Umngot River – The Cleanest River in Asia as per reports, but definitely cleanest as what I have seen till Date from whatever I have explored.
From Krangsuri waterfall Parking ,we booked our riverside tent stay for the night. (Refer previous blog on how we reached the falls).
Again catching up the curvy roads and scenic beauty all along we moved ahead towards the cleanest river. But after a few kilo meters we saw trucks lined up, loaded with heavy stones. It was two lane road with one lane occupied by this parked trucks and only one lane available for cars to move from both side.
So with car honking slowly we had to move ahead, we thought it would be a very small queue of about 500 meter to 1 km. and Dawki was around 20 kms from the falls. But let me tell you the queue never ended (Later we got to know , this trucks are basically exporting the stones to Bangladesh). With trucks on left all along and car honking to slowly move ahead, it took us a bit of time to reach our destination.
This drive was not pleasing, but after some time around 3:30 pm, we reached a diversion which read ( Dawki 1 km straight and Shnongpedeng/Darrang Valley right 3 km )
We got confused as the location which the tent owner gave was making us move right. So we called him just to confirm and he said yes. Shnongpedeng (took us some time to learn it pronounce) is the place where you can do all water activities and it is less crowded and less commercialized at least till the date we reached as compared to Dawki which is way too commercialized.
We made our ways through narrow road and as we moved ahead it got more narrower, around 1 km on maps it showed dead end, so out of a bit concern called that guy again, and he said don’t worry just come towards the dead end. As we started again, we could sight the river down the valley on left side and that relieved us that we are reaching closer to the location.
There was a mandatory check done and we were let in . There was a private parking at dead end, and we met our guide Karbi. He was a very humble guy and helped us give overview of the place. Our first eye sight fell on the zip line and we were like, this we definitely need to do. But due to those truck traffic, it was already 4:30 pm and started to get dark, so nothing was possible for the day , except for great memories to be re shared .
But before it gets too dark, we took a walk along the hanging bridge. The experience was good, but it was moving a bit too much and also the flooring was not 100 % safe, but it was good to have a great view and coming to adventure place and having such complains doesn’t suit either.
We just took our essentials and moved ourselves towards the tent. The view was really awesome, no words to describe it, you need to be witness it coming here.
Since we didn’t had our lunch we asked for Maggi and tea. And just enjoyed to Maggi, tea and cold breeze all along. The most important part which I would like to re state is the cleanliness. usually there are some plastics or bad smell or lots of pest/ mosquitos. But here there is nothing, its only you and nature. (HOPE PEOPLE KEEP THIS AS CLEAN AS IT IS).
There was no mobile internet and why would you need it anyways when you have come to just be with nature.
We made camp fire. Karbi and his cousin (Kupar) were really great hosts. They belonged to half Khasi and half Jaintia tribes and spoke different language from what Khasi people talk. The host was very helpful and taught us some greeting words in their language. And he himself was more anxious to plan and click the best photos for us and plan the activities.
We had our normal veg thali. The food was normal and Karbi had already given us a hint before that we can go to nearby restaurant for better food, but we didn’t wanted to go anywhere and wanted to stay at tent site in front on bonfire and enjoy the evening to be added in to the memories.
There were some other group who were dancing on some Assamese songs and let me tell you the famous Zingaat song by Ajay-Atul is famous and known in north-east as well😊
It was getting more and more colder , so we decided to call off for the day and go inside the tent and take rest. The mobile battery and power banks gets drained out faster due to cold weather, but we had enough charge remaining to set our morning alarms.
Next day early morning, again as decided at start to wake up at 5:30 am, never happened 😜
Again reluctant to get out of tent due to cold, but wanted to view the beauty over morning sun rays falling all over it. Some how managed to get out of tent and got freshened up and ready with new set of clothes.
We decided to have twining this day. OOTD was twinning t-shirts. We had planned to wear it long back, finally got the opportunity. We clicked some pictures and had omlete bread and tea for breakfast. There was lot of cold wind around.
Post breakfast we walked over the bridge again. The zip line had not opened yet, also as per Karbi and Kupar the water was not stable to get good photos as its not stable due to wind. So we just waited over the bridge, this time a bit more confident than last evening 😊 and kept witnessing the view and grabbing some knowledge from Kupar.
At around 9:45 am the zip line started when winds became less, and than started the nervousness as it was our first time. We filled up the form and made payment and got ready for the first adventure zip line. The instructor was kind to give us instructions in details. For first few seconds of go I was a bit nervous but it lasted just 1-2 seconds and I just enjoyed the zip line.
Zip Line costed us Rs 500 per Pax
Post zip line , it was time for boating over the cleanest river, From 10 feet to 70 feet and still we could see the rocks beneath. The valley view was mesmerizing and to accompany us, our host Karbi was extra proactive, and made sure we got over the cliffs to get best view, also clicked some beautiful pictures from other side of the cliff and made this boating experience a fun and one to remember forever.
The experience came to an end, but there are some places which you feel like re-visiting again and this place is definitely I would love to .
Heartily Thanks to this guys. We moved forward just talking about this memories.
Tent Stay with Food, Campfire and Boating Costed us Rs 1100 per Pax.
We walked through village before saying Good Bye to this wonderful place
Again as we moved out we came across those lanes of truck, before we made adhoc plan to see the border.
This was the gateway for all Indian vehicles exporting rocks to Bangladesh. Its also known as the Zero point. We stepped a foot ahead of it and came back. There were army officers on check points. Also all trucks were getting sanitized while entering India. One army officer also noticed our twinning and complimented on same 😊.
“Interesting fact: Our mobile network changed to Grameenphone (International Roaming) and time used to shift 30 mins in front automatically.”
After clicking the mandatory photos , it was time to take a break at some restaurant. Also we were out of money. We just took a quick stop at Food Planet (https://food-planet-good-food-is-good-mood.business.site/). The owner was very humble and generous enough to help us. We ordered schezwan rice and omlete , and while the order was getting prepared, he also helped us get to the ATM to withdraw money. Kind gestures always make you happy.
But our hunger didn’t stop there we even ordered fried rice over it. And after we finished over lunch , we asked for check, he gave us the bill which was hardly 300 bucks. and to add extra shocker to it, he asked us, is the bill ok or need to be negotiated. That’s the first strange incident happened wherein the owner restaurant is asking back if the bill is expensive and needs to be reduced. When we asked him, why did he said so, he mentioned the tourist people usually complained of high rates
“To all people visiting this area, please don’t negotiate over food or the basic needs that you need.”
We spoke a bit with sister of the resto owner who owns a shop next to it. We got some chips for munching on the way and started our journey towards the next destination.
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