ANKAN · Ward's Lake, Shillong.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)
Shillong
Meghalaya’s hill capital, and the base for the wettest country on earth.
Shillong
A Khasi hill capital that the British made a summer station and the rest of India now knows for its music — and the only sensible base for the wettest country on earth.
Explore Shillong on the map
City locations, drawn from our published destination data. Attractions, hotels and restaurants are not mapped yet.
Beyond the temples
A day in the town and a great deal more within two hours of it.
In the town
- Ward’s Lake — the municipal park lake in the centre, with an arched footbridge and a botanical garden around it. Twenty minutes, and the most pleasant twenty minutes in the town.
- Don Bosco Museum of Indigenous Cultures — seven floors on the peoples of the north-east, and much better than that description suggests. The rooftop skywalk gives the clearest view of how the town is laid out.
- Police Bazar is the commercial centre and where the town eats; Laitumkhrah and the streets around it are where the music scene actually lives. Shillong has produced more working rock and blues musicians than any comparable Indian town, and there is usually something on at a weekend.
- Shillong Peak at 1,965 m is the highest point in the state, though access is subject to military control and can close without notice. Elephant Falls, on the way, is three drops in a short walk.
Within two hours
- Sohra (Cherrapunji), 55 km — the escarpment edge, Nohkalikai Falls and Mawsmai cave. Sohra and Mawsynram between them hold the world rainfall records, which is the reason most people come.
- Living root bridges — Ficus elastica roots trained across streams over decades by Khasi villagers, and still growing. The single-span at Riwai near Mawlynnong is a twenty-minute walk; the double-decker at Nongriat is a long stone stairway down and back and needs the best part of a day.
- Dawki, 80 km, where the Umngot river runs clear enough in the dry months that boats appear to float on air, with the Bangladesh plain beginning on the far bank.
- Mawlynnong, 90 km, marketed as Asia’s cleanest village. It is genuinely tidy and genuinely small; go for the root bridge at Riwai next door rather than for the label.
How long to give it
Up from Guwahati
The drive takes three to four hours and most of the day once the airport is included. Ward’s Lake and the Don Bosco museum fill an afternoon, and Police Bazar is where to eat.
The escarpment
Sohra for the day — Nohkalikai, the Mawsmai cave and the view off the edge towards Bangladesh — with Elephant Falls on the way out or back.
The border and the bridges
Dawki for the Umngot, Mawlynnong and the Riwai root bridge, as one long day. Or Nongriat instead, if the stairway appeals.
Down or across
Guwahati is 3 – 4 hrs back for the flight; Kaziranga about 6 hrs east if the trip continues into Assam.
Arriving & getting around
Everyone arrives from Guwahati by road; there is no railway and no reliable flight.
Getting there
- Guwahati (GAU) in Assam is the airport for Meghalaya — about 150 km and three to four hours by road on NH6, and the way essentially every traveller arrives.
- Shillong Airport (SHL) at Umroi is 30 km out but its schedule is thin and has been interrupted more than once; it should never be the only plan.
- There is no railway in Meghalaya. Guwahati is the nearest railhead, and shared and private vehicles run from the airport and the station through the day.
Once you are here
- Central Shillong is walkable and often quicker on foot — Police Bazar traffic is genuinely bad in the late afternoon.
- Everything outside the town is a car with a driver, which is what every package on this site includes. Sohra, Dawki and Mawlynnong are all long days on winding roads, and combining Dawki and Mawlynnong in one day is the standard arrangement.
- Roads here are landslide-prone from June to September. It is worth building a Meghalaya itinerary with a spare half-day in it.
When to visit
This is the wettest place on earth, and the season decides what you will actually see.
Dry, clear and cool. The Umngot river at Dawki only runs transparent in these months, and the escarpment views at Sohra are only reliable now.
The falls are at their strongest just as the rain eases and the cloud starts to lift. The best compromise if the waterfalls are the point.
Extraordinary rainfall, permanent cloud, landslides and closed viewpoints. Green and dramatic, and not a sightseeing season.
Cold at 1,500 m and colder on the escarpment. Days are the clearest of the year.
How to be a good guest
A Khasi town with a Welsh hymn tradition and an unusually good live music scene.
Who lives here
- The Khasi are the majority in these hills, with the Jaintia to the east and the Garo in the west of the state. All three are matrilineal, and Khasi is an Austroasiatic language unrelated to anything else spoken nearby.
- Welsh Presbyterian missionaries arrived in 1841 and the hills are now largely Christian, which is why Shillong has choirs, hymn singing in Khasi and a church on most corners — and, indirectly, why it has so many guitarists.
- Nongkrem in November and Shad Suk Mynsiem in April are the two Khasi dance festivals worth planning around; both are religious observances rather than performances.
What is eaten here
- Khasi food is pork, rice and simple: jadoh is rice cooked with pork and blood, doh khleh a shredded pork salad with onion and chilli, tungrymbai fermented soybean paste with a smell that precedes it.
- It is not spicy in the north Indian sense but the local chilli is serious, and vegetarians will find the choice narrow outside the Police Bazar restaurants.
- Kwai — areca nut with betel leaf and lime — is offered constantly and is a social gesture rather than a snack.
Insider tips
- Dawki only works in the dry months. The clear-water photographs everyone has seen are October to April; in and after the monsoon the Umngot runs brown, and no itinerary can fix that.
- Decide about Nongriat before you book. The double-decker root bridge is a long stone stairway down and the same back up, several hours of it, and hard on the knees. The single-span at Riwai is twenty minutes and gives most travellers what they came for.
- No permits are needed anywhere in Meghalaya, for Indian or foreign travellers. That makes it the easiest north-eastern state to travel.
- Dawki and Mawlynnong are usually done as one long day. Start early; the road is slow.
- Carry cash outside Shillong — card acceptance thins quickly once you leave the town.
- Who should come: everyone doing Meghalaya; there is no other base. Who should skip it: travellers who want mountains — these are hills and gorges, and the Himalaya are a different trip.
Nearby
Where Shillong leads next.
Related to Shillong
Journeys that include Shillong — each one visits the city as part of its itinerary.
Common questions
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