Chhattisgarh & Odisha Tribal Journey

Met at Bhubaneswar airport and taken to your hotel. Bhubaneswar is Odisha’s capital and its temple city: tradition holds that seven thousand temples once stood around the Bindu Sagar tank, and a few hundred still do, built between the seventh and the thirteenth centuries in the Kalinga style, with tall curving towers carved from top to bottom.

In the afternoon, the finest of them. The Mukteswara, of the tenth century, is small and covered in carving, with an arched stone torana at its gate; the Parasurameswara, of the seventh, is one of the oldest temples standing in Odisha. The great Lingaraj temple, of the eleventh century, is open only to Hindus, and everyone else looks over its wall from a viewing platform outside.

The morning in Puri, one of the four dhams, the great pilgrim seats of Hinduism. The Jagannath temple was raised in the twelfth century and only Hindus may enter it; you see it from the Grand Road outside, down which the deities are hauled in their towering chariots at the Rath Yatra each summer. In the story, Jagannath has no hands or feet because the craftsman of the gods, Vishvakarma, was disturbed before he could finish the image.

Then the tribal country begins. After lunch the road leaves the coast behind and climbs through forest and terraced valleys into the Eastern Ghats, to Phulbani, the headquarters of Kandhamal, the district named for the Kondh, whose villages you meet tomorrow.

The market at Chatikona is held only on Wednesdays, and it is the day the Dongria Kondh come down from the Niyamgiri hills, which they hold sacred, to sell what they grow — pineapples, bananas, turmeric, millet and forest produce — and to buy salt, cloth and tools. Everyone here has come to trade, not to be looked at: walk with your guide, photograph only where he says it is welcome, and ask first.

Then south-west towards Jeypore, stopping on the way at villages of the Mali, who farm vegetables on the valley floors, and of the Kuvi Kondh. Jeypore, the old seat of the maharajas of Jeypore, is your base for three nights.

North towards Chhattisgarh. At Kotpad, near the state line, the weavers dye their cotton with the root of the aal tree, in the maroons and browns the Kotpad weave is known for, and you watch the yarn go on to the loom.

Across the border, the Friday market at Lohandiguda, where the Muria come in from the villages, and then the Chitrakote Falls, where the Indravati drops over a broad horseshoe of cliff: the widest waterfall in India, and at its fullest after the monsoon. On to Jagdalpur, the old capital of the Bastar kings, for two nights.

A long drive north, out of the forest and across the rice plains around Raipur, the paddy country of Chhattisgarh, to Shivrinarayan, a temple town where the Mahanadi, the Shivnath and the Jonk rivers meet.

This is the country of the Ramnami Samaj. From the end of the nineteenth century, barred from the temples, the Ramnamis took the name of Ram as their own and wrote it on their skin; some of the elders are tattooed with it from head to foot, even on their eyelids. Fewer of the young now take the tattoos, but the community still gathers to sing its bhajans in shawls printed with the name. Your guide introduces you, and you ask before taking a photograph.

A day in the hills with the Baiga, who have farmed and foraged in these forests for centuries and are known across central India for their knowledge of forest plants and healing. You visit their villages and their fields, and the old temples scattered through the hills around Bhoramdeo.

Market day is part of it too, where the Baiga come to trade forest produce and grain. The best known is at Taregaon, on Fridays; on other days your guide takes you to the market that falls on the day. Several Baiga and Gond villages were moved out of the forest when Kanha became a national park; tomorrow you drive into it.

Two drives today, at first light and in the afternoon, in an open jeep with a naturalist, through sal forest, bamboo and the great meadows of Kanha the park calls maidans. The tiger is why most people come, and Kanha is one of the better places in India to see one, but no one can promise it. You are far more likely to see chital, barasingha, sambar, gaur, wild boar and langurs.

Kanha is as good for birds: the crested serpent eagle and the hawk eagle, the racket-tailed drongo, the Indian roller, the white-breasted kingfisher, the grey hornbill, woodpeckers, parakeets and babblers, and peafowl in the clearings.