For someone who has never been to Shillong before, figuring out where to stay can be a challenge. As I mentioned in my blog post about the things to do in Shillong, traffic in the capital city of Meghalaya is a nightmare and is comparable to what you would find in Bangalore – where a 10 km drive can take up to 3 hours. So when it comes to booking a stay in Shillong, I would highly suggest choosing not one, but two or three places so that you can park your bags, explore the vicinity, move to another part of the city, and repeat.

WHERE TO STAY IN SHILLONG

Orchidale Homestay

Run by a young man, Darrell, and his wonderful aunt, Orchidale Homestay is a fantastic place to get a feel of living like a local. The homestay has two comfortable bedrooms rooms and a living room that is packed with antiques and local treasures. The host lives in the next house located within the same compound, and his aunt lives upstairs. Like most Airbnbs I’ve stayed at, the hosts are warm, and welcoming and go out of their way to help you have a smooth stay – from drawing up area-wise itineraries depending on your interests and duration of stay in Shillong to offering their phone chargers to use when you’ve left yours at home.

Also like many Airbnbs, no meals are served here, except breakfast, which is a little basic, but alright if you’re a fuss-free eater. You can bring in food from outside and ask the caretaker to heat it up or pop it in the fridge for later. The wi-fi is great and I had no problem working from here. A worship hall across the narrow lane will have you listening to beautiful Gospel singing all through the day.

M Crown Hotel, Police Bazaar

I booked this hotel on the spur of the moment because I tried visiting the famous Police Bazaar for two days but could not find an inch of parking space in spite of circling the place for a fair bit of time. Hotel M Crown is located at the entrance of the bazaar and has parking for its guests. From a convenience standpoint, I’d rate it a 10/10, but it fell short on all other aspects. For starters, the staff tells you upon check-in that the a/c in. the room is not working temporarily. This is in spite of the hundreds of reviews on Google and other platforms saying the a/c does not work. Obviously, something is fishy here, and it seems they have no intention of fixing the a/c. You will need to open your window (you will have a view of the generator) if you want to have some ventilation as the rooms smell a bit musty. On the plus side, the staff is pleasant and the shower is great.

Breakfast here too is quite sad. Unless you want to do some heavy-duty shopping at Police Bazaar and explore Ward’s Lake nearby, I’d suggest passing on this one. Luckily for me, I had not booked my hotel for the day, and a stay here made sense because of my itinerary for the day.

Tripura Castle – For a ‘castle,’ I expected better. The experience here was sub-par from check-in to check-out. The castle is divided into 3 sections, separated by high walls and a public road in between. While the first section has the reception and restaurant, the second section has rooms and the third has rooms and another restaurant. While check-in was ordinary (I’d expect at least a welcome drink at the prices they charge), we were taken to our room in Section 2. The staff suggested we walk, but given our bags, we took the car instead.

The room was below average – small, and pokey. From the time I checked into the room, I did not see a single staff around for the entire duration of the stay. No one was available to ask for directions, to ask for a bottle of water- nothing. We wanted to go to the restaurant (near reception) and walked out of our section and to the resort gate down the road.

 

The guard denied us entry and to said walk all the way to the back entrance. Why? No reason was given. So we huffed and puffed up the hill to the back entrance and went to the restaurant, where there was no staff to take the order. When we finally got our order, the staff was not available to place another order. Wow. Finally went back to our room and had an uneventful evening. We were awoken at 4-5 AM by some random guest banging on the door looking for her little boy. Clearly, no staff was available for her to ask anything to so she randomly banged on other guests’ doors and windows. For breakfast, we had to go to section #3. Boring breakfast.. .with only one staff manning the entire place of possibly 20 tables. Would not recommend Tripura Castle Shillong, unless perhaps you’re booking the top category room.

WHERE TO STAY IN CHERRAPUNJI

I thought booking a stay in Cherrapunji would be easier, but upon calling nearly 10 places, I found that all were sold out. So word of advice, book in advance. Most visitors to Cherrapunji visit only for a night, and many just make it a day trip. However, I stayed for 2 nights and would recommend spacing out your itinerary over 2 days so you get a feel of this beautiful place which was once the village receiving the highest rainfall in the world.

Escapade Inn

While looking for a place to stay in Cherrapunji, I actually drove past Escapade Inn to check out other hotels beyond that were reviewed to be the best in the area. But the hotels were full and the road leading to them was in terrible condition. So I came back and requested to see the rooms at this hotel. We were shown 2 rooms – both clean, big and well kept. The bottom floor room was 500 rupees cheaper than the one above and I chose to stay on the upper floor. The staff was very kind, welcoming, and polite and the room was extremely comfortable with all basic amenities.

I was really happy I chose this hotel as it was just off the main road, making it easy to get on the main road, go sightseeing and come back without spending time and torturing ourselves by driving for several kms on the pothole road going to the hotels ahead. I stayed at this Cherrapunji Hotel for 2 nights, and during that time we ordered one dinner (which was great) and had two breakfasts, which were average. If you know me, I can’t live without chai and the tea is good – made to your taste. Would definitely recommend Escapade Inn when visiting Cherrapunji.

WHERE TO STAY IN MAWLYNNONG

Like Cherrapunji, most visitors to Mawlynnong, Asia’s cleanest village, stay for only 1 night because of the limited things to do. And many choose to stay in one of the many homestays in the village itself. The place I chose to stay was a dozen km away from the village.

If you’ve stayed in Shillong, Cherrapunji, or Mawlynnong before, comment below and let me know where you stayed. And if I ever go back to the area, I’ll be sure to update this blog post with the hotels I stay at. Hope it helps!