I had the opportunity to spend 5 days in Shillong. I came away convinced that there is no end to the diversity in India. Shillong is a place like no other with few similarities to the rest of India.
Situated in a hilly north eastern corner of India, Shillong is located less than 100 kms from the border with Bangladesh. It is also close to China and this factor is what makes it so different from the rest of India. To begin with, the people of Shillong have mongoloid features. Many of them are Chinese. They eat pork and beef, making them one of the few communities that eat those 2 meats in India. The women wrap a sarong-like cloth over more usual clothing like pants and shirts. Tucked away in the sarong are their children who they carry on their backs. The population is very poor. The few wealthy and the poor live side-by-side. This makes it so no part of Shillong is yuppie. The people eat both Chinese and Indian food. Restaurants serve both cuisines, sometimes in the same meal. I ate some delicious ginger prawns with naan!
The weather is an unusual combination of being tropical and cold both at the same time. The vegetation tells the story of the weather. Plantains grow next to pines interspersed with cherry blossom-like trees. The sun beats down through thinner atmospheric layers as a cool wind brings on clouds in the fading light of day. It rains all throughout the year. That is no surprise as Shillong is located about 60 kms away from the wettest place on earth -- Cheerapunji. The hills of Cheerapunji force the eastward blowing Bangladeshi air to drop all its moisture.
In the 5 days that I was in Shillong, I touristed around very little. I spent time with some of the locals who would tell me that there wasn't a lot to see. I think they were wrong -- everything that was there, just as it was, where it was, was more than enough to see.
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