16 Ajl-Ixs-Shl

17th December 2011: Morning I reached the Sumo-stand by 5:30AM and my Sumo left at 6:00AM sharp, with just one other Passenger! The driver said he may pick up some more on way; but he is mainly going to Aijawl to pick up a full load of 10Pax back to Champhai at 2:00PM. It seems the rush is one way due to Christmas season. This driver drove pretty fast and we reached zarkot by 1:30PM in just about 7 Hrs.

Checked in again at Tropicana, had lunch and then went out for a walk in Zarkot area. The streets were crowded with Christmas shoppers.

Booked a seat in the morning Sumo to Silchar.

18th December 2011: Morning checked out and caught the 6:30AM Sumo to Silchar.

Was surprised to meet a Tamil-speaking Phd-BioTech guy, named Sayyad, working as a Researcher in Mizo Univ. he was going home to Puddukottai, for vacation. He said he was very happy here in Mizoram and enjoyed his last 6 months stay here. In fact he is going to come back with his wife and their 3-year old daughter. He was very pleased with his Mizo Univ job, as his kid will now get admission easily in the Kendriya Vidyalaya school in the Univ campus. And the school was just near his Univ Dept. He saw the KV education for his daughter as the biggest break in life for him!!

Besides, he said, Mizoram is such a nice and peaceful place. You get everything here cheap and the people are so nice! He was willing to make Mizoram his home for life!!

We reached Capital-Stand in Silchar by 1:15PM. Before going to the Hotel, I booked myself a sumo-seat for tomorrow's ride to Shillong at the Zam-Zam Counter. Went to same Hotel Sudakshina in Shillongpatty and got the same DBL room #202!

In the evening walked around a bit near the hotel and found a nice Bengali sweet shop named Brahmon-Bari and ate some nice Sandesh & Roshogolla and took back to the hotel a half-kg pot of Mishti-Doi. That was my dinner for the night!.

19th December 2011: Morning got the Sumo to Shillong at 6:45AM. It had only 3-4 passengers and so started late. They said it will go anyway with or without pax as it was the "Newspaper-Sumo" that brings papers from Shillong to Silchar in the afternoon. We finally left around 7:30AM but the driver managed some pax on the way for short distances. There was heavy traffic jams, mostly long lines of trucks, in two three places. In Jaintia Hills we had 3-4KM long Truck lines. But our Driver found narrow side spaces to pass all those trucks line and saved hours of waiting time!

Just after lunch at Hotel Hill View in Ladrymbat we came across another long traffic jam; again teh driver went off in a side shortcut road and joined the NH back some 3-4 Kms ahead of the traffic! We reached Shillong after it was pretty dark.

The driver advised me to try Hotel Lamlyn on GS Road. He said it was nice hotel and in my budget of Rs 800-1000. Even though I checked out a few other hotels first on GS road, the Lamlyn Hotel was good and nice; but the DBL room was small but OK and had a Flat-TV. The Hotel's location was central just 5 mins walk from the Police Bazar Chowk. Rate was Rs 1000/day.