Mawlynnong- Where Cleanliness is equal to Godliness!!

There are planned trips, there are unplanned trips & then there are "one second you are planning to book tickets for a movie & other second you are booking flight tickets" trips. It was on a Sunday that both me & Jojo decided to travel to north-east & booked our tickets to Guwahati, without even having an fixed destination. Post some research we figured out that Mawlynnong could be a place which we can explore. Its a small village almost at Shillong-Bangladesh & has the reputation of being the Cleanest village in entire Asia. Actually the reputation is official, as there is a formal award which has been given to the village by the official body which gives these sort of titles. But official awards aside, the cleanliness hits you as soon as you enter this small village, hence the reputation is as genuine as it gets. Its home for a small community which has also initiated an eco-tourism project, riding their claim to fame of being 'Asia's Cleanest Village' properly.

Beautiful Meghalaya

So we met at the Guwahati airport & took a shared cab to Shillong. We decided to spend the night there itself, idea was to take a cab next day morning straight to mawlynnong. I had a an injury which I had to get checked, so time in Shillong was spent by meeting doctor & finding good places to eat. Doctor didnt took much time & we went to the police bazaar, which is the main part of the city & kept looking for a restaurant with good momos. After talking to a few locals & taking their vote, we decided on a restaurant. Went to our hotel which was playing loud music till late night, not that we complained.

Bangladesh visible from Mawlynnong

Next day morning we hired a cab took it straight to our destination. Now journey was beautiful as expected, roads were bad at places though. Now the major part of the journey is same as Cherrapunjee, barring the last bit. We had a good driver to give us company & he ensured we watched everything which was of any interest to tourists. It was good fun & time flew with decent company & scenic path. After reaching we realised its a small village with a few families. There was just one small place where tourists/guests can stay & it was a tree house. A house built of bamboo on a very old tree, with about 3-4 rooms. It was looking pretty decent & as soon as you enter the balcony you can see a stream flowing below you. Setting was just perfect a small bamboo house, greenery all around, stream flowing beneath the house, small houses all around, a church right in front & a school right beside it.

Tree house @ Mawlynnong



Living root bridge

Machan

We decided to take a full round of the village & see places where tourists normally go, which comprises of a living root bridge, a watch tower, a small water fall & a holy stone which has some relevance which I do not remember. Now for someone seeing the root bridge for the first time would in itself be a big thing, these bridges are worked on for a long duration & post which it actually take the shape of a bridge.Its living root of a tree, hence its called Living root bridge as well. Then we went to the water-fall which north-east is full of, especially this part of NE. This was a small one & Henry told us that we would get to visit a big one on the way back. Next was a regular Watch-tower/ Machan, nothing much to write about it. On the way we saw plenty of kids playing football, almost on all the occasion kids play football in hills. At least I have not seen many playing cricket, probably that's why they are all so fit or is it the other way around, either ways it doesn't matter. What matter is they are fit & they have good taste in sports.

Awareness

Waste bin

Throughout the day we saw that small waste bins were installed across the village. Not even a shred of dirt was found on the road. There is this sense of social ownership which exists in majority of north-east, where they also take care of the socially owned assets like roads, trees in the open space, etc. In fact I have seen families even outside Mawlynnong cleaning roads along with their house everyday, this is in sharp contrast to some of the other states where people actually don't give a damn about the stuff they throw on the road. We also saw some interesting plants, including the one that traps & then eats insects & bugs.

Plant that traps & eats bug/insect

Local food

So after devoting more than half a day walking around Mawlynnong we came back for food, we decided to give local delicacies a shot went to the only tea shop asked them as to what do they eat. They had couple of local dishes, which were nothing to write home about. Everything was made out of rice, one looked like Idli, but tasted nothing like it & another was sweet but it was without any other flavor. We interacted with a few locals there & realized that almost everyone plays guitar & sings there, even after trying too much we couldn't get anyone to sing. But we had an extended bakar session with the guys there which was super fun. After that we walked some more, as it was beautiful. Evening we had home made food comprising of some meat gravy for jojo & some veg gravy for me with dal & rice. Along with the food they serve a hot & tangy chutney-cum-salad which was super awesome & was the best part of the meal for me. Barring the chutney, food-wise there was nothing much to try & like, but for us food was actually just a basic requirement. Post dinner we sat with our local host & guide Henry and again had a long discussion on music. Their was a cute cat their who was constantly giving us company, she would stand up on two legs and take food. So we had a good time, till it was time for random insects to destroy our mood. Now bugs & insects are the worst part of any experience out in the open, but they are always part of a good package.

Stream

Leech & Me :)

Next day we had a bath at the stream, which was super fun. After doing more timepass, we decided to move towards shillong as the idea was to spend one day their as well. Journey was again beautiful, on the way we stopped at a waterfall, for which we had to walk down a fair bit. Saving ourselves from leeches, we managed to click some pictures & I even managed to catch one of them & clicked both of us together. We reach Shillong by late afternoon, enjoying the journey to the fullest. Checked into a Tourism guest house, which was cheap & good, a real value for money. I realized it was the same guest house where we had stayed in 2007, on the way to Cherrapunjee. There were about 17-18 of us and we had taken the biggest dormitory available, it was one of the better road-trip that I have had so far & also that was my first encounter with NE. We didn't explore Shillong then as it was only a night halt, something similar happened this time. Sometime would plan a trip where Shillong would be given more importance in the itinerary.

Guest house at Shillong

Waterfall outside Mawlynnong

Next day, we started moving towards Guwahati to catch our flight, but the journey was as always beautiful. Since Jojo had an early flight he left after lunch, which we had at my company's office as I decided to catch up with colleagues there. I had plenty of time to I went sightseeing in Guwahati, after consulting my colleague. Though to be fair, he did warn me about it being a waste of time. I went to a art museum, spent some time their. Could not appreciate it much & decided to move to Kamakhya devi temple which was good fun but it would have been better during evening. Guwahati in itself is just like any normal tier-I town, but once you start to move out of the town it starts to get awesome. Plus the connectivity that it enjoys with its other sisters is great.North-east has to be one of the most beautiful part of our country, it has still not reached its potential in terms of tourism development. But one thing is there, we can learn a lot from the people & the way they respect their surroundings.