About a couple of hours out of Shillong, there exists a slice of heaven, a small Khasi village perched on top of a hill and surrounded by deep valleys on its three sides. It overlooks a serpentine river below, the frothy waters of which separate the East Khasi Hills from the Jaintia Hills. A small meandering rocky pathway leads to a knoll a little below and further to the river and the lush green flats on its both sides. Floating packs of cloud play hide and seek with the setting sun above the valley below while the village with its tin-roofed and tin-walled houses and its playful children, goes on with their daily life. You are lost when out of nowhere…
..fog rolls in.
That’s the thing about being in the hills and the mountains. One moment everything is clear, you are seeing the hills and rivers at the limit of your eye-sight and the next moment, the place decides to surprise you and hides below a sheet of fog, clouds or mist and within moments, nothing is visible, not a thing. Not even the next step of the path you are walking on. Like I said, that’s the thing about…
On The Way To A Village Unknown
Something very similar happened with us when we were driving to this heaven of a village. One moment everything was bright and clear and we could see the lush green hills far away and the next moment, as soon as we left the road and turned to the left, we found ourselves passing through thick fog.
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Thankfully though, after literally crawling for around 10-15 minutes through the plateau we were on and after yet another left turn, we left the fog behind us and everything became just as bright and clear as before. The plan was to reach the village (but first we had to find it) before sundown so that we can get some decent photos of/from the place but the fog had slowed us down for a while.
While we wanted to reach there as soon as possible, the narrow and broken village roads did not give us the liberty to speed up. Also, the fact that the surroundings were as beautiful as the roads were bad, did not help the matter and as it happens in the hills, more often than not with people out to ‘photograph’, we made numerous stops too. Thankfully, the stops I feel were worth it. The image below was shot during one such stop.
In case you are wondering which village it was that we went to, I think I will be a little selfish here and not put out the name publicly. Lest everyone starts to throng the place for customary photo and selfies and the place loses its innocence.
If you are really interested in knowing the name of the village, feel free to ping me directly and I will happily tell you.
Have you been to a hidden gem like this?
Beautiful narrative Rajiv…ofcourse I’m planning that NE trip with your company and look forward to seeing Meghalaya from your perspective
Thank you very much Sushmita, I am glad that you is liked it 🙂
And I very much look forward to have you here and show you around, soon 🙂
Have a great day ahead 🙂
Good job with not letting out the details 🙂 That single house with all the logs behind it…just too awesome! This point about knowing how nothing is under your control in the hills is important. People sometimes take it too lightly how things can change dramatically here.
Cannot agree more. There are some other places too about which I want to write about but have been stopping myself. Probably I will write about them down the line but won’t mention the whereabouts for sure.
That said, whenever you & Chetan bhai come down, I will for sure take you there 🙂
Cheers,
Rajiv