NEXT STOP: MEGHALAYA
Please alight for:
the Scotland of the East
the wettest place on Earth
India’s longest cave systems
Asia’s Cleanest Village
Car 1 is reserved for carnivorous pitcher plants — mind your fingers.
Car 2 is offering workshops in growing living root bridges.
Car 3 is now a showroom for handcrafted bamboo rain shields.
The buffet car is serving jadoh (rice and pork), doh-neiiong (smoked pork with black sesame) and chubitchi (fermented rice drink).
Welcome to Meghalaya
MEGHALAYA
‘The Land of Clouds’
From Skt: mēgh ‘cloud’; ālaya ‘dwelling’, ‘abode’ [see my guide to Indian place-name elements].
The name is literal. Around 12,000 mm of rain falls here each year — enough to stack twelve metres of water on the ground. Meghalaya is the wettest region in India, and among the wettest on Earth. Meghalaya is waterfall country, and they’re not decorative extras: they’re a direct consequence of rain measured in storeys rather than mullimetres metres and a plateau sliced into deep gorges.
The state split from Assam in 1972 and is home to three ancient hill peoples: the Garos, Jaintias and Khasis.
Living Root Bridges
Meghalaya is the only place in the world where you can cross rivers and gorges on jingkieng jri — living root bridges.
They are made by patiently training the aerial roots of the Ficus elastica tree across streams and ravines. Over decades, the roots thicken, fuse and strengthen into walkways capable of supporting many people. Where timber rots and stone collapses, these bridges grow stronger with age.
Meghalaya has applied for UNESCO World Heritage status for the root bridges:
“Grown by indigenous Khasi communities, these structural ecosystems have performed in extreme climatic conditions for centuries and encapsulate a profound harmony between humans and nature. The knowledge and skill has evolved through generations and continues to be practised today.”
— UNESCO, Tentative World Heritage List
Why is Meghalaya called the ‘Scotland of the East’?
The nickname dates from the British period. After years of being drenched in Sohra (Cherrapunji), colonial administrators moved their headquarters to Shillong, whose cool climate, rolling hills, lakes and pine forests reminded them of home.
The Khasi Hills sit high enough to escape the heat of the plains, and —-like Scotland— is prone to sudden weather changes, mist drifting across ridgelines and rain arriving sideways on. The comparison stuck — less for romance than for relief from monsoon saturation.
Asia’s Cleanest Village: Mawlynnong
Located in the East Khasi Hills, Mawlynnong has been widely described as Asia’s Cleanest Village, a title popularised by Discovery India.
Cleanliness here is not cosmetic but systematic. The village uses bamboo dustbins, eco-toilets, and strict household waste segregation. Paths are swept daily, plastics are minimised and community rules are enforced collectively rather than by fines alone.
Mawlynnong is also a model of community-run tourism and women-led governance. As part of a matrilineal Khasi society, property and lineage pass through women, and village decision-making reflects that structure. Order, accountability and care for shared space are treated as civic duties rather than campaigns.
India’s Longest Cave Systems
Meghalaya sits on thick limestone beds, soaked by monsoon rain that dissolves and reshapes the rock year after year. The result is one of the most extensive cave networks in South Asia.
The Krem Puri–Krem Lymput system is currently recognised as India’s longest cave system, stretching over 24 kilometres. Many caves remain only partially mapped, with underground rivers, fossil chambers and collapses still being discovered.
In a state where rain arrives by the metre, much of Meghalaya’s geography continues below ground, hidden but constantly in motion.
SHILLONG — Capital City
From Lei Shyllong, a Khasi deity.
U Lum Shyllong (Shillong Peak) is the highest point in Meghalaya and the dwelling place of the god Lei Shyllong, to whom rituals are still performed. The older Khasi phrase U Shulong Hi — ‘he exists by himself’ — expresses a theology of divine self-existence.
The British relocated their political headquarters here after growing weary of Sohra’s rain. Shillong’s hills and lakes reminded them of home, earning it the nickname ‘Scotland of the East’. It served as the capital of Assam Province before becoming the capital of Meghalaya in 1972.
BAGHMARA — ‘Tiger Died’
From Ben: bāgh ‘tiger’; māra ‘died’.
In 1886, Bong Lasker was involved in a fatal confrontation with a tiger that had been terrorising local villages and cattle. The incident appears in colonial records, and Lasker is commemorated in the town centre for his bravery and leadership.
The older name Barokar / Barodhar (Ben: bārō ‘twelve’; dhārā ‘stream’) refers to feeder streams flowing into the Simsang (Someshwari) River.
Nearby is a unique sanctuary for pitcher plants (Nepenthes khasiana; Garo: me’mang koksi — ‘demon basket’). These rare, carnivorous plants trap insects in fluid-filled pitchers and are endemic to Meghalaya.
SOHRA (CHERRAPUNJI)
From Sohra (local name); possibly linked to Kha: sohra ‘bearing small or scanty fruit’, and Ben: puñja ‘cluster’.
Sohra is the official and local name. Cherrapunji is a colonial corruption and does not mean ‘land of oranges’, despite frequent claims. The region is indeed famous for sweet oranges, but the name almost certainly refers to a cluster of hilltop villages.
Ironically, while Sohra functions as a market for fruit grown in surrounding villages, very little grows in Sohra itself — the thin soils and relentless rain leach nutrients away.
Sohra and nearby Mawsynram regularly record 11,000–12,000 mm of rain per year, making them the wettest places on the planet. Moisture-laden clouds are funnelled inland from the Bay of Bengal, driven through deep valleys and forced rapidly upward by the Khasi Hills. The sudden ascent cools the air, condensing vast quantities of rain in a process repeated day after day through the monsoon.
TURA
From Durama Imbama, a Garo deity.
Tura city lies in the foothills of the Tura Hills. Tura Peak (872 m) is sacred to the Garo goddess Durama Imbama. Geographically, Tura is closer to Assam, Guwahati, West Bengal and Bangladesh than it is to Shillong, reinforcing the state’s internal diversity and regional pull.
WILLIAMNAGAR
Named after Williamson A. Sangma (1919–1990).
Sangma was a leading Garo politician, the principal architect of Meghalaya statehood, and its first Chief Minister. Born in Baghmara, he spent his life arguing that the hill peoples’ languages, cultures and political needs were fundamentally different from those of the plains.
Where do Meghalaya place names come from?
Most place names in Meghalaya are not Sanskritic, and only lightly Indo-Aryan. They come instead from the Khasi, Garo and Jaintia languages — branches of the Austroasiatic and Tibeto-Burman families — shaped by a landscape where rain, slopes and rivers dominate daily life.
Khasi names are especially rooted in terrain and water: hills, ridges, rivers, rock outcrops and clearings. Prefixes like um (water/river), * shnong* (settlement), * shnong shnong* (village clusters) and references to peaks, passes and stones recur across the plateau. Names often describe what a place is like to move through, not what it looks like on a map.
Garo place names frequently encode mythology and sacred geography. Many towns and hills are linked to ancestral spirits or deities, such as Durama Imbama at Tura. Rivers, forests and animals appear often, reflecting a cosmology in which landscape is animated rather than inert.
Jaintia names sit somewhere between the two, combining physical description with ritual and market functions, especially in older trading and exchange centres.
Colonial administration added a thin English layer — Shillong, Williamnagar, Baghmara — sometimes translating or flattening older names, sometimes simply mishearing them. Cherrapunji is the best-known example: a colonial corruption of Sohra, now officially restored.
Across Meghalaya, names tend to be descriptive, practical and local. They tell you where the water flows, where the hill rises, where the market gathers, or where a spirit is said to live. In a land that receives rain by the metre, naming is less about commemoration than orientation and survival.
For more on Indian place names and their meanings - see Place Names Wallah
For a journey through tribal India & Sri Lanka see - Headhunting with Marguerite