India
Dawki
A border river flowing so transparent that fishing boats appear to float in mid-air.
The boat appears to float in mid-air. The Umngot River runs so transparent that every stone on the bed shows at five metres down — the boat's shadow falls on sand, not water. On the far bank, the hills of Bangladesh rise green and close.
Dawki sits on the India-Bangladesh border in Meghalaya's Jaintia Hills, where the Umngot — promoted as Asia's cleanest river — has become one of India's most photographed waterways. Jaintia fishermen paddle wooden canoes through water that shifts turquoise to emerald with the light; the monsoon clouds it, and November through the early year brings the famous glass clarity. Campsites line the banks upstream at Shnongpdeng, where the river is quietest.
Solo
Come in the clear months, take a canoe at first light, and watch your own shadow fall on the riverbed.
Couple
Camp at Shnongpdeng, wake to a mirror river, and paddle before the day boats arrive.
Family
The floating-boat photograph is real — take the boat out and let the children spot fish through five metres of glass.
Friends
Split a camp on the bank, swim the clear pools, and keep one dawn for the mirror.
- In the clear season the riverbed shows at five metres — boats hang in apparent air.
- The far bank is another country — Bangladesh begins a stone's throw across the water.
- Wooden canoes work the river as they always have, tourism folded around the fishing.
- Bankside camping at Shnongpdeng wakes you to water that mirrors the limestone cliffs.
Eating is small and local — riverside stalls at Dawki and Shnongpdeng, jadoh when the pots are on.
Tungrymbai — fermented soybean mashed with black sesame and pork fat — is the Khasi deep cut, found in Shillong kitchens.
Tendaba
Gambia
Twelve-metre mangroves swallow the boat; somewhere in the tangle, a fishing owl watches.
Hole in the Wall
South Africa
Surf booms through a freestanding cliff pierced by one immense sea arch.
Arrábida
Portugal
Turquoise coves locked between limestone cliffs and monastery forest above the sea.
Wilsons Promontory
Australia
After dark, wombats take over the campground where mainland Australia runs out in granite.
Rann of Kutch
India
A salt marsh stretching to the horizon that turns blinding white under the full moon.
Kaas Plateau
India
A volcanic plateau that erupts into a violent carpet of wildflowers three weeks a year.
Valparai
India
Rainforest canopy spills over tea estates where wild elephants have the right of way.
Mechuka
India
Wild horses grazing a high valley closed to outsiders until 2005, pines climbing to snow.