People live on Loktak Lake in Manipur, India, by building bamboo-and-thatch huts called phumshangs on phumdis, which are floating mats of vegetation, soil and decaying roots. Fishermen travel by canoe, cut phumdi into circular fish traps called athaphum, and share the lake with Keibul Lamjao National Park, the world’s only floating national park. If you…
Dhanushkodi was abandoned because the cyclone of 22–23 December 1964 destroyed the town, killed an estimated 1,800 people and washed away its railway line. The Government of Madras then declared it unfit for living. Yes, you can visit today. A road from Rameswaram (about 18–20 km) now reaches Arichal Munai, and road access is generally…
Bastar Dussehra is the festival that answers the question “where is Dussehra celebrated for 75 days in India?” Held in Jagdalpur, in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, it runs for roughly 75 days and has no Ravana effigy burning at all. Instead of the Ramayana’s final battle, the festival centres on Goddess Danteshwari, local village…
If you’ve driven between Delhi and Jaipur more than once, there’s a fair chance you’ve passed within fifteen kilometres of Chand Baori without having any idea it was there. Most people do. The turning isn’t anything special, the village road after it is narrow and a bit bumpy, and the stepwell itself sits behind a…
Standing at 14,140 feet above sea level is an amazing feeling. You can feel the cold Himalayan winds wrapping around you while you look right at the border between India and China. Many travel guides try to make the trip to East Sikkim sound perfect. They often describe it as an easy and beautiful drive….
The La Niña effect in India is a big reason why some years bring heavy rain and cold, foggy winters, while others bring drought and mild winters. La Niña is a natural cooling of the Pacific Ocean. It changes the monsoon, the winter, our holiday plans, our festivals and even the price of vegetables. In…
Everything you need to plan a Panna National Park safari – zones, timings, entry fees, wildlife, best time to visit, and how to reach this remarkable tiger reserve near Khajuraho. In 2009, Panna lost every single tiger to poaching. Today, it has over 80. That comeback alone makes Panna National Park one of India’s most…
There are some places in India where the scale of what you see in front of you is difficult to understand until you actually stand there. Bhakra is one of them. High in the Sutlej valley, the massive concrete wall of Bhakra Dam rises more than 225 metres above its deepest foundation, holding back the…
Every golden sandstone wall of Jaisalmer Fort traces back to one man – a 12th-century Rajput king named Rawal Jaisal. If you’ve ever walked through Jaisalmer’s narrow fort lanes and wondered who actually built this “living fort” rising out of the Thar Desert, this is his story – the real, documented history, not the simplified…
This isn’t a copy-paste travel guide. This is the actual trip my two friends and I took last Diwali – every place, every rupee, every mistake we made, written exactly the way it happened. Last Diwali, three of us – Soumya (that’s me), Swoyomsidh, and Akash – packed our bags in Chandigarh and set off…
