Travelogue

It was on Eleventh of April in the disheartening year of Twenty Twenty One. My

mother and I always visit my hometown, Guwahati twice every year. It was such a
good feeling to come back to Guwahati after an entire year. We set out from our
house travelling all the way to Terminal Three of the Indira Gandhi International
Airport. We had to get all the necessary items for departure such as Hand Sanitizer,
Disposable Gloves etc. When it was almost time for our departure, all the
passengers were handed a plastic bag which included a PP kit, a hand sanitizer, a
face shield and a mask. We were told to wear our PP kits and face shields because
we were almost about to depart. We wore our PP Kits and climbed up the stairs of
the wonderful Vistara airplane. It hardly took us one and a half hour to reach the city
of Guwahati, Assam. We landed and came out from the Lokpriya Gopinath
Bordoloi International Airport. Aha! The air over here is way different than that of
Delhi’s. We got a bit late to reach my Mama’s house but, it’s okay. We had our lunch
and my cousin sister and I went to play. A few days later, we visited Shillong, also
known as the ‘Scotland Of The East’ and, known to be the home of the heaviest
raining place on the Earth- Cherrapunji (Previously) and Mawsynram (Currently). My
mother’s friend lived in Shillong and used to work as Director of Pollution Control
Board in the state of Meghalaya. He came to pick us up in his spacious car. I wanted
to sleep as my mother told me that you may feel nauseous since we’re going up a
hill. I almost wanted to puke but luckily, nothing happened. We reached Shillong well
into the evening and kept our bags in our designated room. That’s when a question
popped up in my head- I looked up and there was no fan! I asked my mother
“Mamma! There is no fan here, how are we going to stay cool?”. My mother said
“You won’t need it.”. I seriously thought that my mother was just joking but, she did
not overexaggerate on even a single word. It started to get colder as the time
passed by. I was literally shivering on the bed. Mind you, it was the month of April.
We got a blanket- Those heavy ones that are warm and are used in the winters. The
next day, we sat in my mother’s friend’s car and his driver took us to a place. I
looked closely and I saw the Nohkalikai Waterfalls! It is known to be the tallest
plunging waterfall in India. It was so relaxing to hear the water gushing down. There
is actually a story behind the waterfall but the board that had the story was taken
away for some reason. My mother’s friend and I went down the stairs to see the
waterfalls more closely, we went down two hundred fifty steps and two hundred fifty
steps to get back up. In a total, we climbed five hundred steps both up and down!
Then we went to a stall nearby to get some pineapple. Frankly speaking, I hate
pineapples. You always get the sour and stingy pineapples in Delhi. They literally
sting you in your tongue and the sensation will not go away until you eat something
else. But, that pineapple that I had there- Oh My God! The best one I ever had in the
past 6 years! It was so sweet and hardly had any tang inside it. Delicious! We then
went to the Arwah Caves, India’s first naturally discovered cave. I nearly slipped on
the rocks because there was so much of water on the rocks. But, it was really fun to
adventure inside the cave. Our experience was so fun. We barely made it out from
the second wave. It was still fun though!
Vishalakshi U. Kashyap, VI-B