Root Bridges

Woke up around 4:30am with a replay of the Indian boy band’s version of Ed Sheeran’s “Perfect” in my head. The glow of the sun was just coming up over the mountains and I was so spellbound that further sleep was impossible.

The night before a dramatic lightning storm had begun while I was in the tub. Our big picture window gave us a great show of lightning in the clouds that I had stayed awake to watch.

Our driver who speaks no English and cannot interpret pointing eventually got us down the mountain to where our trail began. We had already had a moment together the day before when the van stalled at a busy intersection in Shillong and he couldn’t restart it. He mimed pushing and I first thought he was kidding. Nope. A van full of foreign ladies and one young man got out on a Shillong street and push started a tourist van while the traffic officer laughed and everyone honked. I’m sure there’s a YouTube video somewhere.

We stopped at a great little restaurant called Soilyna Huts for lunch. I had the most amazingly rich coffee that half tasted like chocolate. This must be the locally grown coffee, I surmised, and told the waitress what delicious coffee it was and asked if they sell it. She looked at me like I was taking the piss. “It’s Nescafé,” she tells me and I hang my head in shame.

Now, though, we were in Cherrapunjee on the lookout for the road down to the 3,500 stairs that lead to the root bridges. Every so often we would pass signs with inspirational saying such as “Home of the Torrential Rains,” Raindrops Ignite Fires,” “Romance in the Rain,” and “Keep Families Connected,” which is icky when combined with the previous sign.

The start of the steps was easy enough - wide and well spaced, but then they became steep and narrow as they twisted around the mountain. Butterflies of all sizes and colours and the scent of jasmine filled the air. Orchids and other flowers lined the paths which wound through jungle and villages, past little pastel churches. No complaints from my ankles but halfway down I started feeling light headed. Some rehydration salts did the trick and I was back on my way. 

A small path off to the right led us to the Longroot bridge. I don’t understand the motivation for root bridges. One day Ralph said, “Hey, I’d like to find some better way to cross this gorge. Maybe I can train these tree roots along this cable and in 100 years we will have a bridge?” That’s some serious long term planning. 

Anyway, this bridge was as advertised, a long bridge created primarily from living roots with some split bamboo planking down the middle. It felt very sturdy to cross. Further down the steps we encountered steel suspension bridges with steel lattice or cable footways. They had more sway to them and at one point a group of young Indian men got on with us and started to make it swing. One of our party who does not enjoy heights was not impressed.

It went on this way - lots of stairs and another suspension bridge, until we reached our destination village, Nongriat. We settled into our home stay before heading around the corner to the Double Decker root bridge. Again, as advertised, these were two root bridges one running on top of the other. They were covered in people taking selfies or portraits so it was tricky to get across. I finally barged into some dude’s apparent GQ shoot and wandered across the top bridge. These are magical and truly incredible feats of engineering.

We kept climbing towards the swimming hole and were on yet another steel suspension bridge when we heard a crack of thunder and saw the black clouds roll in. I still had my pack with my raincoat but everyone else had left their packs at the homestay. They were in t-shirts with their cameras in hand and had no way to keep their cameras dry. I put a couple of theirs in my pack and booted it back towards the homestay as fat raindrops fell around me. It never turned into the torrential rains we were promised but made for a nice short little rainstorm.

We spent the evening sitting on our porches chatting and listening to the sounds of screaming animals being killed for dinner. This is Christian territory so meat of all kinds is back on the menu, unfortunately for the cute critters of the village. Roosters were chasing hens for some poultry loving. The children all ran around as a frisky adorable pack and it sounded like we were at a campground with insects, bird song and the sounds of children playing.

That night at the homestay we sleep in dorm rooms - 2 or 3 to a small room with hard board beds. My room took turns snoring but I, having a head cold, was apparently the sonic winner. J rolled me over off my back a couple of times but I ended up back there because the bed was so hard on my hips. Those of us in the top floor rooms were all awake by 5am but breakfast didn’t start until 7. Byron put on some Frank Sinatra as he made the breakfast and we were all on the road by 8:30.

We hiked up huffing and puffing and me swearing it’s not as far as we think. Everyone else was telling me I’m crazy until we round the final parking corner after an hour and a half and headed back to the hotel for well deserved showers. Then it was in the van and back to Guwahati to our train that was running 2 and a half hours late.