We knew that we’d come back to Sohra late. So, we had asked the Sa-I-Mika folks to keep a room for us.

That was room 1 at Ken and Twill Cottages, next door to good old Sai-I-Mika – owned by the same people, but operate under different names.

We met this young man in charge, called Morning Star who, according to Arvind, has a 10,000 watt smile. Adorable guy. But he was charged with the task of ousting us on Friday morning. Our original plan to head to Nongriat got switched to “Let’s stay in one day and go tomorrow”. Since it had been go-go-go daily, everyone agreed readily, and the day was spent lazing around, hanging about on the swing for hours (for me, at least), having happily large meals, a ton of chai on top on a little rock outcrop, and talking about life.

Arvind has by now, developed a serious relationship with Ath’s ipod and creating playlists. Ath coaxes him to create more playlists, while Madiha says, “He’s trying to create a rift between us with this playlist”, which mostly goes unheard by Arvind, who has a manic look in his eye and is eyeing that Ipod with determination.

We woke and packed (yet again) on the 24th to go to Nongriat. After some more comedy of errors that involved the owner of a nearby homestay getting us a driver and calling another who happened to have a bag of wet clothes from the day before…. pheeeew. We were on the road finally. Got to Tyrna village and trekked down to Nongriat and Serenity homestay. The trek down was not as tough as I remembered. The knees held up amazingly. Sometimes, just knowing what to expect makes the effort easier. I noted down markers as I went down the steps – a village, a stone seat, a turn on the route, a tree – so I’d know how much effort was needed on the way back. I must have been Hansel or Gretel in some other lifetime.

En route, we meet this nice lady selling lemonade. She has two adorable children, a lovely dog, and all of them have a smile to spare us (and the dog has wags galore). The thing about most of these guys is they have genuine laugh lines. Their faces fall into lines of having laughed frequently for a lifetime. Isn’t that a wonder, by itself.

About Nongriat and how we got there: When we headed down the first time, we knew that the only homestay here doesn’t take bookings. As we passed it, Madiha and I stopped and asked the owner, Byron, if he had places for us. He patiently explained that often, due to the effort required, people didn’t return as per plan, and his bookings went waste, as he turned away others who were already at his door. He asked us to call him when heading to Nongriat, and that he’d find us a place. He said he was likely to have a balcony with a few beds and a blanket each. he assured us that it isn’t too cold in the nights, so this is a viable option. We asked if we could see the place. He said no. We agreed that it was a fair response, and were about to leave, when a young kid ran in with something for him. He thanked the child with exaggerated politeness, and the kid responded with an “Allrighty, it’s okay, you’re welcome” Now, Madiha and I are both suckers for kids. And if the kid is well-behaved, I’m really sunk! So, we looked at each other, wrinked our noses, made “awwww how cute” faces at each other. Byron catches this, and says proudly, “That’s my son!” We both cooed about what a wonderful kid he looks like. Byron decided to like us on the spot – clearly we were good people – we had such good judgment about children! And he told us to call him when we were heading back down and that even if his place was busy, he’d find us some place to stay at.

On the day, as we headed down, we called Byron and were told that two rooms await the 5 of us. We landed there, dropped bags, bantered with Byron, met his lady wife, set out for the Living Roots bridge again (2.5 mins away from Serenity Homestay)

We had a charming lunch (Chana and potatoes veggie and rice) by the double-decker bridge at a small shack on stilts, run by this diminutive betel-chewing woman, Loretta. She’s also the most assertive person I’ve met in a while: sweet in nature, but knows when to tell anyone that they are crossing boundaries and they should back off. What a woman! All of us sensed that in her – Reena said to her at some point, “If you were in a company, you would be the CEO of that place, that’s the vibe you carry.”

We had wise conversation with each other, such as “A Bengali gent told me this bridge is uni-Q in the world”

“So is the Taj Mahal”

“For that matter, so is KR Puram”

Back at Serenity we met Byron’s livewire children Frankie (the boss, the guy who’s best at carrom), Serenity (the cheeky one), Freddie (the noisy one), and the wee ones Josephine and Nagita. And a cute kitty called Melody. There are a couple of dogs. Brownie. A wee pup downstairs called Bravo.

For a village, this place is all kinds of neat. The loo is Indian…. and is also the shower place and where you brush teeth. This is one of those situation things that’s a little tough on a die-hard city slicker like me. But the cleanliness makes up for all of it in spades.

The air is sweet, the company sweeter. The people of this village are so amazing (for that matter, this entire state), it’s no wonder the rest of the country finds it challenging to understand them. Their manners, and politeness are completely amazing and unlike the rest of the country.