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aitlum means end of hills, and the name does not exaggerate. This is the most accessible dramatic viewpoint near Shillong — a flat grassy ridge looking out over canyon walls and valleys that locals and visitors alike call the Grand Canyon of Meghalaya. It has been shot for a Bollywood film, used in a global music video, and called by some the most popular spot in the entire state.
It is worth saying plainly: this is not undiscovered. What makes it worth including is what most day-trippers never do — the 3,000-step descent to Rasong, a village that still depends on an old rope pulley to move its goods.
The crowd stops at the ridge, takes photographs, and leaves. The real Laitlum experience is the descent: 3,000 stone steps cut into the mountainside, winding through bamboo plantations and wild orchids, down to Rasong village.
When the pulley is working, food grains and supplies move up and down the cliff mechanically. When it isn't, you'll see locals carrying loaded bamboo baskets up the full 3,000-step staircase by hand — the only route between the village and the nearest market at Smit.
Rasong's economy is built on broom-making, sold in Shillong's markets. The crop, the climb, and the pulley are all connected — this is what it actually costs, physically, to get a harvest to market from inside a canyon.
The canyon was a filming location for the Bollywood film Rock On 2 and, more recently, a global music video. This is part of why it has become as visited as it has — not a quiet discovery anymore, but a recognisable backdrop.
You arrive at the ridge and the canyon isn't there.
Fog has swallowed the entire view — not a light haze, but a total whiteout, visibility dropping to less than 50 feet. You wait. Ten minutes. Thirty. An hour. There is nothing to do but stand at the edge of something you can't see and trust that it's actually there.
Then the wind shifts. The white tears apart in front of you, and a green ridge appears far below, then another, then the full depth of the canyon dropping away under your feet.
You reach the bottom of the 3,000-step staircase, legs aching, and Rasong appears in front of you — slate-roofed houses scattered across a ridge deep inside the canyon walls.
A local is climbing the same stairs you just descended, carrying a bamboo basket loaded with supplies on their back, because the pulley is broken today. They pass you without slowing down. This is simply Tuesday for them.
You stop to catch your breath. They keep climbing toward Smit, toward the market, toward everything that 300 people in this village need that doesn't grow here.
The view from the top of Laitlum is what brought you. The climb you didn't have to take, and the people who take it because they have no choice, is what you actually remember.
The view from the top of Laitlum is what made this place famous. The 3,000 steps down are what most people skip.
A village of 300 people lives at the bottom of this canyon, dependent on a rope pulley that breaks often enough that carrying loaded baskets by hand up a mountainside is simply part of life. Their cash crop is broom plant. Their only route to market is the same staircase tourists photograph from the top and rarely descend.
Laitlum has been in a Bollywood film. It has been in a global music video. It is, by most honest accounts, one of the most visited single spots in the entire state. None of that changes what life actually looks like for the people who live below the ridge that everyone photographs.
If you only do one thing here, take the steps down — not for the view on the way, though it is real, but to understand that the postcard version of this place and the lived version of it are two completely different experiences happening on the exact same staircase.
It was here before you arrived. It will be here after you leave.
— Almanac Field Notes
Uncharted Meghalaya
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ALMANAC · INNER CIRCLE
Laitlum Canyons is one of 32.
The rest are waiting.
almanacindia.com
ALMANAC · INNER CIRCLE
Laitlum Canyons is one of 32.
The rest are waiting.
almanacindia.com
FIELD ALMANAC · No. 11
A L M A N A C
UNCHARTED MEGHALAYA · CLUSTER C
— 2 —
aitlum means end of hills, and the name does not exaggerate. This is the most accessible dramatic viewpoint near Shillong — a flat grassy ridge looking out over canyon walls and valleys that locals and visitors alike call the Grand Canyon of Meghalaya. It has been shot for a Bollywood film, used in a global music video, and called by some the most popular spot in the entire state.
It is worth saying plainly: this is not undiscovered. What makes it worth including is what most day-trippers never do — the 3,000-step descent to Rasong, a village that still depends on an old rope pulley to move its goods.
— 3 —
The crowd stops at the ridge, takes photographs, and leaves. The real Laitlum experience is the descent: 3,000 stone steps cut into the mountainside, winding through bamboo plantations and wild orchids, down to Rasong village.
When the pulley is working, food grains and supplies move up and down the cliff mechanically. When it isn't, you'll see locals carrying loaded bamboo baskets up the full 3,000-step staircase by hand — the only route between the village and the nearest market at Smit.
Rasong's economy is built on broom-making, sold in Shillong's markets. The crop, the climb, and the pulley are all connected — this is what it actually costs, physically, to get a harvest to market from inside a canyon.
The canyon was a filming location for the Bollywood film Rock On 2 and, more recently, a global music video. This is part of why it has become as visited as it has — not a quiet discovery anymore, but a recognisable backdrop.
— 4 —
You arrive at the ridge and the canyon isn't there.
Fog has swallowed the entire view — not a light haze, but a total whiteout, visibility dropping to less than 50 feet. You wait. Ten minutes. Thirty. An hour. There is nothing to do but stand at the edge of something you can't see and trust that it's actually there.
Then the wind shifts. The white tears apart in front of you, and a green ridge appears far below, then another, then the full depth of the canyon dropping away under your feet.
You reach the bottom of the 3,000-step staircase, legs aching, and Rasong appears in front of you — slate-roofed houses scattered across a ridge deep inside the canyon walls.
A local is climbing the same stairs you just descended, carrying a bamboo basket loaded with supplies on their back, because the pulley is broken today. They pass you without slowing down. This is simply Tuesday for them.
You stop to catch your breath. They keep climbing toward Smit, toward the market, toward everything that 300 people in this village need that doesn't grow here.
The view from the top of Laitlum is what brought you. The climb you didn't have to take, and the people who take it because they have no choice, is what you actually remember.
— 5 —
The view from the top of Laitlum is what made this place famous. The 3,000 steps down are what most people skip.
A village of 300 people lives at the bottom of this canyon, dependent on a rope pulley that breaks often enough that carrying loaded baskets by hand up a mountainside is simply part of life. Their cash crop is broom plant. Their only route to market is the same staircase tourists photograph from the top and rarely descend.
Laitlum has been in a Bollywood film. It has been in a global music video. It is, by most honest accounts, one of the most visited single spots in the entire state. None of that changes what life actually looks like for the people who live below the ridge that everyone photographs.
If you only do one thing here, take the steps down — not for the view on the way, though it is real, but to understand that the postcard version of this place and the lived version of it are two completely different experiences happening on the exact same staircase.
It was here before you arrived. It will be here after you leave.
— Almanac Field Notes
Uncharted Meghalaya
— 6 —
— 7 —
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— 8 —
