which the brother’s family is coming along and wishing for the destination to come soon.
Just bliss and little more! 