Living Root Bridges and Waterfalls in Shillong

Meghalaya means abode of clouds, and it earns the name: we drove through mist for most of the trip out to Cherrapunji, one of the wettest places on earth. The living root bridges near Nongriat, grown and shaped by hand over generations, are unlike anything we've seen anywhere else, genuinely alive architecture.

The hike down to the double-decker bridge involved a few thousand stone steps and a river crossing, and the swim in the pool underneath at the bottom made every one of those steps worth it.