Elephant Falls

A three-stage waterfall in the pine forest about twelve kilometres from Shillong, just past the Air Force station on the road to Cherrapunji. A flight of stone steps descends past each tier; the lowest pool is the widest and most photographed.

It is touristy — there is an entry gate, a parking lot, and rows of souvenir stalls — but the gorge is real and the water heavy in monsoon, when the spray drenches everything within range. In the dry months (January to March) the flow drops to a trickle.

things to do sight waterfall
A story
The British named the falls for an elephant-shaped boulder that stood at the foot of the lowest cascade. A 1897 earthquake — the same one that levelled most of colonial Shillong — toppled the rock into the gorge. The name stuck even though the elephant has been gone for over a century.

Other places in Things to Do