Tripura

Tripura's defining sight is Unakoti: a hillside in the north carved with enormous Shaiva figures between the seventh and ninth centuries, still half-swallowed by forest and still barely visited. Three stops make a sensible route. Agartala for Ujjayanta Palace, built between 1897 and 1901 and now the state museum. Udaipur to the south for the Tripureswari temple of 1501 and, nearby, Neermahal, the lake palace the Manikya kings raised in the middle of Rudrasagar in 1930. Then the long drive north to Unakoti. People try to do Unakoti as a day trip from Agartala and see it in flat afternoon light after hours in a car. Give it a night. No Inner Line Permit is required here, which surprises people who assume every north-eastern state needs one. The part almost nobody sees is Chabimura on the Gomati, where fifteenth and sixteenth century gods are cut into a river cliff and reached by boat, and the Jampui Hills on the Mizoram border, which are orange-growing country. October to March. The rest of the year is hot and very wet.