Louise Heal: Shillong

Friday, 11 April 2008

Singin' in the Rain

I checked into the Broadway hotel. 1/6 of the price and no free nightclub.

I took my camera and walked down the hill to Iew Duh, where the Khasi tribespeople have a "colourful and lively" (Lonely Planet) market. It began to rain almost immediately. I had forgotten my umbrella.

The rain wasn't too bad. I joined some people huddling in front of a pharmacy. There I had a conversation with a young lady about my husband, job and age. Her teeth were stained red from chewing betel nut leaves.

Then the hail began. The hailstones were big. They bounced off the cars and hurt when they hit me. I kept my camera dry by holding my shirt over it. The market itself was now a flowing stream of water and rubbish. It was impossible to move between the people and umbrellas.

I waited for my writer's mind to kick in. That's the part that says "Oh, what I horrible time I'm having. Fantastic! It'll make great copy!". This is because everybody loves reading about somebody else's misfortune. It didn't kick in, but then perhaps it was just damp.

I walked back to the Broadway Hotel. It took 30 mins and the rain didn't stop. When I arrived, I bought some chocolate, dried myself off, switched on the television and climbed under the quilt. Then I shivered for an hour.

Shillong is in an Indian state called Meghalaya. This translates as "Abode of Clouds". A place called Mawsynram is also in Meghalaya. Mawsynram is also in the Guinness Book of Records - for being the wettest place on earth.

So now the "Scotland" comparison makes sense. And it's Hill Stations 3 Louise 0.

(On the television, incidentally, it was West Brom 0, Portsmouth 1. Play up Pompey!)

The Sound of Music

My track record with hill stations is poor. In Darjeeling in '94, I shivered and sweated my way through the 'flu. In the Cameron Highlands in 2000, I had a cold so bad that the only thing I could taste was Strepsils. So would Shillong, the former capital of British Assam known as "The Scotland of the East", fare any better in 2008?

I checked into the Centrepoint Hotel. With an excellent restaurant and rooftop bar, it seemed like a pleasant place to stay for a few days.

I should have been suspicious that afternoon. A flyer came under my door: "Laidees (sic) Night at Cloud 9 Bar with DJ Jop. 9pm-2am". It was Friday.

At 11.30pm, I was woken by the music. Not so much by the sound, as by my bed pulsing to the beat. A quick check confirmed that, no, the nightclub was not in my bedroom. A call to reception elicited the information that "There is a discotheque, madam".

Between then and 2am I called reception 3 times, but the night staff cleverly didn't speak English. I dug out some earplugs and wore them with a pillow over my head. At 1.50am the pounding beat changed to a ballad. I breathed a sigh of sleep-deprived relief.

But the revellers had to leave the building, which they did via the staircase and hallway on my floor. There was female wailing and male shouting. I'm confident that I now know the Assamese for "I don't know WHY he doesn't love me" and "Leave him, he's not worth it".

In the morning, I went to reception. "Is there a discotheque tonight?" I enquired of the receptionist. "Oh yes madam. Friday and Saturday nights". She looked surprised when I said I was leaving.