The Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh is a unique place. Seriously, throw out your mental picture of India because it doesn’t apply here. Old Dirang, the village I am highlighting here, is found on the road to Tawang and I feel it serves well as a representative sampling of the villages one will find on … Continue reading
Actually, I suppose the wettest place on the planet would probably be somewhere at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean… However, in this post I am referring to the place with the highest amount of rainfall. Thus, the wettest place on Earth is in the Khasi hills formed by the Meghalaya Plateau. Officially, the Meghalaya … Continue reading
At the base of the Meghalaya Plateau are a series of bridges unlike any I have seen or heard about elsewhere in the world. The Khasi tribe in the valleys leading to Bangladesh have trained the roots and branches of banyan trees to create living bridges spanning the rivers that separate their villages. These bridges … Continue reading
In India, as in much of the developing world, it is labor that is cheap and machinery and gasoline that are expensive. This situation is dramatically visible on India’s Meghalaya Plateau where miners dig out coal deposits by hand. Coal is plentiful on the Meghalaya Plateau. In some places, as seen below, a large vein … Continue reading
As I discussed in my previous post on Driving In Assam, I endeavor to provide an impression of what the places I visit are really like. For me, that often means focusing on daily life. So, below, I hope you’ll enjoy some of the views of the Meghalaya Plateau and gain a better understanding of … Continue reading
Known as Siat Khnam, the city of Shillong boasts a very unique lottery system. To obtain the random numbers needed for the lottery, a group of Khasi tribesmen squat in a semicircle around a straw target and fire as many arrows as possible into it over a set time before a canvas curtain is raised … Continue reading
Assam (also spelled Asom and Axom) covers the fertile Brahmaputra valley, making it the most accessible of India’s Northeast States. The typical Assamese landscape offers golden-green vistas over endless rice fields that are patched with palm and bamboo groves, and framed in the distance by the hazy blue Himalayas rising up out of Arunachal Pradesh. … Continue reading
The Velvet Rocket 