snowmass mammoth Northern Nagaland, the most unspoiled part of the state, is the reason you came to Nagaland. This ru

India s Northeast States, dangling way out on the edge of the map and the national perception, are strictly for explorers who want something different from their India experience. These remote frontier lands, where India, Southeast Asia and Tibet meet, are a collision zone of cultures, climates, landscapes and peoples and are one of Asia s last great unknowns. It s a place of rugged beauty where uncharted forests snowmass mammoth clamber up toward unnamed Himalayan peaks. It s a land of enormous variety where rhinoceros live in swampy grasslands and former head-hunters live in longhouses in the jungle. And it s an adventure in the truest sense of the word.

Northern Nagaland, the most unspoiled part of the state, is the reason you came to Nagaland. This rugged and divinely beautiful country snowmass mammoth is home to many diff erent villages composed of thatched longhouses, many of whose inhabitants are adorned with tattoos and continue to live a fairly traditional hunting and farming lifestyle.

Only 40km from Guwahati, this small national park has the highest concentration of rhinoceros in the world. Entrance fees are the same as Kaziranga National Park (see p 561 ). Getting into the park involves a boat ride over the river boundary to the elephant- mounting station. From there it s a one-hour trip atop an elephant lumbering through boggy grassland and stirring up petulant rhinos.

Tripura is culturally and politically fascinating, and the state s handful of royal palaces and temples draw a growing flow of domestic tourists. For the moment though foreign tourists remain very rare indeed. There s a large Bangladeshi refugee population in Tripura and much of the more accessible western parts of the state look and feel much like its near neighbour.