Read this before traveling to living root bridge in Meghalaya

It's been a long time you haven't travelled anywhere. We were expecting and probably even planning to go out and have some fun but things didn't work as you wanted. 

Whether you say "it is happening because of covid" or you give any other reason. We all have to accept that we do not want to stay at home anymore. 

So here is our blog to tell you about where to travel and what to do in coming months to enjoy your life at its fullest.

 A natural place to travel 

As we all already know , most of us are living in metro cities and don't even have time to adore nature that much.

So this article is about nature , a lot of trees and birds but the best part is while traveling to this place you will enjoy your journey too because your journey will be beautiful too. So beautiful that I bet you won't close the window of your vehicle.

Travel guide to Meghalaya's living root bridges. 

As you must have understood from the heading already but let me elaborate a little bit more.

This place is a really beautiful tourist destination in Sohra also known as Cherrapunji . The special thing about it is that all the bridges present here are made of living roots which means all the plants are still alive and green . If you visit here you will feel like you are in an animation movie where they show nature being alive.

Now since you know a small introduction about it so can you guess why these were created ?

Did you know that Cherrapunji is also famous for its rains ? 

Yes and that is one of the reasons that indigenous tribes ( Khasi people ) had to train them to grow like this. Actually the rain in Sohra  is so hard and so much in quantity that a normal bridge can not stand for long. 

So the locals had to find out an innovative way so that they could solve this problem and they did it .

• How old are these living root bridges?

As you know they are alive and still growing . The root bridges being used by the people in the villages of Meghalaya can be as old as 500 year. Now I'm really surprised by the innovative idea of making root bridges because that time I don't think science was developed that much. 

Here is some more information about these living root bridges before you travel there .

The most popular double decker root bridge of Meghalaya is in Cherrapunji which is also known as Sohra. It takes 15 years for a new bridge to be strong enough to handle the weight of people crossing it but still there are 11 functional root bridges at this time some of which are believed to be hundreds of years old. This place is around 3 hours away from Shillong. 

These bridges were well documented way before in 1844 , by the journal of the Asiatic society of Bengal. However they are owned by Cherrapunji holiday resort which is owned by a retired Tamil banker who fell in love and got married with a khasi woman from Laitkynsew village. 

How the double decker root bridge came into existence and what can be the future developments?

The double-decker root bridge is at the Nongriat village near Cherrapunji, the legendary structure and innovative approach is the reason a lot of tourists go there to see this more than 1500 years old natural wonder made by men. Although there are many single level root bridges here but this is the only double decker root bridge which makes it unique.

Although it is known for being double decker but it was also planned to have a single level but khasi people had to create the second level because in a random monsoon the water level reached the first floor of the bridge so it became a need. 

There are some future plans as well to make it have 3 levels but that will be just to increase tourism.

If you want to travel there then be fit

It's not like you have to be extremely fit but if you have any joint pain or are quite unfit then it can be extremely hard and long journey for you to reach there .the track is very mountainous and will give you a lot of pressure on your knees and calf.

How is the track ?

The way to reach the double decker root bridge in Meghalaya is around 3km long and has 3500 stairs . You will not only climb the mountains but will also go down 2400 feet. After seeing the figures you must be losing the hope but don't be discouraged because it will make your journey full of adventure.

So this was our blog for today please let me know your views in comments.

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