Luxury Mawlynnong Tours

Mawlynnong is a Khasi village in the East Khasi Hills, close to the border with Bangladesh. In 2003 a travel magazine called it the cleanest village in Asia, and the name has stuck. It is not a museum piece. Bamboo bins hang along every lane. Paths are swept through the day. Waste is composted, and plastic is discouraged. The work is shared by the whole village, and it has been for generations. The village is small. You can walk all of it in an hour, between flower gardens, betel-nut palms and low stone walls. A bamboo tower near the church rises to a viewpoint over the plains of Bangladesh. A short drive away, at Riwai, a living root bridge crosses a clear stream in the forest. Most visitors come for the day, from Cherrapunji or Shillong, often on the same trip as the Umngot River at Dawki. There is no hotel of any size here. The reason to come is to see a place that has made cleanliness ordinary.

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Cherrapunji, Dawki, Shillong