Chitrakote Falls

Chitrakote lies where the Indravati, flowing west across the Bastar plateau to meet the Godavari, hits a step in the bedrock and falls in a curve that is India's broadest. In July, August and September the river is a wall of tea-coloured water from bank to bank, up to 300 metres across, and the roar carries to the car park; from October the flow drops and the fall becomes three or four separate cascades over dark rock with the river pooling green beneath, when boatmen in coracles and motorboats take you close to the base and the spray. The best views are from the western rim near the Chhattisgarh Tourism resort, from the path that descends towards the river on the eastern side, and, after dark, from the platforms where lights colour the water on weekends.

Small shrines to Shiva stand on the lip, and a dip in the pools upstream is a local rite. The Bastar landscape around it is sal forest, red laterite roads and villages of the Maria and Dhurwa people, and a village haat rotates through the district almost every day of the week, laying out red ant chutney, mahua and dried fish. Chitrakote pairs naturally with Tirathgarh Falls, a tiered cascade 35 km south of Jagdalpur, and the limestone Kutumsar and Kailash caves in Kanger Valley National Park.

Stay at the rim to see the fall at dawn, before the buses from Jagdalpur arrive.