Road Trip to North East from Chennai – Part VI (Dec ’16)
Day 13: Route taken: Mawlynnong – Dawki – Krang Suri Falls – Jowai – Guwahati (Dinner Cruise)
We wanted to start early, as we knew it was a long day. Tourist attraction at Mawlynnong was the Rewai Village, with single living root bridge, Dawki river, bamboo house view point etc. We went to the bamboo house view point and it was quite an adventure climbing up/sliding up and down. View point was beautiful, we clicked a few pics, couldn’t see the Bangladesh border from there though, due to fog.
We all wanted to make it to the 500-meter root bridge, and it was another lovely natural bridge that connected two trees, with water underneath. Couldn’t spend more time, we left early, had breakfast enroute, where the bearer told us the Dawki river had another short route, if at all we would go but we told him that we already went.
We decided to take the shortcut route, which was only 28km from the point, which otherwise was around 40km usual route we came by. We all were convinced that we shouldn’t have missed taking the scenic routes, captured lovely trees, landscapes all the way, and also hit the Bangladesh border, TAMIBIL border again and saw the beauty of the DAWKI again. Though we missed Shonpodong view point of even more clearer Dawki River, one policeman wrongly guided us our way back to Guwahati, instead.
Adithya also was telling about KRANGSHURI waterfalls enroute Guwahati asking us not to miss that at least. We took a deviation and made it to the view point of the waterfalls, it was so beautiful, but none of us had strength to walk down and climb up again for another 1+1 hour. So, we skipped that one and clicked a few snaps from the view point and left, as we had another target to make it to Guwahati dinner cruise.
We reached Guwahati as per plan and took our stay at Hari Krishna Sweets and Restaurant/Hotel, which was almost a luxury for the night. But it was more for just an overnight stay, as we had dinner cruise from which we would only return by 11 pm post dinner.
Yes, refreshed, buckled up and geared for the dinner cruise, but decided not to take our car in the city traffic, which is a wise decision and took two small rickshaws to reach on time for the dinner cruise. The sun dawn cruise was returning with all lights in the dark and we were so happy to see the huge ship and the beautiful Brahmaputra river at night. We got in to the ship and were given reserved seats that were the second table from the stage.
We thought we would only be witnessing one cultural event but were stunned to see back to back events, starting with a brief introduction about the river, about the state, a run through about a wonderful sand art video about North East India warriors, followed by a very beautiful Classical Assamese Dance performance, followed by Assamese Group folk song and dance accompanied with Tharkha and Dhol, followed by an introduction session given to explain all the musical instruments of their state, finally with karaoke solo singing performance of a singer who was accompanied by a keyboardist, picking up all old Hindi melodies. He seemed to invite all guests to come forward and dance / sing and participate in the musical evening.
Every performance was a treat to watch, soothing for the ears, and pleasing for eyes, cheerful with the music and dance loving crowd around.
Finally, it was time for dinner around 9.00 PM and we were asked to go to the basement to have the tasty dinner. We wouldn’t have got to see so many performances, even if we had stayed in Assam for 2-3 days, but all in one place, we were really delighted and thankful to the Almighty who made it favorable for us and help us get through our plans one by one without a miss.
