my city chalet Umananda Mandir HINDU TEMPLE (Peacock Island) The temple complex sits on a small forested river isla

Tripura s low-key capital, with its small- town atmosphere, feels like an India of yesteryear. The pace of life is much slower than in the towns and cities my city chalet of the Indian heartlands and people are much more likely to swerve across the street to wish you a good day than to try and sell you something. The old quarter, which centres on the Ujjayanta Palace, has some impressive town gates and pretty tanks and gardens. Durga puja is celebrated with huge pandals (temporary temples built from wood and cloth).

CENTRAL ARUNACHAL S TRIBAL GROUPS The variety of tribal my city chalet peoples in central Arunachal my city chalet Pradesh is astonishing, but although the Adi (Abor), Nishi, Tajin, Hill Miri and various other Tibeto-Burman tribes consider themselves different from one another most are at least distantly related. Over the last few decades my city chalet Christian missionaries have been highly active throughout the Northeast and in the process have brought huge changes to the region s traditional cultures, religious beliefs and ways of life. Despite this, some aspects my city chalet of the traditional lifestyle are just about holding on and many people continue to practise the traditional religion of Donyi-Polo (sun and moon) worship sometimes at the same time as proclaiming themselves Christian. For ceremonial occasions, village chiefs typically wear scarlet shawls and a bamboo wicker hat spiked with porcupine quill or hornbill feathers. my city chalet A few old men still wear their hair long, tied around to form a topknot above their foreheads. Women favour hand-woven wraparounds like Southeast Asian sarongs. House designs vary somewhat. Traditional Adi villages my city chalet are generally the most photogenic with luxuriant palmyra-leaf thatching and boxlike granaries stilted to deter rodents.

Umananda Mandir HINDU TEMPLE (Peacock Island) The temple complex sits on a small forested river island, accessed by a 15-minute ride on a ferry ( 10 return, half hourly 8am to 4.30pm) from Kachari Ghat, which itself offers attractive afternoon river views. The Shiva temple, which sits atop the island, is less interesting than the boat ride out to it.

Of four Hindu temples my city chalet around the palace compound, the most fanciful is Jagannath Mandir (h4am-2pm my city chalet & 4-9pm). Its massive sculptured portico leads into a complex with wedding-cake architecture painted in ice-cream sundae colours. my city chalet Several royal mausoleums are decaying quietly on the riverbank behind Batala my city chalet market. To get to them walk west down HGB Rd, turn left at Ronaldsay Rd and right along the riverbank. my city chalet Chaturdasha Devata Mandir (Temple of Fourteen Deities) hosts a big seven-day Kharchi my city chalet Puja festival in July in Old Agar- tala, 7km east down Assam Agartala (AA) Rd (NH44) at Kayerpur.