From Shamir's house we leave for the state of Meghalaya, also called the 'Scotland of the East'. It’s really a nice ride, with very beautiful and green nature.
Here it’s not possible to find a place to sleep so we go to Tura, the second city of the state. It takes a while to find a good hotel and several people send us to a hotel from the government. A police officer off duty gives us his number in case we would run into any problems. When we arrive at the guesthouse, they seem surprised to see a tourist here and it looks like they don’t want to help us so we call the police officer and he arranges the room for us. We pay approximately EUR1 for a nice room.
The next day we take a road that isn’t on the map. We will soon figure out why. By the time it’s dark we have crossed about 100km and we are now driving in the buffer zone of the border with Bangladesh. We are stopped by Indian border guards who say that this area is very dangerous at night, due to the many smugglers. There is also an engineer working here. He’s installing the lights on the fence following the border. He sleeps in a container next to the army barracks and we are allowed to use his extra bed for the night. He also prepares a nice dinner for us, and together we spend the night chatting about our journey. The next day, we wake up with a view over Bangladesh.

Our Lodge for the Night

There Lies Bangladesh

We continue on the road towards Shillong, the capital of the state. We drive past a large coal mine where the road is completely rutted and completely covered with a thick layer of dust. We see the miners, completely covered with black dust, coming out of small holes in the mountains. We even see a young girl with her mother, or at least we think. The engineer told us that every day someone dies in this mine.

The Coal Mines in Meghalaya

When we arrive in Shillong, it’s already dark and again it’s difficult to find a hotel. Most hotels here are only for Indians, which is common in India. People are always sending us to the same, expensive hotel but when his manager sees us wandering the streets, he decides to give us a room for twelve euros, about a third of the price. A nice room with hot shower and a safe place for Mickey, finally.

This Cuty or Kitty?

In India, People Eat with Their Hands, and so Did We after Three Months here

The Road to Shillong

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