Chhattisgarh Calling!

If you havent heard of what Chhattisgarh offers the discerning travellerhere is a comprehensive list. If you havent ventured deepinto the heart of Indianow is the time.

- Supriya Sehgal

Sliced off from Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh is one of the newest states of India, but one of the oldest enclaves, thriving with ancient traditions and customs. Weekly haats (markets), ancient temples, dense and deep jungles, frothing waterfalls, a well-defined spiritual circuit and intriguing customs are some of the things that awaken travellers to a new world. We’ve curated a list of some of the things that may feature as essentials for a complete Chhattisgarh immersion, but with a destination as characterful as this, we’d never get ahead of ourselves to commit that it is fully comprehensible in one trip.

Wild At Heart

Expect an endless carpet of green no matter where you look. Cloaked in paddy fields, thick undergrowth and dark forests, Chhattisgarh’s landscape is further embellished by shimmering rivers and sheets of water breaking the calm drift to fall gloriously on a bed of rocks. In short, nature has used its most mesmerising charm in Chhattisgarh. The state’s elegance unfolds in every new location. Despite massive deforestation of saal trees at the hands of European settlers, Chhattisgarh’s forest cover can still leave you speechless. Amongst the top national parks and sanctuaries, the canopy of towering trees and continuous woodlands of Kanger Valley National Pak, Barnawapara Wildlife Sanctuary and Achanakmar come to mind before the others. Though the forests are teeming with wild inhabitants, they do not get prominence like some of the popular destinations in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh—much to the offbeat traveller’s delight. Expect to see large mammals like wild buffaloes, tigers, wild boars and families of nimble deer in the tall grasslands and thick woods. Kanger Valley National Park in Bastar is especially popular for caves filled with ancient stalactite and stalagmite formations.