Apparently, you can train a tree. Or at least the Khasi can.

My brother Ben and his roommate Joel came to visit me (actually they are still in India but traveling without me), and last week we went to Meghalaya, Assam, Sikkim, and Calcutta. The highlight for me was hiking to living root bridges (yes, these bridges are alive!) in the Khasi Hills of Meghalaya.

Now you know where Meghalaya is.

The people in this region of Meghalaya belong to the Khasi tribe. The ancestors of the Khasi tribe, the war-Khasi, grew bridges; they trained the trees to cross the river! These bridges don't exist anywhere else in the world. I don't understand how the hell someone can train a tree, but check out these websites for more information:
http://rootbridges.blogspot.com/
http://www.cherrapunjee.com/index.php?mid=66&pid=66

To get to these bridges, we hiked through Khasi villages and forest. The hike was about 18 km roundtrip I think, and probably 8 of those kilometers were entirely stairs. We started at 9am and returned at 5pm. So it was quite exhausting, but worth it! The villages, scenery, and bridges were all spectacular. The amazingness can only be expressed in pictures:

view of the Khasi Hills and an escarpment at the beginning of the hike

entering Tyrna village

the trail officially starts behind this church

Ben and Joel enjoy descending several kilometers of stairs

did I mention the stairs?! definitely did some damage to our knees. and yeah, we'll have to ascend those later.

Humongous boulders in the river (which I assume is full during the monsoon)

Ben and Joel couldn't resist taking a break from the hiking to go bouldering

our first root bridge!

at over 100 ft, this is the longest bridge

Ben crosses the bridge. I think it's awesome that the war-Khasis trained the trees to make handrails!

another root bridge

root bridges in series

look at the color of the water. awesome.

mini waterfall and a shadow of the steel rope bridge

The steel rope bridges were less sturdy than the living root bridges.

crazy scenery

the end of the hike (halfway point? we had to walk the entire trail back) was the incredible double decker bridge

Khasi villagers on the lower deck

the upper deck

crossing the upper deck

both decks

Khasi girl crossing the lower deck

we ate lunch on a giant boulder in the middle of the river by the double decker bridge

on our way back, Joel and Ben conquer a big boulder in Nongriat village

I don't understand how this rock is balancing.

in a Khasi village

Ben climbing back up way too many stairs

our hike ended with a nice sunset over the hills. Bangladesh is on the other side of that hill.

Ben and Joel return to Delhi tomorrow, and they will be here for two days. After they leave I'll write about the rest of our trip.