Up Amongst the Clouds

Outside my huge picture window are mountains shrouded in clouds. The clouds are below and above us. Hummingbird like birds and butterflies are dancing amongst the rhododendron trees. I am sitting in a heaven kingdom - Cherrapunjee, sometimes the wettest place on earth. We are not wet yet, although we are waiting for the geyser to heat up enough water to fill our hot tub. 

We have passed many things in our 7 hour drive from Guwahati. Lots of dirt and poverty in the city and on the outskirts, the relative wealth and tidiness of Shillong, woven bamboo and wooden plank houses as we moved into Meghalaya, adorable painted rural houses, the  desolation on the plateaus, the increasingly Asian place names and faces as we move higher up into the mountains. And now we have found ourselves in a sumptuous Disneyland type resort in a small, poor town at the top of a mountain. There is a band of three young Indian men singing classic rock hits with an acoustic guitar and a drum machine. “I Want to Break Free” was an especial treat. Tomorrow night we will be sleeping in simple concrete rooms at the bottom of a gorge 3500 steps down in an area of rumoured beauty. It’s quite surreal and a bit head spinning.

One of the more notable differences during our travels have been fashion. Our guesthouse in Guwahati was in a generally poor area very near the High Court so you saw day labourers in ragged clothing and women in polyester saris walking by lawyers and legal aids all in crisp black blazers with white ties. The men would be in black trousers while the women might wear skirts with black leggings. It was a startling contrast.

There are many different tribal peoples in the North East and their styles change from village to village. Many of the tribal women around Guwahati wore sari blouses with colourful hand woven striped fabric wrapped around their lower halves and tied around their waists with a bit of fabric sticking up from under the tied waist almost to the bust. Women around Shillong were wearing modern western style wear - leggings and long blouses or dresses mainly. As we went higher up the mountains we saw women wearing long shift dresses or skirts and blouses with a long apronish sort of small-checked fabric tied over the left shoulder and crossed under the right armpit. Up here on the top of the mountain it’s very simple dresses or blouses and skirts. We certainly won’t be fitting in with our wool and hi-tech hiking wear. 

It is also N’s birthday. Happy Birthday!