Meghalaya Memories: Cherrapunji Weekend Trip

I have a very interesting history of my trips to Shillong in the North eastern state of Meghalaya. It started from way back in 2011, which was my first trip with friends. Then in 2023, it was destiny that brought me back to Shillong on transfer. This time it was to stay and make our third home together after Jaipur and Kolkata.

Shillong Diaries

It has been over a year that we have reset our nest in Shillong, and we went for our first couple weekend trip. I am not counting the field trips and weekend Guwahati (Hubbies home) trips in the past year though. We have had many day trips to the magnificent waterfalls, lakes and exquisitely beautiful hills and valleys of Meghalaya in the past one year. But this trip was a bit different. It was only the two of us and we caught a great deal at one of the better resorts in Cherrapunji a.k.a Sohra.

A flash sale and we booked a room in Polo Orchid, Cherrapunji for the weekend. It was going to be our n+1 th trip to Sohra but nevertheless we were very excited. We could not wait for the work week to get over and the weekend to arrive!

Weekend Trip

Anyway finally Saturday morning arrived. We packed our overnighter, packed a small picnic of tea and samosas and we were off!
It was a mystical cloudy typical Meghalaya day and we were in high spirits. Listening to our favourite journey songs we reached our resort by 1 pm. We made small stops on the way to appreciate the beauty of mesmerizing Meghalaya and thank God for all the blessings bestowed upon us.

Stay at Polo Orchid

On reaching the resort, the entry was not that impressive as some construction work was going on. But once we reached our room we were highly pleased with the view and the amenities.
Before lunch we enjoyed a complementary foot massage at the in-house Tatva spa and were feeling totally relaxed. This was followed by a delicious lunch of an indulgent pizza and Greek salad.

Then we wandered around the resort with a small disagreement. The topic regarding whether to have the complementary tea first or swim first in the infinity pool! Luckily it was resolved pretty fast and we enjoyed both the activities with equal gusto.

Then we went for a walk outside the resort. We caught a sunset tinged sky with pretty twilight colours and view of the magnificent Seven sister falls. The resort restaurent as well as the rooms have the waterfall view. But the clouds were pretty good at camouflaging most of the times.
We returned to the resort recreation room and played some table tennis which we both love. Then we returned to the room and rested for a while. This was followed by some Assam black tea and evening snacks of Prawn salt and pepper and soup and a few episodes of our favourite series The Big Bang Theory.
Then we went for dinner to Sohra House the restaurant which has live music both during lunch and dinner. We had a delicious North East thali meal and raw papaya salad( a bit too sweet for my liking) for dinner. The day was over and we retired for the night.

I should remind you Cherrapunji well and truly deserves the title of second wettest place on Earth ( after Mawsynram). It rained throughout the night and we were time and again woken up my the rumbling of thunder and flashing of lightning.

We woke up next day and went for breakfast at a relaxed pace. The breakfast buffet was delicious. The breakfast food one of the best,taste and quality wise we have come across in past few months. ( by virtue of our job we have to travel around quite a bit and breakfast buffets are our pet peeves!)
Our trip to Polo Orchid , Cherrapunji was coming to an end. But on our road trip back to Shillong a diversion from our usual route and a surprise was awaiting for us. More about that in the next blog.

This post is a part of Blogchatter Half Marathon 2024