Bhedaghat

The marble cliffs rise a hundred feet on both sides. The Narmada River narrows between them, dark and quiet, and the rowboat drifts without a motor. In moonlight, the white marble walls glow as if lit from within. This is one of the most dramatic river passages in India.

Bhedaghat in Madhya Pradesh sits at the point where the Narmada River passes through a narrow gorge of pure white marble — the Marble Rocks — rising vertically for approximately 30 metres on both sides. The marble has been quarried since Mughal times, and some sources claim it supplied material for the Taj Mahal, though this is debated. Rowboat rides through the gorge are the primary experience — boatmen navigate the narrow passage while pointing out rock formations said to resemble elephants, crocodiles, and temples. At the gorge's downstream end, the Dhuandhar Falls drops the Narmada approximately 30 metres into a permanent cloud of spray ('dhuandhar' means 'smoke cascade'). Full-moon boat rides, when the marble walls are luminescent, are the most sought-after experience. The Chausath Yogini Temple on a nearby hilltop — a circular 10th-century temple dedicated to 64 female tantric deities — predates the tourism by a millennium.