Thursday, September 2, 2010

Discovering the North-East

It didn’t happen often in the past months, and perhaps precisely for this reason when it finally happened again it was pleasant.

In the past few days I went out on mission. Destination: Meghalaya, one of the seven States of that appendix of India known as the North-East.

Meghalaya, or ‘the Scotland of the East’ - not sure whether for its green hills, or for the unceasing rain. Mawsynram and Cherrapunjee in fact, two villages in this State, with an average of 11.9 and 11.4 meters of rainfall per year respectively are no less than the first and third rainiest places in the world*!

Mawsynram also holds the Guinness world record for receiving the maximum amount of rainfall in a single year (an incredible 26 m in 1985!), while Cherrapunjee holds the Guinness world record for receiving the maximum amount of rainfall in a single month (9,3 m in July 1861).

What to say? Well, that now that I am back to Delhi, the monsoons here seem drizzle to me...

(*) The second rainiest place in the world is Mt. Waialeale on the island of Kauai in Hawaii with a yearly average rainfall of 11.7 m.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Matteo - how was Meghalaya? When I visited Chirapunjee as a kid, the one funny aspect I noticed was this house where clothes were put to dry on the clothesline outside despite a steady drizzle!!

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  2. hi arati - that's funny: it still happens, and it is exactly the same thing i have noticed with astonishment!

    (i even thought that they might put the clothes on the clothesline outside to wash them!)

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