Looking at our find objectively, however, it was quite ordinary when compared to some of the other stalactite caves we had visited around the world; like the ones outside St Louis, USA, the Glow-worm caves, New Zealand and the Reed Flute Caves in Guilin, China for instance. Those caves are well-trodden tourist attractions that use elaborate lighting to highlight the calcinated formations. Broad walks and railings-the one in China even had an elavator-meant that reachig the display caverns was a cinch. Wheareas the relatively unknown cave in Meghalaya scored over its more famous sisters in that it was a little treasure shared by only a few who dared to explore its dark side.

Indeed, Meghalaya has been rated as one ot the 10 best caving destinations in the world.
Started around the late 1980s when a few international caves came down to explore the region and were excited by what they found. Over the years the stream of cavers from the US, UK, Germany, Italy, Belgium, and other parts of Europe grew and in 2003 there were over 45 visitors who camped around the state,each one staying for over a month. Indeed,Meghalaya has been rated as one of the 10 best caving destinations in the world.

Into the light:
The main attraction of caving in the North Eastern state is that it is vigin terrtory and each year new caves are being discovered. Currently there are around 190km of caves in the state including a recent find that is 24km long. Neil, who has accompanied many of these expeditions,could not hide the thrill in his voice as he explained what true exploraton caving involved: crawling on one’s stomach through one tight squeeze after another, scaling cave walls 300 ft high, rappelling down others that were equally deep,floating down underground rivers and streams, recording the finds…

Chhiyalekh:
Morning was unbelievably beutiful, with the sun casting shadows of the peaks on the clouds. A pony trotted by my side, her colourful headgear and trimmings bringing a smile to my face. We were now ready to tackle three kilometers of very steep climb to Chhiyalekh Pass at 3,320 m, aiming to accomplish it in under two hours. The zigzag uphil climb made breathing difficult, and only the sight of deep red pulses on terraced fields kept my mind off the physical discomfort.

We started descending to Garyang village (3,225 m), camouflaged by harsh and stark mountains, devoid of vegetation. Eighty-one year-old Tabdoo Singh let us on to an interesting fact- in his childhood he had seen all the houses at a single upper level. Now the same houses existed at three different levels, as the ground had sunk.Many of the houses were leaning like the Tower of Pisa and quite a few had been deserted due to the fear imminent collapse. Gunji(3,500 m)lay 10 km ahead on a dusty trail with moderate ascent and descent. But my feet refused to obey me-blisters had started appearing on them.