Assam & Meghalaya — Guwahati, Shillong, Cherrapunji & Dawki

The bank at Kachari and Fancy Bazar ghats, where the ferries load and the sunset cruises leave. The river is at its widest here and Umananda island sits out in the middle of it.

• Watch the sunset from the ghat
• Optional evening cruise on the river
• Walk the riverside promenade

One of the most visited Shakta temples in the country, standing on the Nilachal hill above the city. The present structure dates from a seventeenth-century rebuild and has the beehive-shaped dome typical of Assamese temples. Queues are long, and the shrine closes to visitors during the Ambubachi Mela in June.

• Darshan at the main shrine
• Walk round the smaller temples on the hill
• Look down over the Brahmaputra from the terrace

A small wooded island in the middle of the Brahmaputra, reached by a ten-minute ferry from Kachari ghat, with a Shiva temple built on it in the seventeenth century. It is said to be one of the smallest inhabited river islands anywhere, and golden langurs live in the trees.

• Ferry across from the ghat
• Visit the Shiva temple
• Look out for the golden langurs

A reservoir formed in the 1960s by damming the Umiam river, about 15 km short of Shillong. The road runs along the ridge above it and the viewpoints look down on a lake broken up by wooded spurs.

• Stop at the ridge viewpoint
• Boating or kayaking at the water sports complex
• Tea at the lakeside café

Three falls one below the other in a fern-covered gorge about 12 km from town, linked by concrete steps and railed platforms. The British named them for a rock at the base shaped like an elephant, which a nineteenth-century earthquake brought down.

• Walk down all three tiers
• Photograph the lowest and widest fall
• Buy Khasi weaves at the stalls

The highest point in the district at about 1,965 metres, inside an Air Force station, so access depends on the IAF and photo ID is checked at the gate. On a clear day you see the whole town laid out and the plains of Bangladesh far to the south.

• View over Shillong and the Khasi hills
• Use the telescopes at the viewing deck
• Visit the small Khasi shrine at the top

Seven floors of galleries on the peoples of the north-east — textiles, weapons, farming tools, musical instruments and religious objects, arranged state by state. A ramp spirals up to a rooftop walkway with views across Shillong.

• Work up through the state galleries
• Walk the rooftop skywalk
• See the textile and basketry collections

A horseshoe-shaped lake in the middle of town with a wooden arch bridge and a garden walk around it, a few minutes from the shops and food stalls at Police Bazar.

• Walk the lake circuit
• Row a boat on the water
• Eat and shop at Police Bazar

A single drop of around 340 metres off the plateau rim, the tallest plunge waterfall in the country, falling into a green pool in the gorge below. A stepped viewing platform faces it from the opposite lip, and the Khasi legend behind the name is a grim one.

• Walk down to the lower viewing deck
• Photograph the plunge pool
• Buy local honey and cinnamon at the stalls

A lit limestone cave near Sohra with a short through-route of about 150 metres. The passage is easy at the start and then narrows enough that you turn sideways in a couple of places, and the floor stays wet all year.

• Walk the lit passage end to end
• See the stalactite formations
• Sit in the fern garden at the exit

A row of seven parallel streams that pour off the same limestone cliff near Mawsmai village, best in and just after the monsoon and often reduced to a trickle in the dry months. The viewpoint faces them across the valley with Bangladesh beyond.

• View the full row from the deck
• Look south over the plains
• Stop at Mawsmai village on the way

Arwah is a shorter, quieter cave than Mawsmai with fossils visible in the walls, reached by a paved walk through the woods. Thangkharang Park nearby sits right on the escarpment and looks down on the Kynrem falls and the plains.

• See the fossils in the cave wall
• Walk the wooded approach path
• View Kynrem Falls from the park

The river that marks the last stretch before the Bangladesh border, running over a pale stony bed. In the dry months it is clear enough to see the stones several metres down, which is why the photographs of boats apparently hanging in mid-air come from here. A suspension bridge from 1932 crosses it just downstream.

• Take a boat out on the clear water
• Walk across the old suspension bridge
• See the border gate at Tamabil

A single-decker bridge made from the trained aerial roots of a rubber fig, grown across the stream over decades by the Khasi villagers. It is a short flight of steps down from the road near Mawlynnong, which makes it the one root bridge most travellers actually reach.

• Walk across the root bridge
• See how the roots have been guided over the years
• Cool off by the stream below

A Khasi village near the border known for how carefully it is kept — swept lanes, cane waste baskets on every corner and a rule against litter that the community enforces itself. A bamboo tower at the edge of the village gives a view over the Bangladesh plains.

• Climb the bamboo sky view tower
• Walk the flower-lined village lanes
• Try local Khasi food at a village kitchen

A museum on Dighalipukhuri tank in the middle of Guwahati, holding stone sculpture from the Assamese temple sites, old copperplate inscriptions and a reconstructed village house.

• See the stone sculpture galleries
• Look at the Ahom-period exhibits
• Walk round the Dighalipukhuri tank

The main market quarter of the city, and the easiest place to buy muga, pat and eri silk. Muga, the golden silk, is produced only in Assam.

• Buy a muga or eri silk piece
• Pick up Assam tea to take home
• Eat at one of the Assamese thali places