I have always enjoyed unplanned trips. Doesn’t matter if they are long multi-day trips or single or even half-day trips. Our drive to an unknown village in the hills was pretty much one of those trips. Trips where you have no idea that you will be going on a trip even a few hours before you actually start. One of the many reasons that I like such trips is because in such unplanned trips you go with no expectations. Because, when you have no expectations, you feel happy with whatever you get. In our this trip, because we had no plans and no expectations, everything we came across en route gave us joy.

And so, the sole purpose of this post is to share a bit more of this joy, in continuation to my previous posts.

We had been on our way to finding a village we had heard about and knew was beautiful. But when in the hills, everything is beautiful. So we stopped a couple of times and then we stopped again, cameras in hand, wowed by the bountiful nature surrounding us.

No matter how best we tried to capture the beauty around us, we failed. There are things and places beauty of which can never be captured they say, we were in one such place. In my last post, I have referred to this unknown village as a slice of heaven, which it truly is, with its quaint little houses and mist-covered surroundings. But what I did not mention was the fact that the surroundings that one has to cross in order to be at the end of the road, were no less gorgeous in any way.

With each turn we took, the hills rewarded us with views more charming than what we had just witnessed and been through. With beautiful paddy fields, step-farmed, much like the ones the Indonesian island Bali is famous for, on one side and gorgeous deep but green valleys on the other we did not mind the non-existent roads one bit. On the contrary, I wished the road always remained like that, lest people start to throng it.

On our way to the village and back on that Sunday evening, I could not help but agree with the famous quote which says, “It’s not about the destination; it’s about the journey.”  This trip was very much that, a journey as wonderful (if not more) as the destination itself. As we left the untouched hills and made our way towards Shillong, dark monsoon clouds gathered in front of us, to gift us one final magic of the day.

Watching the heavens open up over the valley below, we left this charming part of the abode of the clouds, for until next time, soon.

Do you like the journey as much as you like the destination?