Thursday, 8 May 2014

Mask's Meghalayan Adventure 2012 - Asia's Cleanest Village

Day7: Friday - 14th December, 2012 (Part1)
Mawlynnong

A silent stomach is a happy stomach. The medications taken yesterday seemed to work a bit and the day started on a relaxed note.

Mawlynnong is a small village tucked away in a remote corner of India within a stones throw from the Bandladesh border. Mawlynnong's claim to fame lies in its label as Asia's Cleanest Village. The village has a community tree-house and few homestays for accommodation.

Most of us woke up early today in anticipation of enjoying the morning at the village. The village is really picturesque with well tended lawns and beautiful buildings. We all had an early morning stroll by ourselves and then settled for breakfast.

We had been assigned a local lad - Tingshen (Shen hereon) - as a guide for the tour of the small village. He was a student and worked as a guide during his free time. After breakfast he took us for a tour of the village. There is not a lot to see in the main village but the place is very soothing. A few guys made up their mind to return here for their second honeymoon.

We started from the guest house towards the overhead view point which is actually a platform made up of bamboo on a tall tree. The access stairs are also made of bamboo. The view from up here is really splendid. You get a view of the entire village and also of neighbouring Bangladesh. The contrast in landscapes of Meghalaya and Bangladesh are easy to make out: the place where the slopes and tree line ends and the plains start is the Bangladesh border.

The tree-house at road level and the bamboo viewpoint in the background

Climbing to the viewpoint

The wooden scaffolding bearing the weight of the viewpoint
Football field in the background
 
Carnivorous Pitcher Plant

This alley leads to the football field

Most houses here are tree-houses, balanced on stilts
 
Local parish

Random orderliness at Mawlynnong
 
A lotus pond

While strolling through the village we saw a few children playing cricket. This was the first instance of cricket we saw on the entire trip. By the way Mawlynnong also has a very good football field. We also met a kid who was sitting on a perch and shooting us with a mock gun. The kids here were fun.

Cuteness

Cricket!

Sambha on the rock

Huh? Who's you?
We left Mawlynnong at 1000hrs for Dawki and checked out the balancing rock along the outside of Mawlynnong.

The balancing rock

Originally posted in Indiamike.
All photos by Mayank Sharma.

- Kapil Pilankar

1 comment:

  1. Neva heard abt the place..bt looks interesting.. Envy you ;) awaiting the himachal chapter now :)

    ReplyDelete

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