Mawphlang

This sleepy village lies in East Khasi Hills, 25 km towards the south of Shillong along the National Highway 44E. There are no hotels in Mawphlang except the very beautiful MaplePine Farm where I stayed for four days. We were living in a valley in a log cabin with a narrow stream flowing behind us. Dogs played in front of our house while sheep grazed in the endless meadows that our eyes could see. The farm was completely driven by wind power churned out by two windmills. In evenings, I would take long walks in the nearby villages and their vegetable farms. Potato is grown in abundance here along with peas. It seemed as if we were in a Canadian countryside right in the middle of Meghalaya.

One of the interesting day hikes from MaplePine Farm is to the Mawphlang sacred forest. According to the local folklore, the sacred forest is looked after by Labasa, the deity that transforms into a tiger or a leopard to protect the forest. The pristine cold wind pierced through my tired lungs, energising them immediately while I hiked up to the sacred forest through columns of monolith stones that dotted the meadows. It is advisable to take a local guide who will also tell you about the folklore and will take you inside the forest to show its lush green cover, flowers, medicinal herbs and even carnivorous insect eating plants. We were mischievous to walk into the forest on our own. We stopped on the way when we heard a local priestess chanting inside the forest in Khasi language. Her voice sounded eerie and even our dog stopped in its tracks, turned around and ran away. There are many sacred forests in East Khasi Hills, but Mawphlang is the most well known. Local communities protect the forests fiercely, and it is said that if you take away anything from the forest you will either fall ill or die. The mystery around sacred forests of Khasi Hills will surely make me go back for more stories.