You know you are in Meghalaya when you often feel like you are standing amidst clouds. Here, you will often come across clouds obscuring an entire mountain range, wiping it out of your eyesight. Here, you will often feel clouds wrapping around you, leaving you mesmerised and cold, as if you have just stepped inside a life-size refrigerator.
While holidaying in Meghalaya, one of the husband’s and my favourite pastimes was playing hide-and-seek with the clouds. Like two excitable kids, we would shout out – ‘Look, there come the clouds!’. We would watch, fascinated, as the clouds would blot out things as big as elephants from our line of vision, letting us see only that which they wanted us to see.
See, for instance, this set of pictures taken at the Arwah caves in Cherrapunjee, Meghalaya. These pictures have been taken within seconds of each other and, yet, how different the landscape looks in each one!
This was the scene in front of us when we reached Arwah caves…
… which, within seconds, went to this…
… and then this…
… and this.
I could go on watching this for hours on end! I would have done just that, if I had been on a long, long trip, without having to bother about a budget or time or other destinations to check out.
The name ‘Meghalaya’ is so very apt for this north-eastern state, I say. It means ‘abode of the clouds’ (Megh-alaya), and the clouds, really and truly, do reside here. I’m not sure who coined the name, but is surely is perfect. No wonder Rabindranath Tagore loved this state enough to spend a large part of his life here, and was moved enough to write poetry.
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I hope you have been reading and enjoying my posts about our recent trip to North-East India. If you haven’t checked them out so far, please do!
The beginning of school and a schoolmoon
Visiting the abode of Kamakhya, the powerful menstruating goddess
10 reasons to plan for at least a day’s stay at Mawlynnong, Asia’s cleanest village
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