Bomdila, October 9

While trying to hick-hike from Meghalaya back into Assam I met one of those more interesting persons you meet while travelling. I was standing along a small road when a woman in expensive silk and jewelry walked up to me. On closer inspection, I saw that some of the gems in her rings were fakes, but she bahaved and talked with a certain style.
'Goodmorning sir. Can I inquire after your country of residence?'
'Goodmorning. I'm from the Netherlands. Are you from here?'
'I am a Khasi queen.'
'You are Khasi? Khasikeen...?'
'A queen sir. I am of royal blood.'
'Really? But that is extraordinary. I never met royalty before. Excuse me if I don't behave as I should.'
'That's allright. I always say: loyalty is more important than royalty sir.'
'Do you have a palace here?'
'No sir. I am just visiting the area now. I work as a teacher in Shillong. We do not have enough money nowadays to keep palaces and servants. It's a shame. But I am really a queen if you don't believe me. These jewels I bought in Paris last spring.'
She showed me an expensive looking necklace, as if that proved her ancestry.
'And where is your kingdom exactly?'
'This village is part of it. The hills around here and the whole region.'
I imagined her to be the daughter of a local tribal chief, maybe of the king of all Khasi people, if they ever had one.
'But did the Indian constitution not abolish your kingdom?'
'Oh, they can all go to hell. Yes I'm serious. We are good Christian people, but they are idolaters. Or worse, muslim. Yes they will all go to hell. I'm sure you'd agree, as you are from Europe. You must be a good Christian like us.'
One of the older women of the village had walked up to us and asked her a question in Khasi.
'Oh, their accent is so terrible', she told me, and walked off towards the woman. More people came out of their houses and convened on her. She was now addressing them with an air of authority. She had forgotten all about me so she did not mention the jeep of the Indian telecom company that stopped to take me. Halfway to Cherrapunjee I was still wondering if she was really a queen. Clearly, she was either nuts or dead-serious.

Meghalaya is just a small state: it has only several million inhabitants. But I found it one of the most beautiful places I have seen in India. It consists of a plateau between the plains of Assam to the north and the plains of Bangladesh to the south. It has a very wet climate. Cherrapunjee is officially the wettest place on planet Earth, receiving about 12,000 mm of precipitation per year (to compare, most of Western Europe receives only 600 mm). The edge of the plateau is a steep cliff, where big waterfalls poor down into the tropical rainforests below. In these jungles, the indigenous Khasi people have invented a remarkable form of bioengineering: they use the roots of ficus trees to construct living bridges over rivers and small streams. As the roots grow on, the bridges can become amazingly strong and serve for hundreds of years. Some stretch over 20 meters, and there is one called the 'double-decker', with two bridges over each other, for transport in two directions. Although seeing the bridges is the highlicht of the Maghalayan jungle, the lush, wet jungle is itself very beautiful too, with many bright flowers, enormous butterflies and the odd panther. And the small villages and their people are lovely too. It is strange this part of India does not receive more visitors.

Meanwhile, I travelled north again into Arunachal Pradesh, across the hot Assamese plains into the cool, rainy Himalaya of Arunachal Pradesh. On the way I was forced to spend a night in Tezpur, a sleepy little city that was once the site of an epic battle between the gods. It was, in those times, ruled by Banasura, a mighty demon-king and worshipper of Lord Shiva. As demon kings are always prone to do in mythology, Banasura held a beautiful girl captive, in this particular case his daughter Usha. This beautiful damsel fell in love with a chap named Aniruddha. Of course things would have gone along perfectly fine, but Aniruddha thought Banasura was a bit over-protective and rescued the girl from her enprisonment. Banasura was just deciding on feeding Aniruddha to his pet snakes when he was attacked by the armies of Lord Krishna, who appeared to be the grandfather of Aniruddha. Lord Shiva then interfered on behalf of Banasura and the result was a gory carnage, giving Tezpur its name (tez = blood). There is a cool park along the river Brahmaputra with statues illustrating the legend. I particularly enjoyed one of a ferocious looking Shiva, who attacks Krishna with his trident.

I'm on my way to Tawang, to visit the biggest Buddhist monastery in India. The indigenous people here, the Monpa, are Buddhists, but they are only one small portion of Arunachal's diverse population. In the central and eastern regions people are animists (nature worshippers) and live in tribes. I look forward to meeting them and learning more about their habits and rituals.