The wettest place on Earth — where roots become bridges
Cherrapunji (officially Sohra) in Meghalaya holds the world record for the most rainfall in a single year — 26,471mm in 1860 — and the monsoon-soaked landscape reflects it: a green canyon world of cascading waterfalls, cloud forests, and the extraordinary double-decker living root bridges at Nongriat, grown by the Khasi people over generations from the roots of ancient rubber fig trees.
Sohra was the first British administrative centre in Meghalaya, established by the colonial government in 1829, and the Khasi Hills became a crucible of Welsh Presbyterian missionary activity — the first printed book in any Northeast Indian language (the Khasi Bible) was produced here in 1824 using a script devised by Welsh missionary Thomas Jones. The surrounding Khasi people developed their living root bridge tradition as an engineering solution to bridging rapid monsoon streams without metal or timber, a technique requiring 15 to 30 years of patient training of Ficus elastica roots before…