The Atlas Obscura Guide To India

270 Cool, Hidden, and Unusual Things to Do in India

Updated September 22, 2023

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Unusual Attractions in India

Chand Baori

Abhaneri, India

Chand Baori

Thousands of exquisitely carved stone water storage wells, hundreds of stone steps fill this exquisite medieval stepwell.

Sir Edwin Arnold thought Hawa Mahal was "a vision of daring and dainty loveliness, of storeys of rosy masonry and delicate overhanging balconies and latticed windows. Soaring with tier after tier of fanciful architecture in a pyramidal form, a very mountain of airy and audacious beauty through the thousand pierced screens and gilded arches of which the Indian air blows cool over the flat roofs of the very highest house." As quoted in, Delhi Agra Jaipur, by Surendra Sahai. See more at https://kimcarpenterphotos.smugmug.com/Hawa-Mahal-Jaipur-India/.

Jaipur, India

Hawa Mahal (Palace of Winds)

The 953 windows undoubtedly make this the world's most beautiful screened porch.

Living Root Bridges

Cherrapunjee, India

The Root Bridges of Cherrapunji

Centuries-old bridges grown from tangled roots.

Human Skeletons in Skeleton Lake in Roopkund

Chamoli, India

Skeletons of Roopkund Lake

A lake with hundreds of ancient skeletons surrounding it. The surprise is what killed them.

Jal Mahal

Jaipur, India

Jal Mahal

More than half of this Indian palace is drowned but it looks all the more spectacular for it.

Overlooking a sea of blue. (Photo:

Jodhpur, India

The Blue City of Jodhpur

Once an indicator of social class, the color blue has come to define this city on the edge of the Thar Desert.

Verul, India

Ellora Caves

This complex of vertically-excavated Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu monolithic temples in India's Maharashtra providence illustrates a spirit of tolerance characteristic of ancient India.

Gheti, India

Shatrunjaya Hill

A mecca for India's Jains.

See All 270 Things To Do in India

Cool Places to Eat & Drink in India

Golden Temple

Amritsar, India

Golden Temple

This peaceful Sikh gurudwara serves around 50,000 free meals every day within its gilded walls.

New Delhi, India

Cafe Lota

Nestled among the artifacts of the National Crafts Museum, this hidden gem offers hard-to-find regional foods from all over India.

Kolkata, India

Nahoum and Sons

This Jewish bakery, among the last in the region, sells legendary sweets from a century-old storefront.

Mysore, India

Guru Sweet Mart

At this sweet shop, the descendants of a royal chef serve up the fudge-like dessert his ancestor invented for a king.

See all 10 Places to Eat in India

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Stories About India

An asiatic subspecies of cheetah once roamed India. Efforts to reintroduce the animal there threaten the traditional sustainable harvest of salai trees.

India's Cheetah Reintroduction Threatens an Indigenous Tradition

Behind the headlines of the animals' rocky return, a displaced community struggles to access trees they have tended for generations.

by Tanvi Dutta Gupta

Children play in the monsoon rains that pour down on the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh every year from late July till September.

How Indian Perfumers Capture the Smell of Rain

In Kannauj, perfumers have been making monsoon-infused mitti attar for centuries.

by Zinara Rathnayake

Macy skydiving in (above) Ohio.

Adventure Is Accessible When You Think Outside the Box

Meet the Wisconsin woman wheeling around the world.

by Gemma Tarlach

Rama’s Bridge between India and Sri Lanka figures in ancient myths, and can be seen from space, in this case captured from the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1994.

Sea Cucumber Crime Is a Thing, and This Is Where It’s Happening

A "seafood mafia" is plying the waters between India and Sri Lanka to satisfy China's appetite for an increasingly rare delicacy.

by Frank Jacobs, Big Think

To reduce the risk of conflict between humans and elephants, scientists are looking at the situation from the animals' perspective.

To Reduce Conflicts With Humans, Get Inside an Elephant's Head

Understanding how the giant mammals weigh risk and reward could help prevent clashes with people.

by Mridula Chari

Hally War, a 68-year-old farmer from Siej village, learned the art of creating a jingkieng jri—as the living root bridges are locally known—from his grandfather.

The Artisans Behind India's Living Root Bridges

For half a century, Hally War has been growing a bridge across a local river—and between past and present.

by Dania Rodrigues

Bene Israel Jews prepare malida platters for thanksgiving ceremonies for the Prophet Elijah.

The Woman Preserving the Endangered Cuisine of Indian Jews

Esther David traveled from the spice port of Cochin to the mountains of Mizoram to record this culinary culture.

by Sam Lin-Sommer

Photographer Aakash Selvan used a drone to to capture this "Floating Islands" image of living phumdis on northeastern India's Loktak Lake.

Can Loktak Lake's Wondrous Floating Islands Bounce Back?

A photographer's drone's-eye image of the famous phumdis of northeastern India shows a unique environment undergoing change.

by Gemma Tarlach

January 31, 2023

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