Devyanik, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Cherrapunji (Sohra)
The plateau simply stops here, two thousand metres above the Bangladesh plain — and the rain that made the place famous has left it with waterfalls, caves and bridges grown from living roots.
The edge of the plateau
Sohra sits on the last few kilometres of the Khasi hills before they end — not in foothills, but in a wall that drops toward Bangladesh. Almost everything worth seeing here is a consequence of that edge.
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The unmissable Cherrapunji (Sohra)
What Sohra is for
Three things, and they are genuinely different from one another: the escarpment itself, the limestone under it, and the bridges the Khasi have grown across its streams.
The escarpment and its water
- Nohkalikai falls about 340 m in a single plunge — the tallest plunge waterfall in India, dropping into a pool at the head of a gorge that runs away south.
- The Seven Sisters — Nohsngithiang — pour straight off the rim in a row when there is water behind them. In March and April there often is not, and no honest itinerary pretends otherwise.
- The Mawdok Dympep viewpoint looks down a valley that narrows away toward the plain, and is the least crowded of the roadside stops.
The limestone underneath
- Mawsmai is the cave most people walk: a short, lit limestone passage you go through rather than into, with a couple of low squeezes that are the whole difficulty.
- Arwah is quieter and the better one for anybody who cares why the rock is here — there are fossils visible in the walls, which is the plateau telling you it used to be a seabed.
The root bridges
- Khasi and War villages train the aerial roots of Ficus elastica across streams over decades until they carry weight. They are infrastructure, still in daily use, and they get stronger with age instead of rotting.
- The double-decker at Nongriat is the famous one and it is around three thousand steps down and back — a hard half day, and a genuine one, not a walk.
- Shorter bridges nearer the road show the same technique without the descent, and Riwai’s, an hour east, is the one most itineraries actually reach.
How long to give it
Up onto the plateau
Two hours south from Shillong, arriving in time for the rim in the afternoon — Nohkalikai, and the Seven Sisters if the season has water in them. Stay out for dusk rather than checking in for it.
Caves and a bridge
Mawsmai and Arwah in the morning, then either the Riwai bridge and Mawlynnong to the east, or the descent to Nongriat if you have the legs and the day. The two do not fit together.
On toward the border
South-east to Dawki and the Umngot river, or north off the plateau to Guwahati. Either way the escarpment is behind you within the first half hour.
Getting here and around
There is one practical way in and one practical way to move once you arrive.
Reaching Sohra
- Roughly 55 km south of Shillong, about two hours, on a road that climbs onto open plateau and then runs along the rim.
- Guwahati in Assam is the nearest airport and railhead, around 200 km and four to five hours away with the Shillong road in between. Almost everyone arrives having already slept a night in Shillong.
Once you are here
- A car and driver for the day is the norm; the sights are spread over tens of kilometres of plateau and there is no useful public transport between them.
- Nongriat is the exception and cannot be driven to at all — the road ends at Tyrna and the rest is the staircase.
When to come
The season decides which Sohra you get, and the two extremes have almost nothing in common.
Dry, clear and cool, with the escarpment views at their most reliable and the caves and walks all open.
The rain has eased but the falls are still full and the cloud is lifting. The best compromise if the water is the point.
Extraordinary rain, near-permanent cloud, landslips and closed viewpoints. Green and genuinely dramatic, and not a sightseeing season.
Clear and comfortable, but several of the falls run thin or stop. Come for the escarpment and the caves rather than the water.
Staying, or just coming
Most Meghalaya itineraries day-trip here from Shillong and drive back in the evening. Sleeping on the plateau is a different trip, and it is the one worth arguing for.
The case for a night
- The coaches arrive in the late morning and are gone by four. Dawn and dusk on the rim are a completely different place, and they are the only hours you cannot buy on a day trip.
- Cloud moves constantly across the escarpment. Two chances at the view are worth much more than one, and a single afternoon is a coin toss.
What the accommodation is like
- Small resorts and homestays strung along the plateau road, not a hotel district — expect simple, low-rise and often family-run, and expect to eat where you sleep.
- Power and mobile signal are both intermittent on the plateau, more so in the monsoon. This is part of what staying here means rather than a fault to be reported.
Where the pictures are
The light here is weather rather than time of day, and the best of it is at the two ends.
On the rim
- The Nohkalikai viewpoint in the early afternoon, when the sun is far enough round to light the fall rather than the cliff it comes off.
- Anywhere along the southern edge at dusk, when the plain below goes to haze and the cloud comes up the gorges rather than down them.
Below the rim
- The root bridges are dark, wet and green and need patience rather than a wide lens — they photograph best from the far bank, with somebody on the bridge for scale.
- Inside Mawsmai the lighting is fixed and coloured; the honest picture is the entrance chamber, not the passage.
Nearby
Where Sohra leads next.
Related to Cherrapunji (Sohra)
Journeys that include Cherrapunji (Sohra) — each one visits the city as part of its itinerary.
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