Unique North East (Assam and Meghalay)

It was time to visit that part of India which has its own unique culture and landscapes and gives a completely different experience. Visit to North East leaves one with a feeling - so far yet so close. The cultures, the food, the tribes, the dressing and lot of such things leaves one thinking, how each of the 7 North East states are different from each other and yet some similar when seen from a person who does not belong to these states.

We planned for a 8 day trip to cover 2 states - Assam (Guwahati and Kaziranga) and Meghalaya (Shillong and Cherrapunji). There are direct flights from Bangalore to Guwahati. The flight duration is about 3 hours - which is pretty good. Since the trip was planned during the Navratri festival, we had completed all the bookings well in advance to avoid the last minute rush. Assam has lot of rush during Durga Pooja. We planned to start on Sep 26th and return on 4th Oct and the plan was
Bangalore > Shillong > Cherrapunji > Guwahati > Kaziranga > Bangalore. This was the best way to cover these places, if we have to avoid lot of driving.

Assam is prone to lot of flooding during the months of Jul/Aug/Sep. We were aware of this situation. However since we wanted to time it with the school holidays, we took the risk of travelling in the last week of Sep - assuming the rains would have subdued by then. Kaziranga National Park is closed between May - Oct (Park opens on Nov 1) as Brahmaputra gets flooded. However the National Park is very close to the highway NH 37, because of which spotting of Rihnos while driving through the highway is possible if one is lucky (there is a very high possibility).

TIPS

• Though distances between places are short, it generally takes more time. Avg. Speed typically is around 40 KMs/Hr especially when travelling from Guwahati to Shillong or Cherrapunji
• For best sighting of Rihnos, best time to visit Kaziranga National Park is Nov - Jan
• Good to have a vehicle at hand to move between places rather than using public transport
• Tourist places are not well marked. Best is to list the places you wish to cover and tell it up front to the driver.
• English is very common in Meghalaya. Even the people in remote village understand and speak pretty well in English. They don't follow Hindi. However English is not common in Assam. People do understand Hindi here.
• Vegetarian food option is not common. Even fish is considered as Veg here. Guwahati has options for pure veg restaurants. However other places one needs to be careful

Long vacations are always (most of the time) after the exams. To avoid any kind of distractions or last minute hassles, all bookings and plan was completed much before the vacation. Little did we know, the days before we reached Guwahati would end up with so much of excitement.

Shrishti's exams got over on 20th Sep and her vacation starts. Shree has couple of more more exams to go. On 21st Sep, Shree is down with high fever. The fever continues until 24th. Pankaj also falls ill. In 2 days we would be travelling and both Shree and Pankaj are unwell :(. To add to this, there is huge cloud burst in Assam because of which many parts are flooded, many villages are under water causing deaths. Even Guwahati is flooded. With all the exams, patients at home, we had no clue about this news. On 25th Oct, Shree and Panka are recovered, and that is when we read the news of floods in Assam - in the news paper. What now? Reading news online scared us more - sometimes it is good to know less. After seeing all the videos and situation in Assam, we were in double minds on whether we should even travel at this point. Since our first stop was at Shillong, I called up the cottage we had booked our stay and also the cab travel agent to check on the flood situation. Their assurance, that everything is fine and there will not be any issue, gave us a lot of confidence. We were back to packing in full swing and all excited that the trip is going to happen.

7:00 PM on 25th Sep (the day before we leave for our vacation), heavy rains with thunderstorm start in Bangalore. Within couple of hours the roads are flooded and it still continues to pour. Pankaj is stuck in office and cannot reach home as the roads are all blocked. Power is cut-off and heavy rains continue. What a night this was... There is water everywhere, our portico is flooded and we are wondering how we are going to make it to the airport as we will have to start in few hours. We decide to go to bed, assuming the rains would recede and the roads would be cleared soon. Luckily, as anticipated by 5AM, the roads were cleared and we could reach the airport on time.

Once we reached airport is when I was convinced that we would be actually taking this vacation. We had a good - ontime flight. As we descended at Guwahati, we could see the massive Brahmaputra and impact of the floods. There was water everywhere!

Sep 26th and Sep 27th - Shillong

We had booked a direct flight to Guwahati and reached there around 12 PM. Our cab was waiting when we landed at Guwahati. It is best to have a vehicle pre-booked for the entire trip. We started to Shillong. If Vegetarian, the best option is have lunch at Guwahati and then start to Shillong. Enroute Shillong there are hardly any Veg. eat outs. There is one place called Nogbouh, where there is a food court and good place to stop over. We had our lunch on the outskirts of Guwahati - just as we enter the highway to Shillong.

Though the distance to Shillong is around 120 KM, the drive will easily take 3-4 hours. The highway is prone to landslides and there is always some construction work on. Another interesting point about this highway is, one side of the highway is in Assam and other side is in Meghalaya. The divider on the highway indicates the division of states. On the Meghalaya side of the highway, we noticed lots of liquor shops. This is because the taxation is lower for Mgehalaya and hence alcohol cost is cheaper.

We reached the outskirts of Shillong around 3:30 PM. Once we got closer to Shillong, we felt the typical atmosphere of a hill station - pine trees, lakes, cool weather, narrow-winding roads, people walking around with warm clothes. It gave us a very nice feeling. Unlike other hill stations, this is not over populated. We did not see many tourists. And whatever few were there, were mostly from Assam. This could be because, it was not a peak season. We covered a couple of sightseeing places and then reached our cottage. As these states are on the eastern side of India, the day ends sooner. By 5 PM, it is pretty dark and nothing much can be done. Hence it is recommended to start the day early.

We had booked at homestay at Aerodene Cottages (http://aerodene.in/). The place is very homely, with a nice garden and is very close to the downtown and yet secluded and calm. Our room very comfortable for family of 4. The food served at the cottage was really yummy.

Places to see in Shillong

• Uniam Lake - is bang on the highway which leads to Shillong - one will not miss this. It is huge lake. In summer there are some water sports activities available on the lake. Otherwise it is a just a huge lake which is beautiful
• Don Bosco Museum - Must visit. Will take about 1-2 hours to cover. The sky-walk on the terrace gives a good view of Shillong city. We were during the sunset time and it was a beautiful sight. 
• Sweet Falls - Not very popular, but is a good place to visit. Water drops from huge height. The view from View-point was great. Earlier tourist could trek to the base of the water-falls, however it is no more an option. Trek to base would have been great.

• 

  Sweet Falls - Shillong
  

• Mawlang Sacred forest - Nice small forest. About an 1-1/2 drive from Shillong. This forest is known for medicinal plants and lot of interesting trees. It is good to hire a guide to know the different plants and also some of important places like where the Khasi Tribe Leader would sit and have an assembly, the sacrifice point etc.
• Elephant Falls - Must visit falls. It is beautiful and very well maintained. There are 3 levels and each level has it owns beauty.



Elephant Falls


• Shillong View Point - This view point is in Shillong Air-force area and pretty much gives the glimpse of entire city. However I feel the view from Don Bosco Museum's Sky Walk is much better



Shillong View Point

• Wards Lake - Like any hill station, which has a lake, this is a lake in Shillong, with beautiful landscapes, boating facility on the late, live band in the evening. Good for spending a peaceful evening.

Interesting points of Meghalaya

• Megahalaya is Matriarchy (female dominated) society. You will see women driving all aspects of life
• English is very well known and understood even in the remotest villages. Hindi is not so common
• Most women are dressed in the traditional Meghalaya attire or trousers and skirts. You will not find anybody wearing a Sari or a Salwar
• It is difficult to get vegetarian food. Non-Veg is by default. 
• All cooking is done in Mustard oil and flavours of mustard and turmeric is very very strong.
• As eating meat is common, one can notice lot of butcher shops everywhere. This can make pure vegetarians a little uncomfortable if they are very orthodox
• There are hardly any autos and public buses in Shillong. Most common means is to hire/share a taxi. All taxi's we saw were Martui Alto.

Sep 28th and Sep 30th - Cheerapunji

After having a great time at Shillong, we headed to Cheerapunji - which is about 60 Kms from Shillong. Our host at Areodene had recommended us to visit the Smith - Palace/House of Khasi King, which was enroute to Cheerapunji. We decided to visit this place. When we reached here, we were surprised. We need to be aware that the Palace/House is the King of Khasi Tribes. Hence don't expected it to be the palaces like Nizams/Rajputs. It is huge wooden house, built in traditional Khasi style with a huge compound. The roof is made of hay like any other house of Khasi Tribe. Unfortunately it was locked and we could not see the inside part. We were told that the place will open for visitng only during the festivities. We explored it from outside, took some pics and moved to our next destination - Laitlum Canyons

Laitlum Canyons - This place is out of world. When we went, there was hardly any person in site. Greenery all around. There are hills full of geenery and then there is deep valley and somewhere you will see a stream making its way in the valley. There are no directions to this place. We had ask so many people for direction. Wonder why it has not been publicized. Maybe that is the reason, the place is still serene. We reached this place around 11:30 AM and views were clear and awesome. Did not feel like leaving this place. It is superb!

Laitlum Canyons

After spending a considerable amount of time at Laitlum Canyons, we started driving to Cheerpunji. The drive to Cheerapunji is beautiful. I am falling short of words to describe the beauty. It needs to be experienced! The landscape is very unique. The valleys and gorges are so deep, it is unimaginable and then from nowhere a huge waterfalls. The hills are sliced like a cake and a peep into the valley brings in goose-bumps. Every such hill has a waterfall - which looks absolutely stunning when it falls from such great heights into a deep valley. 

Mawsmai Caves - As we enter the Cheerapunji town (note - it is very small town), we went straight to Mawsmai Caves. Small portion of this cave is open for public to explore. It is well lit and would take about an 30m - 1 hour to cover. One part of the cave is very narrow and can be a little claustrophobic. However the place is definitely worth visiting.  These are living caves and the formation is amazing. The road which leads to Mawsmai caves have Khasi Monolithis. Nothing worth stopping over, you can just see then when driving by.

Mawsmai Caves

Very close to Mawsmai caves is the Seven Sisters falls. This is again a huge falls. By the time we reached here it was 3PM and it view was very foggy. We could not get a good view of the falls. Imp Point: Try to cover all waterfalls before 1PM as it gets very foggy in the afternoon and views are not clear. Since we were in Cheerapunji for 2days, we decided we would come again in the morning on the day we would leave Cheerapunji.

From here, we further drove 10 Kms to the Tangaraksa Park. This park is small eco-park, well maintained and has very good view points. The waterfalls from one of the view points is superb. It is really huge. The views from this park are mesmerizing. It was very relaxing to just sit and gaze through the lush green valleys and amazing waterfalls.

Water Falls view from Tangaraksa Park

From here, we started to drive to our hotel booked in Cheerapunji. We had booked our hotel at "Cherrapunji Holiday Resort". Though the name has resort it is very simple, basic and not very fancy. The location and views are very good from this resort. Also, since we planned to do the "Trek to Double Decker Living Roots Bridge", this place was the best option. The starting point for the trek is very close this resort. The drive from Cheerapunji town to this resort is superb. One one side there are huge mountains which are full of small shrubs of different colored flowers and small waterfalls, which seem to pop from no where. On the other side of the road is very deep valley full of rain forest which are fresh and lush green because of the rains.

Route to Cherrapunji Holiday Resort

By the time we reached the resort it was 5 PM and the sunset looked beautiful. The resort has a huge hall with rooms (6) around the hall - like a heritage house with a common dining hall with entrance to the room from the hall. The rooms very basic but clean. People who stay here typically are the ones who want to do the trek. Our trek was planned for next day (Sep 29th). We met few other people here, who had just completed the trek. We got few tips from them and we were all excited to do this trek.

Evening was spent just relaxing, chatting with other fellow tourists at the resort over a camp fire. We had a early dinner and asked for packed lunch of sandwiches and parathas for the trek. From the time I had read about this trek, I was very excited and had got the entire family excited about this. Initially I was not sure whether the kids could make this trek, but after reading up on google and checking from the resort counter, it was clear that kids can very well do this trek. We slept early as we wanted to be fresh and all charged up for the trek.

Yes, the day had arrived. We had a light breakfast, carried lots of water and packed lunch of sandwiches. We decided to drop carrying our SLR and take pics by our cell phone to avoid any extra luggage. We also had arranged for a guide to come along with us. Our cab dropped us at 8:30 AM at the start of the trek.

Interesting points of the trek (Double Decker Root Bridges)

• Trek is of around 10KMs and includes around 10,000 steps (inclusive of both ways). It takes about 6-8 hours to do the entire trek
• There are 2 hanging adventurous bridges en-route the trek.
• There are couple of villages on the way. One will be surprised how they live at such remote places and climb these steps.
• There are couple of small shops which provide tea and some chocolates/toffees
• As part of this trek, we can cover the Double -Decker living root bridge and a longest living bridge (95 feet). Both these are made by the roots of the rubber tree, which grows in this rain forest
• Carry lots of water and light food
• Good to carry a swim suit. There is nice natural pool below the Double-Decker bridge and one will be waiting to get into the water
• Since the trek is in the rain forest, it will get humid. Hence wear light clothes.
• Good foot-ware (shoes) is a must
• Most of the trek is through the forest, hence the sun will not hit directly
• Kids above 10 years can easily do it. Every younger kids can do it, but they can loose interest as it is for a pretty long duration.
• Take multiple small breaks rather than few long breaks 

Trek to Double-Decker bridge is a must if one is visiting Cheerapunji. It is once in a life time experience. The trek starts with descending of steps. Around 3000 steps to descend. These steps lead to a small village. The steps are constructed few years back and built in the forest. We saw lot of different colored butterflies, Noh Kalikai falls looked beautiful from here. We saw some men carrying a huge log of wood on their back and climbing the steps. Our guide, told us that these men do more than one such trips. It is not very easy to climb up/down with out any luggage and seeing these me do such trips multiple times gave us a glimpse of how their life is full of hardship. At this point, it kind of gives us a reality check on how easy life we are leading and makes us to be thankful for what we have. People living in these villages will have to climb these steps to reach the town to buy any stuff. We saw a pregnant women also climbing the steps to go to Cheerapunji.

Man Carrying a Log of wood and climbing the steps

Once we reach the first village, turning left leads to the path which goes to Double-Decker bridge. Right will take to the longest living bridge. We took the left direction and decided to visit the longest bridge on the way back. From here for sometime the trek is a normal path (no steps). After sometime we came across a hanging bridge - made from few thin (may be 4-5) iron rods held by iron ropes. We need to walk on these rods to cross the bridge. Below the bridge is water and rocks. One by one we crossed the bridge. We loved it - especially the kids, as this was a unique experience and very very adventurous for them.

Adventure Bridges over gorges - enroute to double decker bridge

The whole path is through the forest. We saw lots of insects, colorful butterflies, cool refreshing streams and no people. We look around and we could only see huge mountains with trees and we are in the valley. After some more trekking. we came across the second hanging bridge (little longer than the earlier one) and more adventurous. Here we met one fellow tourist (70yr old man) who was also staying in the same resort as us and was returning back after finishing the trek to Double Decker bridge. At this point we came across a small shop selling tea and toffees. From here, further trekking is by steps (1000 +). We walked over a small living root bridge and after some more walking, we reached the Double Decker bridge around 11 AM. Once we reached this point - only word that came out of our mouth was "WOW". All the tiredness vanished in a min the moment we put our legs in the cool water of the pool. This spot is beautiful. The bridge itself is built by the villagers to help them cross. These bridges are made by the roots of the rubber trees grown in these areas. The roots are directed to grow through the bettle nuts hollow stems to add further strength and support. The roots are very strong. This particular bridge has 2 bridges one above the other, hence the name. The 3rd layer is being slowly coming up. It take 100 years to get a bridge done.

Double Decker Living Roots Bridge

At this point, there is a village with some 30-40 people and a guest house which typically is taken by adventure tourists. These villages are totally disconnected from the main-land. Only people they see are the tourist that come here. They are most self-sufficient and eat only what is grown by them. Can't imagine staying so far away in a remote place.

We spent some time here playing in the pool and refreshing. We had our packed lunch and relaxed for sometime. We wanted to stay here for more time. But reluctantly had to pack to move again as we had a long walk back - wished this place was easily accessible.

We started back at noon. By this time it was hot and humid and our bodies had got used to relaxing. It took some time to get back to the spirit of trekking. After few minutes, we were back with all the zosh and zing. We crossed all the points we had encountered earlier and reached the village from where we could go to the longest living bridge (95 feet). This place was amazing. It felt like the scene in Jurassic park or Amazon forest - out of the world. We spent some time here, took some pictures and started our climb back - 3000 + steps. The kids were more energetic than we thought. They were always ahead. I was the one who was the slowest. I was pretty tired and was taking break after every 50-70 steps. The climb is tiring and as we got closer, I wanted to just sit. Lot of short breaks actually helped.

By the time we reached the top, it was 3PM. We were tried but happy that we could complete it. It was our dream coming true. We went back to our room, refreshed and all the tiredness just seemed to have vanished. We spent rest of the day relaxing. By 5 PM we were relaxed and wanted to walk around. After having walked the whole day, suddenly just sitting was making us uneasy. We went to a view point very close to the resort can then had an early dinner and crashed. Luckily none of us had any kind of injuries or sprains.

Noh Kalkai Falls

Next day we were are all up and charged. We were driving back to Guwahati. Since we had not got good views of the falls because of the fog, we wanted to cover them before we left Cheerapunji. We visited the Seven Sister Falls, Noh Kalikai falls, Wah Kaba Fall and some great view points. Each of these falls is unique and beautiful. They all fall from un-imaginable heights. We also saw some coal mines in Cheerrapunji - though mining is now officially made illegal. From here is was drive back to Guwahati (5 hrs) with a quick stop for lunch at Norbough

Sep 30th - 2nd Oct

We reached Guwahati around 3PM and it was typically city – dusty, noisy, highly populated and polluted and also very hot. Because of the festival time (Durga Pooja) there was additional traffic and chaos. Wonder why all cities have the same atmosphere. However the whole city had a very festive atmosphere – there were pendals everywhere, lot of colorful lightings and decorations, people shopping etc. Once we entered the city, we headed straight to Kalashetra. The museum here is good. They also a museum dedicated to Bhupen Hazarika. This is not a must visit place. We visited the Shilpa Gram opposite Kalashtra. We were disappointed. Absolutely nothing is here. The whole place was constructed to promote north-east art and cluture. However it has deserted look and only a couple of shops are taken up. This can be completely avoided.

From here we went to take the sunset cruise over Brahmaputra. The river is mighty and because of the recent rains it had further bloated. It seemed like a ocean! The cruise claim to start at 5:30, however they start only by 5:45-6PM. The cruise is very relaxing. Option to buy snacks and drinks on board is available. They also have dinner cruises. We took the Afresco Cruise. 45 min of cruise on the river with snacks and drink with cool breeze and twinkling stars was amazingly pleasant and we forgot all the noise and dust of the city. After the cruise we headed straight to our Hotel. We had booked our stay at “Brahmaputra Ashok”. The hotel is at a good location. We were welcomed with traditional hats and shawls of Assam. This hotel is bang on the banks of the river. Our room had a good view of the river and was very comfortable. We were happy to be back in the room as it was quite here (we wanted to get out of the noise) and we wanted to just relax.

Durga Pooa Pendal at Guwahati

We had not planned much for Guwahati as this place is more of a stopover and there isn’t much to do here. Since we had lot of time, next day we visited the zoo in the morning. Like all zoos in India, this is not well maintained and can be avoided. From here we visited the Uma Nanda temple. This temple is on an island and we need to take a ferry to reach here. There are ferries running every hour. The whole visit (waiting for ferry, ferry ride, visit to temple, and back) will take about 1 – 1 ½ hour. This is a good place to visit. Visit in the afternoon can be very hot. We went at noon and it was very hot and to add to this we missed the ferry by some 20 min and had wait for the next ferry.

Island of Uma Nanda Temple - Guwahati

We had lunch at Mohan Bog. The food was great. Guwahati has many chat/sweet veg restaurants. The food here is very tasty.  Assam state museum was closed for the Pooja holidays – hence we missed it. In the evening we visited the Kamakhya Temple. This requires a special details. We had no idea what we would be experiencing here. The only thing we knew was Kamakhya temple is a well know temple in Guwahati and is a must visit. It is also one of the old temples. We reached here around 4PM. There was huge crowd (however we got to know that this is very minuscule in comparison to what was in the morning) as it was Durga Pooja Day (8^th Day of Navrathri). The path that leads to the temple is a narrow lane with steps which are lined with small shops all over. As it was festival time, there was more color. Everywhere there was RED color (KUM-KUM). We reached the temple and were observing the temple when heard a man saying “Baju” (move). We just turned and were shocked to see a buffalo being carried after a sacrifice. We were shocked. This was something we were not prepared not expecting here. Since we had come so far, we entered the main temple and sight was something for which we were not prepared. We came out and my younger daughter asked us did we see the 8-10 heads of buffalos stacked one above the other inside. None of us had seen this as we were already shocked with the earlier sighting. Pankaj went back to check it. Shree and I opted to stay back. Did not have the courage to see it. This whole experience made us rekindle on how different cultures have different beliefs and what is considered as auspicious and good in one culture can completely offend somebody who belongs to a different culture. It is very important to keep an open mind and convince oneself that there is no right or wrong when it comes to religion or culture. After we returned, we googled and found that animal sacrifice is very common and festival days. Had we known about this, maybe we would have chosen another day to visit the temple. Nevertheless, none of us will ever forget this incident in our lives.

Late evening we went to see the Durga Pooja pendals. This festival is done at a very large scale here (similar to the Ganesha festival in Maharashtra). There are pendals with lot of decoration at every junction. Different menus are set in the restaurant for the Pooja. The sweet marts are flooded with people. There are tons of sweets. In all a very festive atmosphere and very unique to West Bengal and Assam states

2nd Oct - 4th Oct

2nd of Oct, after breakfast, we started our journey from Guwahati. Pobitaro National Park is about 50Kms from Guwahati. This is a small national park, but is good for sighting Rihnos. As the park is not wide-spread, spotting of animals is very easy. The park is open from Nov 1 – End of April. We however took a chance to see if we could be lucky. The park was closed because of the floods, however we sighted 4-5 One Horn Rihnos in the fields around the park. We were very excited when we spotted the Rihnos.

Flooded Brahmaputra River

From here, we drove to Kaziranga National Park. This park is about 250 Kms from Guwahati and would take about 4 hours. The highway connecting Guwahati-Kaziranga is very good and there is hardly any traffic. On both sides of the highway, there are paddy fields in different shades of Green – what a lovely treat to eyes. Richness of Brahmaputra river can be experienced here.

Kaziranga National Park is open from Nov 1^st – end of April. This park is known for One Horn Rihnos and Water Buffalos. Since the school holidays will never coincide with the park open schedules, we decided to visit Kaziranga – knowing fully that we may not be able to see any animals. We had our stay booked with “Diphlu River Lodge” (www.diphluriverlodge.com). This is a beautiful resort with excellent location, cottages and food. It is definitely the best place to stay in Kaziranga. The tariff is on a higher side. Since we booked this during off-season, we got good discount.

Diphlu River Lodge - Cottage

We reached Kaziranga around 3PM. The national park runs parallel to the highway and this proved very lucky. One side of the highway there is the National Park and the other side has Tea gardens.  At one point, we saw about 11 Rihno’s grazing the water-filled fields – this was bang next to highway. We were lucky to get such good spotting even though the park was closed. This made our day! As we reached our lodge, we were taken by another surprise. The river lodge was amazing. The cottages are rustic and built in assamese style. Few of the cottages face the river. The whole place gets a magical once the sun sets. You will see fireflies twinkling, stars twinkling in the clear sky and there is absolutely no other noise. Dim electric lanterns are lit which makes the whole place look even more beautiful. A small pond at the center has lilies which bloom fully after the sun sets. The food is very tasty and caters to international tourists. Now that we had spotted Rihnos and very staying in an amazing place, we were no more disappointed nor feeling sad that we had visited Kaziranga during the off-season. Ofcourse visiting the place during the season would have given a whole different experience, as we could have done the elephant safari and spotted Rihnos from very close distance.

For the 2 days we stayed, we went for a Safari (both morning and evening). Every safari we spotted Rihnos, Water Buffalos and couple of Hog Deer’s. One of the mornings we visited a Assam’s Village where they have handlooms and some tribal women work here. Meeting the lady who runs this handloom was an experience in itself. In this remote village, she runs looms and provides employment to women. She also collects the different handmade stuff from different village folks and sells them at various melas. She also runs a restaurant during the season which serves breakfast and lunch of local cuisine and decor  for tourists visiting Kaziranga National Park. She was very enterprising. She explained to us in very good English, how things are made on handloom. Kids tried their hands on it. We also bought some scarfs from her loom shop. After Kaziranaga, it was back to Guwahati airport and then the flight back to Bangalore.

We had an exciting and adventurous trip in Assam and Meghalaya. Cheerapunji and Kaziranga National Park are a must visit places and if at Cheerapunji, trek to Double Decker Living roots bridges is an absolute must.