Unknown India: 15 photos from places where few tourists get to

It seems to many that almost everything has already been written about India. Numerous essays on religion, festivals, sadhu ascetics, sacred cows and the history of this country give reason to believe this. And a trip to India is sometimes associated with crowds of local beggars and tourists.

But in fact, in India today you can still find amazingly beautiful places for solitude, if you deviate a little from traditional tourist routes.

In India, in many ancient temples in the states of Rajasthan and Gujarat, you can find pushkarani — sacred pools-reservoirs. Near the village of Hampi are the ruins of Vijayanagar, the former capital of the Vijayanagar Empire. It was here that the photo was taken, which captures one of these stepped pools at the former temple.

When people first see a photo of this serene lake surrounded by lush greenery with a pedestrian bridge over it, they often do not believe that this is India. But in fact, this lake is located in the Chikmagalur region of Karnataka. At sunset, Ayyankere looks just like something otherworldly.

There are many waterfalls in India, which are popularly often called "Indian Niagara". One of the most beautiful is the Chitrakot waterfall in the state of Chhattisgarh, whose width is 300 meters (only a third smaller than Niagara). The sight of water falling from a height of more than 30 meters is impossible to forget once you see it.

One of the world's largest salt marshes can be found in Gujarat. This salt marsh desert stretches for as much as 30,000 square kilometers.

Maguri Bil is a wetland that is simply teeming with birds. This swampy lake is located right behind the local national park. Getting to Maguri Bil is not easy, you need to negotiate with guides on boats. Also, this lake is very popular among ornithologists all over the world.

Usually tea plantations look unattractive, but this particular place is unique because of its location. It is rare to find tea bushes growing on the slopes of mountains, above valleys that seem tiny from such a height. The plantation, located at an altitude of 2500 meters above sea level, is the highest in the world. To taste the local tea, which has a special taste and freshness, you need to drive an SUV about 32 kilometers from Munnar.

In the northeastern state of Assam, you can find a small area of dense forest (about 20 square kilometers), in which one of the rarest species of monkeys in India lives. This forest is perhaps the only accessible place where you can observe the Hulok gibbons in their natural habitat. Today, this species is under threat of complete extinction and has been listed in The Red Book.

Dolmens are prehistoric burial chambers that usually look like four standing stones with a fifth stone laid on top. Similar structures are found all over the world. In Marayur, you can find several dozen dolmens that were built in 10,000 BC.

During the rainy season, it is almost impossible to get into one of the longest caves in India, because it floods. Locals call the giant cave of Siju the word "Dabakhol" (which translates as "bat cave"). The guides claim that you can go inside for a kilometer at most, since the cave has not been studied further.

The New York Times recently published an article about 50 places in the world to visit in 2016. This list also includes a 17th-century palace in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. In fact, 300 years ago this palace was four times larger than it is today.

The Kugti Nature Reserve in the Chamba area looks almost untouched — there are practically no hiking trails in the lush jungle. Therefore, if you manage to negotiate with local shepherds, you can get into deserted, unaffected by human activity places.

Right from the mountain village of Longwa offers stunning views of the valleys and mountains around the Indo-Burmese border. Curiously, the house of the local headman is located right on the border between the two countries. In Longwa, they like to joke that the headman dines in India and sleeps in Myanmar.

Although many people have already visited the Andaman Islands, almost no one has reached this very remote island. Kala Pattar, often referred to as the Andaman little treasure, looks exactly the same as it did thousands of years ago.

The artistic traditions of the Shekhawati region have continued to amaze people for 200 years. It was once a prosperous region, as many trade routes passed through it. Now Rajasthan is a semi—desert place, the former greatness of which can be seen only in the paintings of Shekhawati.

The Eastern Ghats mountain range, which stretches along the Indian coast of the Bay of Bengal, for some reason does not enjoy the attention of tourists. In fact, this is quite understandable, since these mountains are mostly deserted. But in The Gatahs need to go down into the gorges through which the mountain rivers flow. You won't see similar places in India anywhere else.