Meghalaya is such an amazing place in the world known for having the wettest place on earth: Cherrapunji. The current wettest place is actually different though (Mawsynram) and it’s situated closer to Cherrapunji as well.
That aside, Shillong is the capital and probably the only “city” in this state as rest of the state is covered by hills. Ri Kynjai is located at a prime spot overlooking the most popular lake of the state: Umiam lake. Here’s a detailed review of our stay at Ri Kynjai, visited during early 2021.
Booking
- Revenue Rate: 14,000 INR per night (Superior Room)
- I paid: via Amazon Pay Balance
This property was not listed on most reward redemption portals by the time I booked, (I can now see it listed though). So I had no other choice other than going with Amazon Pay.
I got these Amazon Vouchers via various sources (Amex, HDFC, Payback), some by redeeming points and some at discount. I don’t treat them as free as such, as its cash equivalent for all the known reasons. However, for the sake of this trip, I had to consider it as “sort of” free.
Check-in
We left Radisson Blu Guwahati in the morning by road and reached Shillong by noon. Speaking of roads, I should say Guwahati-Meghalaya roads are one of the best laid roads I’ve ever seen. 10X better compared to the roads of the wealthy Karnataka.
They’re wider, good and greeny on the sides as you move towards Meghalaya.
The resort is situated before you enter the city (closer to airport as well), so we arrived sooner than we thought.
Check-in was smooth with a nice welcome drink.
The Room
The first impression of the room and the lake views were WOW.
The room was pretty spacious with a decently sized balcony. The top tier room comes with a huge balcony, the one where Aamir Khan stayed. This one is a step down from that.
You might need that one if you’re going with a big family, else, I don’t find a need, and so we went with this superior room category.
Here are some room snaps for you,
The weather was chill most of the time, as the temperature is usually in the range of 15 degree celsius and gets much colder in the evening, as expected.
Even the room heater looks beautiful here, as you can see above.
Now comes the best part of the room: the balcony & the breathtaking view:
The Food
Breakfast: Decent breakfast spread, but I would expect a grand buffet for the cost they charge per night.
Dinner: We ordered few North Indian dishes for dinner and it was tasty as well.
The Property
It’s a pretty big property and you could do nature walk all over. The property maintains a pin-drop silence most of the time.
If a human speaks with door open, especially in balcony, it feels like only they exist in the entire resort.
It was truly an amazing experience to have such a calm and relaxing atmosphere. It’s no wonder why they have the tagline “Serenity by the lake” for this property.
That aside, they also have one of the unique exteriors in the country, like below:
A Short Trek
They’ve a pathway from the property that goes into the woods which then leads to the Umiam lake (sort of from the backside).
The trek between the hotel and the lake is about 15 mins and its a nice spot, surrounded by silence. It’s good to see such places in our country as it reminds me of the neat and clean foreign lakes with access. Some pics below:
Activities
Dawki: A long, tiring 4 hr day trip to Dawki will greet you with an amazing view of boats on transparent water like this one below.
And above all, this place shares its border with Bangladesh.
You cross the lake and you can see 100’s of tourists in Bangladesh beach side. You can hear the noise of the beach crowd on one side and silence of nature on the other.
You can take a boat ride to experience this. One of a kind! You can also visit the cleanest village in Asia & the root bridge – few mins drive from here.
Umiam lake: It’s a 5 min drive to the lake entrance from the hotel. An evening boat ride in this vast lake can take you to a different world altogether.
Sunset at this lake was magical. We were lucky to not have lot of tourists by then, which helped us to experience the nature, as it is.
Bottomline
- Cardexpert Rating: 5/5
The stay at Ri Kynjai Shillong was definitely a memorable one of the year. If you wish to enjoy the silence of nature with breathtaking views of the lake, you should not miss this property in your life.
The good thing about the place is, you can fly directly to Shillong as well and arrive at the property in under 30 mins from the airport, which I intend to do sometime in future along with few nights in Cherrapunji to explore those beautiful falls in and around the most wettest place in the world.
Have you ever been mesmerized with Meghalaya like me? Feel free to share your experiences in the comments below.
Have gone to maghalaya this April ..and experienced dowky ,Shillong,cleanest village,root bridge etc
Trip to cheerapunji was not great as there were no water in any of the water falls except one which too had very little water as the year is of scarce rainfall in entire north east.. infact it was not season though..
Nothing great in shopping in Meghalaya
On another trip went to kaziranga National park which was great for my kids..
Have been in arunachal (parasuram kund,golden pagoda and mayidiya pass where one can see snow fall
Thinking to explore Tawang valley of arunachal Pradesh soon
Hey Sid,
I really want to know how do you plan these trips. How do you come to know of such places?
I usually pick a state/city and explore the spots. 1-2 hr research can give you all the info.
Stunning!
Yes we were also mesmerised with the beauty of shillong. We reached gawhati and drive to kasiranga that’s an amazzing rhino forest and covered all the four sid s of the forest. We stayed in kasiranga for 2 days and from there drive to shillong. We covered chirapunji and it’s is really mesnerisung
Nice property and a great destination. Sry, off topic but when is a good time to visit Meghalaya? Is March better or October?
Season applies only to Cherrapunji, as without rains the waterfalls would be dry. So October would be better I guess.
How did you use amazon pay balance for payment ? Was it an online payment or am I missing some apart…. May be you can an article on how can we use amazon pay effectively when not purchasing anything from amazon ?
Booked on Goibibo using Amazon Pay Balance.
What a coincidence. I was in Meghalaya just 2 weeks ago. Did you drive your own car around the state? I relied on cabs throughout, and found them terribly overpriced, hence skipped going to Dawki.
Hired Dzire for 7 days, costs some ~25K or so to cover Assam & Meghalaya.
Initially we were quoted like 40K but later able to get one at this range!
Typically the taxi are bit overpriced unless you know someone.
Why not Zoomcar? It is available from Guwahati.