Meghalaya, Kaziranga and Majuli

• Shillong
• 1,525 m
• 120 km · 3.5 hrs
• Dinner

Your driver meets you at Guwahati Airport and takes NH-6 up into the Khasi Hills, about 3 to 3.5 hours. Stop at Umiam Lake, 15 km before Shillong, for tea and a first look at the pine hills. Check in at Shillong, at about 1,525 m. Meghalaya requires hotels to register every guest on the state tourism app, so keep IDs handy for everyone. In the evening, walk Ward's Lake or Police Bazaar. Shillong is a Khasi city with a strong music scene, and many cafes in Laitumkhrah have live music at weekends.

• Shillong
• 1,525 m
• 60 km · local
• Breakfast, Dinner

Drive about 25 km to Mawphlang, where a Khasi guide leads you through the sacred forest, a grove protected by the community for centuries under a rule that nothing may be taken out, not even a fallen leaf. The walk takes about 90 minutes past monoliths, moss-covered trees and old ritual sites, and your guide explains how clan and forest are linked. After lunch, visit the Don Bosco Museum of Indigenous Cultures in Shillong, seven floors on the peoples of the Northeast with a rooftop skywalk. It is the best single introduction to the region's cultures.

• Sohra
• 1,484 m
• 60 km · 2 hrs
• Breakfast, Dinner

Drive 55 km south to Sohra (Cherrapunji), stopping at the Mawkdok Dympep valley viewpoint. After lunch, see Nohkalikai Falls, a 340 m drop into a green pool, told in local legend through the story of a grieving mother named Likai. Then walk through Mawsmai Cave, a short, lit limestone cave that takes about 20 minutes, and end the day at the Seven Sisters falls at sunset. Sohra is one of the wettest places on earth, with more rain in June and July than Guwahati gets in a year. Pack an umbrella even in winter.

• Mawlynnong
• 600 m
• 125 km · 4 hrs
• Breakfast, Dinner

Leave Sohra at 8 am and drive east through Pynursla to Dawki, about 3 hours, on the Bangladesh border. From November to April the Umngot is clear enough to see its stony bed; boats are priced per boat, so agree the fare at the ghat, and ask for life jackets. After lunch, drive about 30 km to Mawlynnong and check in to a village guesthouse. In the late afternoon, walk down to the living root bridge at Riwai, about 10 minutes on steps, where a Ficus elastica root span crosses a stream. Evening in the village, with dinner cooked by your hosts.

• Shillong
• 1,525 m
• 80 km · 2.5 hrs
• Breakfast, Dinner

Wake early and walk the village lanes before visitors arrive. Mawlynnong keeps bamboo dustbins on every corner and residents sweep the paths daily, a practice that has made it one of the cleanest villages in India. Climb the bamboo Sky View tower for a look over the plains of Bangladesh, and see the village's old Church of the Epiphany. Your hosts can explain how Khasi families pass property through the youngest daughter. After lunch, drive back to Shillong, about 2.5 hours. Evening free for shopping at Police Bazaar.

• Kaziranga
• 70 m
• 250 km · 6.5 hrs
• Breakfast, Dinner

The longest drive of the trip. Leave Shillong at 8 am, drop down to Jorabat and drive east on NH-27 through Nagaon, with a lunch stop, to Kohora at the edge of Kaziranga's Central range. The highway is four-lane for most of the way and passes paddy fields, tea gardens and Karbi hills to the south. Check in by mid-afternoon. If there is time, visit the Kaziranga orchid and biodiversity park near Kohora, which has an orchid house, a rice museum and an evening cultural show with Bihu dancers. Early dinner; tomorrow begins before sunrise.

• Kaziranga
• 70 m
• 50 km · local
• Breakfast, Dinner

Elephant rides run only in the Central (Kohora) and Western (Bagori) ranges, in one-hour batches between about 5.30 and 7.30 am; we book your seats early because they are limited. After breakfast, take a jeep safari in the Central range. In the afternoon, a second jeep safari in the Western range, which has wide beels full of water birds and a high density of rhinos. You are also likely to see wild buffalo, swamp deer, elephants and, in winter, pelicans and storks. Park entry is ₹100 per Indian adult and ₹650 per foreign adult.

• Majuli
• 85 m
• 110 km · 2.5 hrs, plus 1 hr ferry
• Breakfast, Dinner

Leave Kaziranga after breakfast and drive east to Nimati Ghat near Jorhat, about 2.5 hours. The ferry across the Brahmaputra to Kamalabari on Majuli takes about an hour, and the car goes with you on the vehicle ferry. Ferries run a few times a day and their timings change with the river level, so check current status before you travel; the last boats leave in mid-afternoon. On the island, check in to a bamboo cottage or Mising-style stilt guesthouse. Spend the evening cycling the village roads past rice fields and ponds.

• Majuli
• 85 m
• 60 km · local
• Breakfast, Dinner

A full day on the island. Start at Auniati or Kamalabari satra, where monks of Assamese Vaishnavism keep a daily round of prayer, music and dance; if you arrive in time for the evening nam-prasanga, the singing with cymbals and drums is unforgettable. Visit Samaguri satra, where masks for the bhaona dance-dramas are made from bamboo, cloth and clay, and Salmora, where women make pottery by hand without a wheel. In the afternoon, walk through a Mising village of stilt houses and watch weavers at their looms. Majuli's Raas festival falls around Kartik Purnima in late November.

• Jorhat
• 116 m
• 40 km · 1.5 hrs, plus 1 hr ferry
• Breakfast, Dinner

Take the morning ferry back to Nimati Ghat and drive 13 km into Jorhat. Jorhat is the centre of Upper Assam's tea industry and home to Tocklai, the oldest tea research station in the world. In the afternoon, visit the Hoollongapar Gibbon Sanctuary, about 20 km away, where a forest guide leads a walk to look for India's only ape, the hoolock gibbon, and six other primate species. If you prefer, spend the afternoon at a tea estate instead, with a garden walk and a tea tasting. Last dinner of the trip.

• Departure
• 116 m
• 10 km · 20 min
• Breakfast

After breakfast, drive to Jorhat Airport at Rowriah, only about 10 km from town. Jorhat has direct flights to Kolkata and Delhi, so there is no need to go back to Guwahati. If your flight is in the afternoon, take a short drive to the Jorhat Gymkhana Club, one of the oldest golf clubs in Asia, or the tea market in town. If you prefer to fly out of Guwahati, we can drive you there instead, about 6.5 hours, or add a night in Kaziranga on the way. We stay in touch on WhatsApp until you board.