One Day Trip to Unbelievable Living Root Bridge of Mawlynnong & Stunning views of Dauki River - Shillong, Meghayala

Shillong to Mawlynnong is approximately 80 kilometers distance and because of hilly terrains it takes 2.5 to 3 hours to reach. So even if you plan one place in a day, it would eat up your 6 hrs in travel and don't forget to add lunch time, assuming you would start after breakfast would want to enjoy dinner after you are back. If your tea intake in more than usual, keep some time for that as well :). I couldn't do much research, but I am sure there would be resorts or places to stay nearby so that you spend one night around the place and don't rush through the day. Anyways, our plan to visit Living root bridge as well as Dauki.  

Initial plan to visit Dauki from Shillong and then go to Mawlynnong, but continuous rains in the morning disrupted that plan.  Shillong to Dauki is also approximately 80 kilometers but not in same direction. There is a diversion at Pongtung. Dauki is on other side and it's approx 35 kilometers from this diversion. 

At the bottom on this blogpost, there is a map attached about the total commute we had in one day and amount of time we spent on the road. It's approximately 7 hrs of commute time easily. 

Because of continuous rains, our tour operator suggested that it would not be worth going to Dauki as water may have got muddy due to rains and our group would not be able to do boating. We headed to Mawlynnong living root bridge. After reaching the place, we parked our vehicles at a designated parking area and then had to walk for about 10 mins. Since this part of the country sees more rains than usual, stones were little slippery so everyone needed to watch their steps to ensure safely. It was continuously drizzling. 



Above photograph shows living root bridge of Mawlynnong village of Meghalaya state in India. Mawlynnong village is also considered as one of the cleaner villagers in the country although I could not appreciate that aspect given I have seen even more beautiful villages in Sikkim but I am sure I must be missing someone on this front and probably I don't understand the criterion well. Certainly the village was not dirty given it's a popular touristy place and there are lot of shops all around. There are lot of shops around the path you take from parking area to the place where Living root bridge is located. There is a ticket of 20 rupees per person to go beyond a point and this is managed by village community group. 

Living root bridges are a form of tree shaping common in the southern part of the Northeast Indian state of Meghalaya. They are handmade from the aerial roots of rubber fig trees  by the Khasi and Jaintia peoples of the mountain terrain along the southern part of the Shillong Plateau. Root bridges have also been observed in the Indian state of Nagaland, which is also located in north east part of the country. 

There is a small water stream flowing under this living root bridge in Mawlynnong of Meghalaya state of India. Many of the photographs you see in blogpost are clicked around the living root bridge of Mawlynnong and with mobile phone camera. 

Finally we also planned to go to Dauki and it was very dark. Since our travel agent had done all the arrangements, folks could enjoy the boating in the dark. Photograph below shows the parked boats around Dauki river in Meghalaya.

Before concluding this blogpost, I would want to share the before going to these places we also went to Shillong View point which in my opinion was wrong choice as we spent reasonable time there and that time could have been saved to explore these places well. Probably we could have reached Dauki on time. All that is in retrospect now, but worth considering if you are planning a day trip. I would rather suggest to consider going to Shillong point on the day when you want to spend time around the city explore other places of interest.

At the end, I loved exploring this part of the country. Every travel experience is learning and this one was about planning the time well. This was probably my first trip when I spent so much time on road but all worth I would say. Could it have been better - Yes !