Abode of the Clouds: Day 1 – KFC, Dumb charades and Sa-I-Mika

Day 0: http://findvenu.blogspot.in/2017/04/abode-of-clouds-day-0-background.html

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 Let’s fast forward a bit. Woke up at 4 AM, Freshened up, checked in, caught the flight, slept for a bit again, watched few episodes of Bleach, landed in Guwahati…Phew. Guwahati, the gateway to the North East has a small yet crowded airport where photography is a strict no-no. I was waiting to get my luggage when someone called me from behind. They were my fellow travelers from Bangalore. First round of introductions done, luggage collected and out we headed into the great state of Assam. Known for its tea and silk, our first stop was meeting point oft mentioned in the Backpackers Meghalaya whatsapp group – Anand Tiffins. It looked like the only place where we could grab a bit near the airport and they made sure we paid a pretty buck to take that bite. Looked like a tea stall, priced like a star hotel, we had to content ourselves with a coffee from there as there was hardly any place to sit.

We spent some time thinking about what to do next, as our bus was to arrive at 10 and the last person was expected to land at 12 noon, it left us around 3 hours to kill. Finally the general consensus was to start walking from the airport and see where it takes us. It took us around 200 m from the airport to a mini food court which loudly called out to us - “Vaango!” Vaango was a vegetarian South Indian restaurant and had a quintessentially American Non vegetarian restaurant to accompany it – Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC). When we entered the food court, we saw a pile of bags in one corner and a group of people sitting with bored faces. That clearly gave them away as being our fellow travelers. Another round of introductions went through and from whatever we got to hear, we were stuck in KFC for a pretty long haul. New faces kept joining us and we kept getting better acquainted. The group assembled in KFC was a pretty varied mix. Rather than the often seen, bored out of their skin IT guys going to North east to cool their heads, we had people from all walks of the life – Advocates, Architects, Doctors, Stylists, Technical Writers, Photography students, Chartered accountants and of course, IT professionals. Around 10:30 Am, we got to know that the girl who was supposed to land at 12 had missed her flight.  This got a mixed reception. We were sad for her but also relieved that we would finally get to see more of the North east apart from the Airport and the KFC joint. Then came the kick in the nuts – Couple more people were expected and they would land only at 12:30. This left us almost another 3 hours to negotiate. By the time the much expected flight nearly landed, people were sharing Instagram handles and making new BFFs. As someone in the group put it about the late comers, “The last time someone would have waited this anxiously for them might have been at the time of their birth”.

But, every wait has its end and the final couple finally made their way out of the airport and into the bus – and we were off. Out of the airport, into the warm, humid Guwahati. Soon we left Assam behind and made our way into the cooler greener state of Meghalaya. Along the way, I got to know how out of touch I was with today’s music scene. Everyone would be singing along to the song playing and I wouldn’t even have a clue as to whether the singer was male or female. After a quick stop for lunch, our first real halt was at the Umiam Lake. We were a bit late so we had to content ourselves with a long distance view of the lake. Once we left Umiam Lake, we had on the bus with us, Nishanth, one of the co-founders of ChaloHoppo – the co-organizers of this trip. He was a veritable treasure trove of snippets about the North East. His tales about the Headhunting tribes of Nagaland had me putting a visit to Nagaland in my bucket list. Soon a small group started playing 20 questions – with 20 being negotiable. This “20 questions” then turned into “ Heads Up” and then finally to good old Dumb charades. This had the whole bus joining in with the left side of the bus pitted against the right side in a battle for charades supremacy. The hardest part was getting people to count the words in a movie name correctly. Even though our team was lagging behind at one point, we came back and took a hard fought victory right as we entered into the Sai Mika resort.

Now, picture this. A sprawling compound dotted by cottages. A brisk chill in the air. A near full moon bathing the whole compound in milky light and sounds of guitars being played welcoming us to the Sa-I-Mika resort. Couldn’t have asked for a better welcome into Cherrapunjee. While we were waiting for the rooms to be assigned, we sat and listened to the local band playing – although I couldn’t recognize most of the songs, the passion with which they played and the ambience of the whole place made it a really memorable experience. After some confusion regarding the room allocation, which was quickly sorted out, we retired to our rooms to freshen up and get ready for dinner. My roommates were Nikhil – A fellow IT Guy from IBM, Gurjyot – Current E&Y, Ex-Nivea and still very brand loyal and Prathamesh – An Enginering student pursuing a diploma in Photography in parallel.

Dinner was served in the main hall and as earlier, the local band’s music accompanied it. Even though most of us were tired, no one wanted to go back to our rooms. The chill in the air, the bonfire and the music made for a heady combination and most of us sat around the fire, singing along till after midnight. Finally it was time to call it a night and the number in all our minds as we went to sleep was 3600 – the number of steps that we would need to climb down the next day.