Road Trip to North East from Chennai – Part V (Dec ’16)
Day 11 & 12: Cherrapunjee – Mawsmai Caves – Nohkalikai Falls – Double Root Bridge – Cheerapunjee – Dawki – Mawlynnong
Roads from Kaziranga were just wow. I very well knew my wife won’t be able to do double root bridge on the same day. So, we planned overnight stay at the bridge and so the previous night we had to stay elsewhere near to it. We chose PALA Resort, which was a big resort in Cherrapunjee with scenic views, and near to 7 sister falls, a few km to Nohkalikai falls and Mawsmai Limestone caves.
I wanted to try cycling from the resort to the root bridge. Roads were climbing down mostly, so it’s quite good to cycle all the way. However, our first stop was to Nohkalikai falls after seeing Mawsmai caves. So, my wife took the wheels and both my wife & my friend went to Limestone caves.
In the mean time, I reached Nohkalikai falls and the views were just awesome. What was more awesome was the shopping point and both my travel partners found a big shop which had almost everything they needed and also some showcase items, some shawls, etc. After shopping and loading the car with the items, we met few friends/tourist from Coimbatore and Chennai, whom we also met again at Mawlynnong, the place where both the gangs proceeded to.
The time came when we reached Double Bridge and the board reading “Living Root Bridge 3 KM”, my wife almost exhausted reading it but had no choice than to proceed. We had to carry our own bags with the next day dress, while I carried couple of carry bags along with cameras, she carried another bag which has clothes. NOTE: LESS LUGGAGE MORE COMFORT, plan it such a way.
The trek to living root bridge consists of 2000+ steps climb down & another 1200+ steps climb up. So, it’s a mixed bag and just not one way climb down and one way climb up. You will also cross couple of bridges which would be a thrilling experience as it’s quite narrow and also both are hanging bridge. The first 1000 steps itself would dehydrate you very much and your legs will start begging for rest. Fortunately, you will find few shops / villages enroute, so you can recharge by having black tea, fresh lemon drink, maggi etc.,. Crossing of the iron bridge, was a WOW moment as you will witness pure bluish water below, with cool breeze around. The second bridge was even more difficult to cross but quite safe. A fit person would be able to do the trek in 2 to 2.5 hours flat with couple of breaks. We manage to do it in 3 hours.
We booked our room at Serene home stay and it’s a basic one with couple of rooms availabe for the guests. We got a 3 bed stay with mosquito nets. After checked in and left my wife to catch her breath, Hari & myself went to check out the bridge which was hardly 100 mts away. There is a fee that has to be paid and after paying we went to visit the bridge and took few photographs and back to the room. During dinner time we met fellow travellers from Israel, Scotland & Russia.
We also met two lovely people, by then famous Honeymoon Couples Ramneek and Swatabdi who just out of nowhere started for a long trip on their Enfield bike, a day after their wedding. We were spellbound hearing their adventures in a bike who also made it to the rainbow falls, but said that they had to stay a day extra to make it. After hearing this we made up our mind that we wouldn’t be able to do rainbow falls, as we had to reach Mawlynnong next day.
Next day morning all 3 of us visited the double decker bridge again and spent close to an hour before we start our return journey to the base village. My wife managed well on the return leg and I took a detour at the single root bridge while they went ahead with the ascend.
The return leg took close to 3 hours and we managed to reach the base at 11.30 AM and we started our journey to Mawlynnong. Roads from Cheerapunji to Mawlynnong was good except few rough patches around Dawki.
