By road
~50-60 km from Shillong
Northeast India · Meghalaya
Cherrapunji, Meghalaya
Living root bridges in the wettest hills · ~50-60 km from Shillong
Getting there
By rail
Guwahati, ~100-181 km — Meghalaya has no railway of its own
By air
Umroi (Shillong) Airport, ~53-91 km, with limited flights; Guwahati (~148-190 km) has far more options
Best time to visit
October to May for trekking; monsoon for waterfall madness (and rain)
Don't miss
Nohkalikai Falls
Seven Sisters Falls
Mawsmai Cave
Nongriat double-decker
Things to do
Root-bridge treks
Cave exploring at Mawsmai
Canyon viewpoints
Where to eat
Sources: open-meteo, wikimedia, Photo: Sohel78bd at en.wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0
What to pack
Serious rain gear, grippy trekking shoes, knee strength for 3,500 steps
A quieter corner
The double-decker root bridge at Nongriat — earn it, then swim below it
About Cherrapunji
- Hills
Where it is
Cherrapunji, now officially Sohra, is a town in Meghalaya's East Khasi Hills, at about 1,430 m on the southern edge of the Shillong Plateau, where the hills drop steeply to the plains of Bangladesh.
History
Sohra was the seat of a Khasi chiefdom, and after the Khasi Hills came under British authority in the 1830s it served as the British headquarters in the hills until Shillong replaced it in 1864. The Welsh missionary Thomas Jones arrived here in 1841 and wrote the Khasi language down in the Roman script, laying the foundations of Khasi literature.
People
Sohra's people are Khasi, who speak Khasi and follow a matrilineal tradition. In the deep valleys below, villages such as Nongriat have for generations trained the roots of rubber fig trees across streams to grow living bridges, a process that takes 10 to 15 years.
Known for
- Living root bridges, including the double-decker
- Nohkalikai Falls, India's tallest plunge falls
- Among the wettest places on Earth
- The Mawsmai limestone cave
- Seven Sisters Falls
Did you know?
Sohra holds the world records for the most rain in a calendar month, 9,300 mm in July 1861, and in a year, 26,461 mm between August 1860 and July 1861.
We haven't written a guide for this place yet — you can still plan a trip here.