Elephant Falls – I love the expressions on their faces…
When we got up to head to Meghalaya, Bonnie had prepared breakfast and sent us off with a wave for our journey with Dean. We drove out of Shillong and headed into the hills on a road that is under a lot of construction. In some places, it’s still dirt and they are working on making it a paved two- or four- lane highway that will go from (before?) Guwahati all the way through to Dhaka in Bangladesh. Dean (who is a delightful fount of knowledge) told us that the drive to Mawlynnong used to take twice as long as it does now. Along the way, we stopped at several lovely viewpoints. We first went to Elephant Falls, which was nice, but touristy…
Smoking Pork
*Photo by Alec Bernstein
Jayanthi and Alec also expressed a desire for pork momos (a specialty in the area, and to the north, such as Tibet and Nepal), really they wanted any sort of pork at all! Dean stopped in a village at a place with us so we could buy pork to take with us to Mawlynnong, since he knew a place. There was a fire in the corner and they were smoking the pork right there. It smelled great. We picked up a bunch to take with us (and they did cook it for us in Mawlynnong!)
Woman Outside Pork Shop
In one leg of the journey, I questioned Dean about his people, the Khasi tribe. I was fascinated to learn about them, because I had heard that this area of the country is Matrilineal, or that the family names pass down through the female line. He confirmed that for me – in fact, he said there are three tribes in this region who practice this – and told me many things about his matriarchal society. He described what it is like to live in a society like that, especially as a man. And how things play out when the matriarch dies. Interestingly, things pass down through the youngest female in the family, but not until after a year of mourning. Men even take the wives’ names when they marry. He said there are good things, and bad, about the system. I was fascinated.
With Dean and his van, on the way to Mawlynnong
*Photo courtesy of Alec Bernstein
Dean was happy to talk about anything, and knowledgeable about everything. He was also a fan of music, and listened to Cat Stevens and Jack Johnson and all sorts of music (some, he said, because his son made him listen). He gladly stopped wherever we wished and was great company. I cannot emphasize how different this was from our trip to Shillong from Guwahati!!! With the crappy Tourtst Driver….
One thing that is fascinating about the area of Meghalaya is that there is so much rainfall, some of the highest annually in the world. I had imagined this would pose many problems for the people of the area, and that they would have developed many ways to “weather the storms” and deal with all the water. I didn’t expect to see all the ways they would have used the water itself. They use it in many ways as a tool. For example, along the road they were building, many areas of the mountain would need to be removed. I think in the US they would jackhammer or dynamite explode away parts of the rock face. This would clear the way for the road. Here, however, they don’t have that kind of power or access to those tools. They chisel the rock and when the rain comes, it washes the rest of it away. What looks like scored lines all down the rock side of the mountain are actually chisel marks! Wow. Lots of time and effort.
As we drove, we noticed there had been some monoliths scattered throughout the countryside. Not sure how long they’d been there, but definitely a long, long time, Dean said. He said we could stop if we saw some more we liked. I spotted some after a while and asked to stop. They were out in a field a little way, and he pulled over. We headed out to the monoliths, really excited because they looked like fingers reaching out of the ground. But when we actually arrived at the stones, we were flabbergasted, because we realized we were looking at a stone table….and it was broken in the middle! Those of you who have read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis will understand that we had found Aslan’s Table! And, it was Easter weekend, by the way. Jayanthi and I jumped for joy. She sang a song. It was crazy.
Wow, imagine finding Aslan’s table in northeast India. Super cool.