Places
Nokrek National Park and Biosphere ReserveNatureWest and East Garo Hills
The highest ground in the Garo Hills, declared a national park in 1986 and added to UNESCO's World Network of Biosphere Reserves in 2009. Its significance is botanical rather than scenic — the slopes hold wild populations of Citrus indica, the Indian wild orange, which is among the most primitive citrus known and is treated as part of the ancestral gene pool of the cultivated genus. A National Citrus Gene Sanctuary was established here for exactly that reason.
Best time: November–March.
Balpakram National ParkNatureSouth Garo Hills
A tableland at about 910 m ending abruptly in a deep gorge above the Simsang. The name is rendered as the land of eternal wind, and in Garo belief this is where the spirits of the dead rest on their way onward — a landscape that is a place in the cosmology rather than a view. It was inaugurated as a national park in December 1987, holds elephant, tiger and wild water buffalo, and carries an unusual plateau flora including pitcher plants and sundews. It forms part of the Garo Hills Conservation Area on India's UNESCO tentative list.
Best time: November–March. Getting there: By road from Baghmara, about 50 km, with the last stretch rough.
Siju Cave (Siju Dobakkol)NatureSouth Garo Hills
A river cave in the limestone above the Simsang near Baghmara, with about 4.7 km of surveyed passage. It was the longest known cave in India until 1981 and now ranks around fourteenth as Meghalaya's Jaintia systems have been pushed further; it is also one of the best-studied, having been explored scientifically from 1922. Tens of thousands of bats live in it, which is why it is also called the Bat Cave.
Tura PeakHillWest Garo Hills
The forested ridge rising to 872 m directly behind Tura town, which itself sits at only 349 m — a climb of over five hundred metres from the main bazaar. There is a walking trail to the top and an observatory, and the colonial Deputy Commissioner kept a summer house there for the same reason anyone climbs it now.
Simsang riverNatureAcross the Garo hills
The river that organises the region — rising in Nokrek, running east through the hills past Williamnagar and Siju, and crossing onto the plain as the Someshwari. Almost every significant Garo settlement, cave and sanctuary sits on it or on one of its feeders.
Napak Lake and the Siju bird sanctuaryWildlifeSouth Garo Hills
A Simsang backwater below Siju that fills in the monsoon and draws waterfowl in winter, including the Siberian ducks the sanctuary was notified for.
Best time: December–February.
AsanangHeritageWest Garo Hills
The ground north of Tura where the Hundred Drums Wangala Festival has been held since 1976. Empty for most of the year, and the single place where the whole of the region's dance and drum repertoire appears at once.
Best time: November, at the festival.
ChisobibraHeritageWest Garo Hills
The site where Pa Togan Nengminja Sangma led a night attack on a British camp on 12 December 1872 and was killed. The date is observed annually, and the memorial here is the principal site of Garo political memory.
DaribokgreNatureWest Garo Hills
A village on the shoulder of Nokrek, the usual base for walking into the biosphere reserve and the citrus slopes, with community-run accommodation.
Wari ChoraNatureEast Garo Hills
A narrow gorge with clear green water in the Rongsu area, reached on foot and by boat and opened to visitors only recently. It is the sort of place the interior is full of and has almost no infrastructure for.
Baghmara and the pitcher plant reserveNatureSouth Garo Hills
The southern town on the Simsang, close to the border, with a small reserve protecting Nepenthes khasiana — the carnivorous pitcher plant endemic to these hills and legally protected because of collection pressure.
Rongbang Dare fallsNatureWest Garo Hills
A waterfall on the road out of Tura, at its fullest immediately after the monsoon.
Tura BazarUrbanWest Garo Hills
The commercial centre of A·chik country — jhum produce, chilli, dried fish, bamboo shoot, cane goods and cloth. The dried-fish section is the place to understand what the cuisine is actually built on.
MendipatharUrbanNorth Garo Hills
A small town with an outsized fact attached to it — it holds Meghalaya's first and, so far, only railway station, opened in 2014. The Khasi and Jaintia hills have no railway at all.