The plan for today was to go to the Living Roots Bridge. The guys in the know made some noise about us passing really close to another spot we were scheduled to visit later during our trip. I didn’t listen to much of it, because I was worried about me making it down the few thousand steps others said this trip is going to be. Not being in great physical shape just now, I didn’t want the others’ experience to get derailed because my feet swelled up, or some such.

8am: Trepid exit from Sa-I-Mika. Cramped taxi ride to a village from which we walked an hour downhill (a few thousand steps only, on shivering legs) to a living roots bridge. What’s that? Rubber tree roots are used on two sides of a river to build a bridge. Like this one.

So we met our guide, Guy Young Star (say that really fast). His brothers are called Manchester and Lancaster 🙂 A short note here to talk about names in Shillong. My Khasi colleague back at work says people often name their children after words they see on hoardings, or on the roadside. Often, they turn to newspapers, football clubs etc., for inspiration. In Guy’s case, that’s what happened. In his family, they’re obviously, all football mad, to the last man, woman and child!

He more than ably led us to the bridge and back. Here we were, legs shivering, eyes watering, heart pounding, face sweating (and when I say we, i mean those of us who aren’t legit running stars) and here he was, whistling, singing songs in 3 languages, looking cool and stylish, calling out greetings to other cool and stylish people climbing back up (I am not going to think about the climb. Not thinking about it. Not… )

Walk some more, we come across a couple of 1.5l expense bridges built with old telephone/ electricity wires. And built using local labour, so job opportunities are built. I like how there is info on the bridge like this. Someone’s actually printed on the rockside, the money it cost to build it. How cool! You can actually govern like this, and that’s a revelation!

And then it’s walk walk walk (ouch to the ITB so far), and then, BAM!!!

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The living roots bridge, ladies and gentlemen! In all its glory. Since we went in the winter, and there hadn’t been much rain (this year was the lowest in many many years – and we’re talking about the place that had the distinction of being the wettest place on earth, for years!), the two decks of the double decker bridge were visible, the lower deck well above the waterline. A limpid pool with little fishies was amazing to dip crying feet into. Guy climbed into the pool to score for us all little stones that have exfoliating properties.

An hour there, some yum food at a tiiiny place (and chatting up an impossibly cute little 2 year old), we were ready to climb back.

Climbed back. Died for an hour and some unknown amount. My ego took a beating – despite knowing fully well that I’m in real bad shape cardio-wise, thanks to the two years of next to nothing. The ankles really let me know who’s boss. I’m petrified about climbing down again day-after when we go and stay in the forest for a few days. I was so upset at my own inability to climb back up with any degree of izzat, I was near tears the entire time. The brother was tres nice, trying to say uplifting and positive things. The kindness killed me even more, so i told him to go on ahead, indulged in a few tears that were camouflaged in sweat, and continued on. In case you thought this is when personal drama wades in and overshadows adventure, you’d be dead wrong!

There is no such thing as an uneventful day when you travel with this lot. So, Arvind and Athreya, mountain goats that they are, were climbing up ahead of the rest of us. They encountered a large, elderly man in a Tamilian white vest, lumbering on. Then they encountered his son, daughter in law, and one of the guides carrying their baby. Then they encountered said man’s wife, Kanjeevaram sari and all.

She asked them in Tamil flavoured Hindi, “Kya aapne ek kaala admi dekha?” 😂

South Indian of the day award: Arvind and Ath for answering the question in Hindi with a straight face. They even gave her some advice on climbing because she felt like fainting due to blood pressure.