A double-decker root bridge and life’s lessons

I can’t explain why I was determined to see the double-decker living root bridge in Sohra*, possibly the only one of its kind in the world. After all, my cousins had already taken me to see a living root bridge near Riwai village adjoining the tourist hotspot of Mawlynnong, marketed as Asia’s cleanest village.

That bridge, an easy 10-minute walk from Riwai, was an exquisite specimen, possibly over 100 years old. The thick roots of a massive tree supported a broad walkway and more gnarled roots made up its high sides. Its hammock-like bottom was a mass of tangled roots from where tendrils reached out for the water below. It was, however, crawling with tourists – a paltan of Bengalis, couples from the Northeast and a male couple with strange accents – virtually climbing up the side of the living bridge.

The living root bridge near Riwai village is broader and sturdier than the one at Nongriat. However, it’s crawling with tourists because it’s easily accessible. I would suggest travellers spend the night at the nearby Mawlynnong village, marketed as Asia’s cleanest, and walk down here first thing in the morning if you want to miss the tourist rush.

Straight out of a fairy tale… the single deck bridge at Riwai village.

Such a web of roots at the bridge near Riwai.

The broad living root bridge at Riwai village can easily support the weight of some 50 people. The one at Nongriat isn’t as wide.

War Khasis (war = slope, so they are the Khasis who live on the slopes of hills) traditionally make living root bridges by manipulating the roots of the Indian rubber fig tree (ficus elastica) through hollow betel nut trunks over mountain streams. The roots catch on at the other side of the bank and grow thicker and sturdier even as the betel nut trunks eventually rot. The process takes 10-15 years but at the end, you have a bridge that gets stronger with age, unlike man-made ones. These unique bridges can take the weight of several people at a time and last for centuries.

During my research on Meghalaya a few months ago, I read about the double-decker bridge in Sohra’s Nongriat (Nong is short for Shnong which means ‘village’. Alternatively, it could also refer to the inhabitants of that area i.e. Riat = a precipice or a gorge) that is perched halfway up a hill bordering the plains of Bangladesh. And since then, it was in my head that this was where I had to go.

Throughout my travels in Meghalaya, I saw children with basic fishing rods trying their luck in streams, ponds and rivers. At Nongriat village too, children fished intently for fingerlings… changing location often. The fish were kept in plastic bottles

If I had paid attention during my research, I would have remembered reading that the bridge is in the interiors of Sohra and there’s a 3 km trek (one way) to reach it. The trek involves descending some 2,000-odd steep steps for about 45 minutes through a jungle. When you reach the bottom, a T-point where Nongthymmai village lies, you take a left and ascend and descend at least 1,000 more steps, cross two mountain streams via two suspension bridges (technically three since the second stretch is two bridges joined together) made of steel cables supplemented with what looked like sarias (construction girders), ascend halfway up another hill through another jungle before you reach Nongriat village, where the double decker bridge lies.

The taxi dropped us a little below Tyrna village at about 10.30 am, after which my companions – a couple I met at the resort I was staying in and offered to take along for this day trip – and I were on our own.

There’s a tea shop – ‘Bro’s ‘n’ Two Sis’s Shop’ said a printed notice — at the beginning of the trail from which you can hire a bamboo staff for Rs 20 to help you along the way. You may feel you don’t need it, but your knees will cry in gratitude for its support once you start ascending the countless steps during your return journey.

It’s not a trek for the faint-hearted, children, the elderly, those with vertigo and for the unfit especially in hot, humid tropical weather.

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Now, I cannot be called fit by any stretch of imagination. So I struggled, especially towards the end of each trek as my energy and enthusiasm flagged. But I plodded ahead through sheer will power, one step at a time, gaining a life’s lesson with my painful progress – focus on one step at a time instead of getting intimidated by the hundreds of seemingly insurmountable steps that lie before you.

While one half of the young couple who had accompanied my on this trek bounded up and down the stairs, with his partner following more sedately, I laboured on hopefully looking, at each ascent, for a sign that we were finally there.

A group I met on the way down, who were coming from Nongriat village told me, shaking their heads side-to-side, “we are locals and are struggling. It is a tough walk.”

My forgotten research came back to me in a whoosh when I found myself before a suspension bridge two-thirds into our journey.

“The double root bridge comes after the second suspension bridge,” I suddenly remembered reading. “Crap. Crap. Crap.” I’m not good with heights but I hadn’t come thus far only to turn back. I gingerly made my way across the bridge, the swaying not helping my exhausted state. My companions already at the other end encouraged me to move faster.

The second one was worse. There were two of them joined together and one had bamboo supplementing the iron girders to walk on. A river raged below. Boulders as big as houses lay scattered around as if in a giant’s playpen. By then, the sun beating down on my head, I was dehydrated and exhausted.

I made it across and collapsed on a rock to get my breath back. It took some time. The bridge’s swaying, the long walk, the relentless sun, the seeming 90 per cent humidity and my unfit state was a bad combination. After a 10-minute break, my companions and I walked up a flight of stairs and rested some more at a Khasi tea stall perched on a boulder in the middle of nowhere. There, sweet Khasi red tea flavoured with locally-grown cinnamon (cassia actually) rejuvenated me and I climbed the last three steep flights (maybe more) of steps, and a smaller root bridge, to finally behold the double-decker marvel strung high over a wide stream where a bunch of local children fished intently for fingerlings.

The root bridge looks straight out of a Grimm Brothers fairy tale. It wasn’t as wide as the one at Riwai, but gnarled thick roots, some as wide as tree trunks formed a web to make up the sides and walkway of the two decks of the bridge. Halved bamboo stalks and stone slabs placed strategically smoothened the bottom out. Aerial roots worked as natural suspension cables. But this one did not sway.

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Unlike the mass of humanity at Riwai, we were the only tourists at Nongriat. I spoke to the Khasi lady who issued us our visitors’ tickets (the local Durbar, a panchayat-like body, charges visitors a small fee at most local sights in Meghalaya) and she confirmed that our trio were the only tourists to visit so far. It was about 1.30 pm.

I didn’t feel too bad about my unfit state when, while returning after spending some time at the bridge, I saw a rather fit man laboring up the steps, bottle of water in his hands, exhaustion writ large on his face, too tired to even acknowledge my nod.

Then halfway into my return journey, I met a Khasi woman, descending to meet her mother in the village below. She muttered ‘ani’ (oh my) as she sat down on the steps with a thump to catch her breath. I responded ‘Ani komei kenrat’ (Oh my goodness, gracious me), something my siblings and I picked up from our Khasi grandmother, as I stopped to catch my breath too… one of the many breaks I took both ways.

While returning, I also crossed two friendly Khasi boys going to the bridge who overtook me close to the top while returning (which goes to show how slow I was on the way back). They gave me all their water when they found I had run out. The five of us were probably the only visitors to the bridge that day.

Shortly after I met them, I reached the starting point. This was an hour after my younger companions had returned. Rejuvenated with a bowl of hot noodles and red tea at the stall there, we headed back to the resort… but not before we caught one of Sohra’s flaming rose-pink-lilac-purple sunsets.

After a much needed hot bath, I rested my tired legs. A day later, muscles I hadn’t used in years protested with all their might. My knees creaked.

My last lesson from this trek is that I simply need to get back into shape. I’ve done a 10-km trek that took me from 15,000 feet to approximately 16,500 feet to Mount Kailash in Tibet and back without much exhaustion but this trek wiped me out. What a climbdown. This has to change.

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*The word Cherra is believed to be a British bastardisation of the local name Sohra (they couldn’t pronounce anything, could they?) I’m using the local name in my blog. I’m not sure when ‘-punjee’ was added to Cherra but my cabbie Lastborn (I need to do a post on Khasi names too) said it doesn’t mean anything in Khasi. Sohra, however, is made up of ‘Soh’ – the Khasi word for ‘fruit’ and ‘ra’ – which means ‘nothing’. Basically, Sohra’s largely barren hills give no fruit. The famed Sohra oranges are actually grown in the plains below the plateau of Sohra.