You’ll encounter electricity issues everywhere in India but I would say that the northeast has been the worst so far in my travelings.

First I want to mention Sikkim.

There were constant power-cuts (many per day) and the internet/WiFi connection and phone signal was really bad, and in Meghalaya (a different state in northeast India) where I’m now it’s pretty much nonexistent (extremely bad).

Just to write and edit this post is challenging because the signal is very poor but hopefully I can publish it quickly and easily.  

The power is on and off (mostly off..) at the places I have stayed in Meghalaya and internet is reeeeally slow (or not working at all) due to the weather.

Only in Shillong was I able to get a good enough signal and I think you will find that every larger city in India has an okay workable signal if you need to do some online work as I did.

I only stayed in Shillong for a couple of days and for that reason only.

Cherrapunjee is called ”the wettest place on earth” and I can understand that because it’s nice during the day but in the evening you better hold on to your umbrella should you dare go out because the thunderstorms here are incredibly powerful!

Right now as I write this it’s actually monsoon season and I love thunderstorms but there have been moments when I have thought that the house would literally take off because of the strong winds.

It’s incredibly powerful! I have never experienced anything like this before in my life (I love it though, but as I said, you’ll get an even bigger respect for nature when you experience this kind of weather!).

The first day when I got here I was without electricity for more than 24 hours I think it was so I was without both phone and laptop (battery empty in both) and as soon as the power came back I recharged them as quickly as I could.

Once you get them recharged you have to use them sparingly and always be charging them so you won’t be without because someone told me that there are sometimes power-cuts that lasts for days here.

I only have one socket in my room though and my phone is dying on me right now and with that goes my Hotspot connection.

It’s raining like crazy right now and only a few moments ago the sun was shining.

That’s the kind of weather you can expect here 🙂

Another thing that happened in Sikkim was that my ATM card was not working.

I tried many different ATM’s and they were all timed out before I could get my cash.

At first I thought it was because I went to the ATM on a Sunday and that maybe the machine was empty of cash or something.

Or that maybe the process was timed because of the weather, but then when it happened again and again on other days as well I thought that maybe it’s that my card just didn’t work in Sikkim for some reason (because it’s like a different country within India).

So I Googled “Sikkim ATM timed out” and similar search phrases and found out that many people have experienced the same issue, but the worse part was that the bank had deducted money from their account but they had not received the cash because the process was times out before they were able to get it!

So that concerned me a bit so I had to call my bank but they couldn’t give me any information of last transactions over the phone etc etc (long story) so I’m just hoping that my money is still safely intact on my account ( I will see when I get back to Spain).

So if you visit Sikkim; bring cash, just in case! (My card worked again when I left Sikkim state).

And if you visit the northeast India overall, expect to be without both electricity, phone signal and internet connection, sometimes for whole days, and sometimes more, but usually on and off all the time so you can’t really do any important work online since the connection is not reliable at all.

Hope this information was helpful to you somehow.

And oh, here’s another thing that you should know in case you’re going to Sikkim (permit info): 

>> Click Here. 

I highly recommend anyone to travel to Sikkim, it’s a beautiful, wonderful place and the people are lovely! 🙂