The Perfect Day

It all began waking up and realizing I didn’t have Giardia. (My literary equivalent of “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”).

What spawned this realization? Well, first that the smell of food wafting over into my tent from the kitchen was actually making me hungry and not nauseaus; the fact that I didn’t need to run to the bathroom; and most importantly that I wasn’t having “egg-burps”. Now why would the latter be so important? Well, foul egg-tasting burps are usually a diagnostic indicator of giardia, and so when I had them the day before I immediately feared the worse. Blame a feverish state I guess, but I hadn’t put 2+2 together and realized that I only started having the egg burps after I vomited (and my lunch, albeit the day before, had been eggs). Regardless, it seems that the antibiotic I started the night before had been fast acting and I was on the way to recovery.

Full of energy, I decided to make the most of my last day in Cherrapunjee, and go see the famed “double decker bridge”



It was a very long hike (approximately 13 miles) including 6000 feet of elevation change, and a 2.5 km staircase. That’s right, 2.5 km of unending 6 inch wide (small indian feet?) steps. Down, and then at the end back up…



Down was fine, I got into a groove and was able to kind of do a little run down them several at a time.

Upon reaching the ending of the set of stairs there was a trail to a fantastic root bridge.




With no one else around, I sat, ate a granola bar and just listened to the birds and marveled at the ingenuity that had resulted in the construction of these bridges.
And a note: I learned last night the following: description of root bridges here
After lolling about for long enough, I continued on, where I had to cross the first of several wire bridges (roots will only go so far I guess, or more likely it’s hard to lash several hundred feet of betel nut trees together….although one would think it could be done…). I’m not sure if these pictures can capture the emotion of crossing, but for me, these were actually quite scary. Knowing that hundreds of villagers crossed them everyday, with 90 lb sacks of firewood strapped to their heads, (seriously), and without using hands for stabilization, I bucked up, started counting breaths, and one foot in front of the other made it across.

A few of these wire bridges, and the random root bridge later, I made it to another small village. These villages were incredibly picturesque, and reminded me a lot of where I did my master’s research in the Himalaya. 10-15 houses dotting a hillside, children playing, men tending small vegetable patches. A chorus of aylooooo, aylooooo, guuubyyeeee, guuubeeee! (hello, hello, goodbye, goodbye) emanated from the smaller children, and older ones would stand on their porch and ask me my name, and which country I was from. Very friendly people, and what amazing surroundings.
Passing through their village, I came across the double decker, which I’m sorry to say was actually not quite so impressive. Of course, it is amazing, two giant root bridges—where else does one see that. Nowhere. Here are some nascent research questions: was there really that much traffic in the olden days to warrant a double decker? Or perhaps one bridge started collapsing? Or maybe water level was very high for several years? Or maybe villagers were just playful? My personal hypothesis is the latter. Well, while it was amazing, what with the hanging orchids and all, the incredible amount of concrete that some development scheme had used to make the area tourist friendly (remember the 2.5 km of concrete steps) detracted from the ambience).




Well, after the double decker root bridges, it was on towards these two swimming pools. So skipping along I went, glad to be on solid flat ground (i.e. not on a wire bridge or set of steps!) and who did I find but Mr. Butterfly (or Mrs.—can’t remember if butterflies are sexually dimorphic, and if they were what I’d be looking for!).



Leaving him to enjoy whatever sticky/salty wrapper it’d found, I made my way over to one of the two most amazing swimming holes I’ve ever seen.


Again, the same absolutely turquoise water, sculpted rocks, birds singing, rainforest above, and no one around. Perfect. After swimming for a bit I consulted my little hand-drawn map, courtesy of the hotel. It said “ledge walk” to get to the next pool. Well, there was a rock face above me, and what looked like a ledge, and what looked like a wire that could be used as a pendulum-like hand rail, but upon taking the first few steps onto the rock, I thought “Self, how much fun is a 7 mile hike up 2.5 km of steps with a compound fracture and a concussion going to be in the dark…..?”, Not, was the resounding answer. Sometimes a modicum of wisdom does come with age! So I came back down and just enjoyed the bliss of having this pool to myself for about an hour.


Starting back, I thought to myself “A) Self, you’re pretty adventurous, more so than many tourists that come here, and B) those Khasi villagers are pragmatic if anything (yes, I do frequently lay out arguments in my head in this manner, must be from that training in philosophy). There must be a trail that goes to that next pool, because not many tourists would do that rock walk, and the Khasi would’ve built a nice little trail eons ago. So walking back, and keeping my eyes peeled, there enough was the trail! Much better than the compound fracture/concussion scenario!
And what a pool it was…










Words really can’t describe the beauty of this place, the late afternoon sun, the birds, surrounding forest, cool air but warm sun after swimming, muscles tired from a good long hike, and no one around.
Perfect, except for two thing A) I had to go back (the way I came); and B) Jo wasn’t there to share in it all with me. Oh well, sometimes you can’t have it all….but sometimes you can have it pretty darn close.
And then at the end of the hike back up, an amazing sunset to top it off and light those last few km on the road back.