Meghalaya travel guide

Travel to Meghalaya between Oct – Apr. Those are the months the weather, the crowds and the airfare line up — outside them you trade one of the three.

Currency

Indian Rupee (INR)

Language

Khasi in the east, Garo in the west, and English as the official state language — a legacy of the Welsh mission, and spoken far better here than in most of India. Hindi works in Shillong and with drivers, but thins out quickly in the villages.

Time zone

IST (UTC+5:30)

Plug type

Type C / D / M

Flight time from India

3.5 hrs

Flying from

Ahmedabad · Mumbai · Delhi · Kolkata · Bengaluru

• 

  The double-decker root bridge at Nongriat

  3,500 concrete steps down from Tyrna, about two hours, and three hours back up. Start at seven, carry water, and if your knees are being honest with you, sleep in a Nongriat homestay rather than climbing back the same afternoon. Rainbow Falls is another hour beyond, and the pools there are the reward.

• 

  The Umngot river at Dawki

  The water is famous for being so clear that the boats look suspended in air — but it is only that clear from roughly November to March. Through the monsoon it runs brown and fast. Go on a weekday and go early; by ten there are a hundred boats and the photograph is gone.

• 

  Mawlynnong and the Riwai bridge

  Billed as Asia's cleanest village, and the community genuinely does sweep it every morning — the bamboo dustbins are not a prop. The living root bridge at Riwai, five minutes away, is far easier to reach than Nongriat and gives you the same idea if the 3,500 steps are not happening.

• Caves at Mawsmai and Arwah

  Mawsmai is the lit, easy one — 150 metres, ten minutes, one tight squeeze. Arwah Lumshynna has fossils visible in the walls and a fraction of the crowd. Meghalaya holds India's longest cave systems, and Krem Liat Prah runs 34 km; anything beyond the show caves needs a guide from the Meghalaya Adventurers Association.

• Laitlum canyon and the Sohra viewpoints

  Laitlum, an hour from Shillong, is a grass amphitheatre that simply drops away into cloud. Nohkalikai — India's tallest plunge waterfall at 340 m — and the three tiers of Wei Sawdong are the Sohra pair. All three are best in late afternoon, and all three can vanish into mist in ten minutes.

• Shillong on a Saturday night

  Ward's Lake and Police Bazar in the evening, then Laitumkhrah for the music — Shillong produces more working musicians per head than any city in India, and the pub gigs are the real thing. Cafés shut by ten, and on Sunday the town closes almost completely, so plan that day as a driving day.

• JadohVegetarian

  The Khasi signature dish: rice cooked with pork and, traditionally, pork blood. Named first and plainly so that nobody orders it by mistake. Khasi and Garo cooking is pork-, fish- and dried-fish-centred, and a Khasi restaurant will have very little a vegetarian can eat.

• Pumaloi and pukhleinVegetarian

  The vegetarian half of Khasi food, and it exists: pumaloi is powdered rice steamed in an earthen pot, pukhlein a jaggery-and-rice-flour fritter. Sakin gata, rice with jaggery and coconut, is the sweet one. Ask for these by name at a village kitchen and you will usually be given them.

• Tungrymbai

  Fermented soybean paste, pounded with sesame and chilli. The traditional version is cooked with pork fat, but a plain fermented-bean version exists and is worth trying — it is the North-East's equivalent of a strong pickle, and it is an acquired taste in any language.

• Pure-veg in Police Bazar and LaitumkhrahVegetarian

  This is the practical answer for a Gujarati family. Shillong has Marwari, Punjabi and Bengali pure-vegetarian restaurants around Police Bazar and Laitumkhrah, and Guwahati — where you land — has proper Gujarati thali. Outside the two towns, assume rice, dal, potato and egg, and tell the homestay a day in advance.

• What to carry, and whyJain friendly

  There is no Jain food anywhere in Meghalaya, and onion, garlic and root vegetables are in everything that is not pork. Gujarati tour groups here routinely carry thepla, khakhra, dry farsan and ready-to-eat packets, and many carry a cook. That is not fussiness in this state — it is planning.

Set a meal preference — vegetarian, Jain or halal — when you book and we brief every hotel and restaurant on your itinerary.

• Eri silk — the "ahimsa silk" of the Khasi and Garo hills, where the moth is allowed to leave the cocoon before the thread is spun
• Lakadong turmeric from the Jaintia hills, GI-tagged and among the highest-curcumin turmeric in the world
• Meghalaya wild honey, and the cherry and plum wines made in Sohra
• Cane and bamboo baskets, and the khoh — the conical back-basket you will see every Khasi woman carrying
• Khasi and Garo handwoven shawls and dakmanda, from the Purbashree emporium at Police Bazar
• Bay leaf, black pepper and Khasi mandarin, in season

Guwahati (GAU) is the real gateway — 100 km and about three hours to Shillong on NH-6, by private car or a shared Tata Sumo from Paltan Bazar. Shillong's own Umroi airport (SHL) has only a handful of flights. There is no train to Shillong. Roads within the state are good but slow: Shillong to Sohra is 55 km and two hours, Shillong to Dawki 82 km and three. Hire a car and driver for the whole trip; self-drive rental here is not worth the risk.

• Meghalaya needs no Inner Line Permit for Indian citizens — but Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram and Manipur do, and they are what people try to add on. Apply online at least a week ahead. Foreign nationals must register with the FRRO on arrival.
• Dawki and Shnongpdeng sit on the Bangladesh border. Carry photo ID, do not cross or touch the fence line, and do not fly a drone anywhere near it — the BSF checks and does not negotiate.
• Flash floods in the streams below Sohra come from rain falling upstream that you cannot see or hear. When a local guide calls everyone out of the water, get out immediately; every year someone does not.
• The Nongriat descent is 3,500 steps each way with no vehicle access, no evacuation and no mobile signal at the bottom. Do not attempt it with a heart condition, a bad knee, or in flip-flops, and do not start it after noon.
• Bandhs and highway blockades close roads at a few hours' notice across the North-East. Keep a buffer day before your outbound flight, and carry cash — ATMs outside Shillong and Tura run dry regularly.

Per person, per day, on the ground — meals, local transport and entry tickets. Flights and hotels sit in the package price, not here.