We had a most interesting day. We drove to Shillong, looked around and visited, and then came back to Guwahati. That is the short edition. Now let me add details, and some pictures.

The road from Guwahati to Shillong is 101 km, according to the signpost in downtown Shillong. The road itself is really good: recently paved, no sections under construction, and well maintained. Having said all that, it takes 3 hours to drive the distance, because it is up through the mountains, hairpin turns and bends all the way. Now, combine that with the usual road hazards in India: cows and goats, motor rickshaws ( but not bike rickshaws on this road) lots of people walking on the road, as well as huge numbers of overloaded trucks, and continous traffic, and you get a little of the feel of this road. Keep in mind, that although part of this road actually has a centre line marked, which not all roads do, but it has no yellow line, just white dotted line all the way. Of course, that is just to save paint, because everyone is passing anyway. The proper way to pass on a blind curve, by the way, is to honk first, so if someone is in your lane coming the other way, they will know you are coming. And then drive as if you are expecting someone to be passing in your lane around every blind curve. Likely that will be a good guess.

Anyway, Bob and Ray tell us that Shillong has grown and expanded hugely since they lived here in early 1970's. I think likely all the hills are still there though.

Here are a few pictures from the day.


Just a little view of some of the passing. This was taken while we were out of the vehicle, so only traffic one way at the time.

How would you like to travel by bus this way? You see it all the time here, on the buses and on the bus taxis, which are jeep type things that travel around and pick people up from the side of the road. Anyway, a 3 hour trip this way up a winding road seemed like a hard way to go.

Another view of the same bus.

Just a little view from the market at Nong Po, which is halfway up the mountain. We stopped to buy fresh pineapple. I was trying to get a good shot of the shopping bags, like the one you can see the lady carrying on her back here. Everyone was using them. Nice size, too.

Some pictures of the Elephant falls, by Shillong. The falls are in three steps. This is the upper falls. The sign says that the falls are better during the monsoon, and I'm sure that's true, but we didn't think we could wait that long. A picture of the steps going down to the lower falls.
Andrew, standing in front of the lower falls.