Deo Sun Temple

Almost every Sun temple in India faces east. Deo's faces west — local tradition says Vishwakarma built it in a night and turned it round to settle a dispute about its origins. The shrine is a pyramidal Nagara tower of dressed stone, with a sanctum of Surya, and an inscription on its wall dates it to the 8th century under the King Aila of the Umga line. The Umga temple on its granite hill is 20 km away and clearly the same builders.

Deo belongs to Chhath. For the four days of Kartik Chhath (and again in Chaitra) lakhs of vratis stand in the Surya Kund tank at dawn and dusk; the town's streets fill with sugarcane, thekua and music, and the state runs special buses from Aurangabad and Gaya. It is the most intense version of the festival you can see outside Patna's ghats, and a good deal more intimate.

The rest of the year, come for the temple's carving, the tank, and a loop that takes in Umga, Daud Khan's fort at Daudnagar on the Son and the Sufi shrine at Amjhar Sharif.