MP Diaries : The Rock Paintings (Blast from the Past)

The story so far:

Delhi - Kanha
Kanha and around
Kanha to Bhopal
Bhopal to Bhojpur and Ujjain

The next morning we did wake up as required... as early as 0400 hrs and were out of the hotel and in the temple on time... We had a small argument with the police there over the temple opening early and no cloakroom available to keep our stuff there...

We entered the temple... waited in a not that small queue, and finally got a seat near the Shivling... The Arti was already on and we watched the entire proceedings on the TVs fitted outside the Garbhagreh... The most typical of the morning arti at Mahakaal Temple is the BhasmArti where ashes from a still burning pyre are brought to be used in the arti...

What caught my attention was a Naga Baba who was standing still throughout the Aarti but suddenly he started moving as if he has the most energy in this world... For the next 20 odd minutes throughout the time when Bhasm Arti was going on, he was the person to look at... AWESOME it was....

We rushed back, picked our bags and rushed to the Railway Station to catch the 0715 Intercity Express back to Bhopal... We were just in time to take the tickets and this time we took the reserved compartment, to see if we could make up for the lack of sleep and manage some during out 4 hour journey back to Bhopal...

The Ganeshji :)

The next 4 hours did not see a lot of activity except me not letting Aro sleep when I did not get to sleep well...

The train reached Bhopal on time and we quickly found a hotel near the station only and planned for the rest of the day... We wanted to go to BhimBethka ( to see the rock paintings) and then again to Bhojpur ( We could not get enough of the place the last afternoon)...

A Bison attacking men...

So we changed, hired a cab and set off to Bhimbethka... The place was without a doubt magical with all those colorful paintings all around... You can read more about the paintings here. and the pictures you can check out below...

The Flying Man...

Ready to go hunting...

Community Dancing and Festivity...

Hunting in Progress...

Mammoths...

The Rock Shelter popularly known as the Zoo Rock...

Community on Rocks... There is a King as well whose horse has flowers all around...

Another one of the paintings...

After a while we moved towards Bhojpur again and spent the rest of the day there...

The Gold that INDIA produces... Wheat...

Harvesting Wheat...

The Shivling at Bhojpur...

Sunset from Bhojpur...

The place is in our hearts... Visible in the shades right now...

The platform at the Bhojpur Temple...

By evening we were back in Bhopal and in the new market area... Did some shopping in Mrignayani and had the best pan in the world at Banarasi Pan Bhandar... I was happy to see that the taste had not changed much in the last few years...

The day that started a li'il too early finally came to an end around 2200 hrs with no plans for our final day in MP... there was a certain amount of satisfaction though in whatever we had in the last 5 days !!! had lived INDIA the way we liked...

and tomorrow was yet another day :)

The Day of Plans and Decisions

The plan was to wake up early and leave for Pachmadi... But then sleep being one of the best things to rest with, we were just not ready to get up... finally managed to leave the beds around 1100 hrs...

Oh.. but I think before I start the story, I need to remind you of what we were doing so far...

Read HERE, for our trip from Delhi to Kanha...

and HERE for Kanha to Piparia...


Ok, now back to the morning in Piparia...

A Hair Dresser/Salon Board in Piparia :)

The foot was better now, thankfully yesterday night's sprain was not there... there was not much thinking to do today... it was just getting up and moving to Pachmadi, which was to be our bunker for the next two days with us intending to walk around the place and explore as much as we can...

The station was not too far, and the buses/jeeps for Pachmadi were on the other side of the station... so we walked up the over-bridge and crossed to see many jeeps, one of which was to take us to our destination...

One of the platforms at the Piparia Station

We hired one, and had to now wait for more passengers to join the jeep before we could move...

Meanwhile, the taxi guy suggested having some food at a nearby restaurant called Naivedya... We ordered a parantha and chole poori there, and manh were they tasty or what !!!

I think we then ate atleast 7 plates of chole poori... paid the bill to Mr Hansmukh Jaiswal who runs and co-owns the place...

7 Up Bottles in Naivedya

The taxi was not still full.. rather we were the only two passengers yet... what followed was a wait of about 1.5 hours before we finally moved...

The Wall of a Deserted Building with an Adult Movie poster near the Taxi Stand in Piparia

People come people went... people stayed people waited and came and went in those 90 minutes... basically I don't remember getting bored at all...

Like I said, People were coming and going...

And Some enjoying their smoke...

The Tempo Gama finally moved... and about 54 kms and and another 90 minutes later we were in Pachmadi... It was interesting to see Deepak, the helper of the taxi, to use the tyre at the back of the car as his seat for these 54 kms... Infact thats where the helpers sit... there is no space for them in the taxi after a total of 14+1 passengers sit in that 8 seater vehicle...

The Tempo Gama...

Someone at our pitstop between Piparia and Pachmadi

Its more or less a jungle Area between these two places... Can imagine how beautiful this would look in rains...

The Developing Country... I see it... Do you?

Spend about an hour roaming around with the taxi wallah to find a decent hotel for ourselves, but did not really find anything interesting... so we moved up hill to see if there was something away from the town... though the taxi guy strongly opposed the idea, we still wanted to check a few places out, which we did and after a while, we asked him to drop us and leave...

A flower in one of the hotels in Pachmadi

I guess me and Aro were not comfortable with the way he was trying to guide our thought process of taking up a room etc... so there we were.. about 3 kms from the main town, and looking for a place for ourselves... checked two hotels and on our way to the third, we stopped to take some rest... i was sitting on the road and i suddenly turned towards Aro and said, lets go back... I don't like this place !!!! And Aro almost freaked out !!! he told me he would have said it in a minute, if I had not...

And the only other photo from Pachmadi :)

so a quick decision later we were laughing and moving back to the taxi stand making the next best plan... where to go now... Indore, Ujjain or Bhopal? or maybe back to Jabalpur and stay put there...

Walked a while, took a lift from a gypsy fellow and reached the Taxi Stand... Some people recognised us from the taxi stand in Piparia, and wondered why the hell were we going back... did not have a convincing answer for them anyway :) However we got talking to a few local there and made a new plan !!! the first leg of which was to reach Piparia and then take a bus to Bhopal !!!

The drive back to Piparia was not the best of all, as there were six people in the last two seats facing each other in that Mahindra, and I almost suffocated myself to death... thanks to two people who stopped the car to puke, I was able to stand outside for a couple of minutes each !!! We finally managed Piparia and rushed to the bus stand only to realize that the last bus to Bhopal leaves at 1730 hrs, and it was already 1800 hrs...the alternative was to take a bus to Hoshangabad and then to Bhopal from there... I was not feeling too well because of the taxi ride back from Pachmadi, and Aro was kind enough to get me some limca while I got the bags loaded and found a decent seat for us !!!

One of temples somewhere on our way to Hoshangabad...

About 2.5 hours and loads of amazing small conversations later we were in Hoshangabad... Could have taken a bus to Bhopal right away, but decided to take a break, eat something and then go from there... There were regular buses to Bhopal till midnight anyway !!!

So we walked out of the bus stand, roamed around a bit and saw one of the most interesting boards in a long long time !!! Ghamandi Lassi !!! this was interesting and called for a drink or two !!! So we were there after a quick steps and feasted on the lovely Lassi!!! nothing special about the brand name here, except that this was a name that was given to the Lassi some 30 odd years ago to attract customers...

Ghamandi Lassi...

Times had changed, and the brothers who set up the juice and lassi shop had split, but the name Ghamandi Lassi remained... The highlight of this pit stop was the Badam Milk though, something that was to be eaten and not fit for drinking... never had badam milk so full of Badam in my life !!! Calls for a celebration, and we did celebrate with 2 glasses each of the Lassi and Badam Milk each !!!!

Don't treat your visitors with this, else they might just stay back...

This is where we met a few locals who suggested that we could stay back in Hoshangabad itself instead of going to Bhopal... visit a local temple there in the morning and then move to Bhopal... get down at Bhojpur to see the Shivling and then proceed to Bhopal... They even recommended a nice hotel nearby called the Vatika to eat and stay... this looked like a decent plan, and we decided to stay back !!!

Walked to the hotel to realize that it was full ( yes... surprising) and because we were in no mood to look for hotels there, we came back to our original plan of going to Bhopal !!! Took a bus from the bus stand, and we were in Bhopal around 2330 hrs.... checked into a hotel near the railway station... moved out to have some food... Ate, came back and crash landed on the bed...

No plans next nothing !!! knew a few places that we wanted to go to !!! but still no plans...

Lets see what happens next morning !!! Looks like its more fun this way :)




__________
Some Information now..

Taxi Fare : 40 bucks per person if you are ok with a total of 15 people in the taxi... if you want more space, be ready to shell out some extra money... We paid 200 bucks on our way to Pachmadi for the two of us as we practically took 4 seats ( Fat guys we are) and 40 bucks were the "you are new to this place" charge... The taxi has to earn Rs. 600 per trip, and that gets divided...

Hotel Tariff in Piparia in Alka Lodge : Rs. 400 for an AC room... no electricity backup though...

Hotel Tariff in Pachmadi : Anything between Rs. 350 to Rs. 2000. Try and not roam around with Taxi walas to save 50-200 bucks on your tariff... The high end hotels are outside the town, further uphill...

Roaming around in Pachmadi : The only option is Taxis, which can be hired exclusively for about 1000 bucks a day or shared with someone... There are tickets to enter the common interest points as well, and be prepared to see a lot of honeymooners around the area...

Piparia to Hoshangabad bus fare : Rs. 50 per head; Travel time around 2 hours...

Hoshangabad to Bhopal bus fare : Rs. 40 per head; Travel time around 2 hours...

3000 kms of India : Finally it started

A few trips are exciting even before they start, and more often then not thats how it happens with me...

A plan to trek, getting converted into living a few days in towns with people to everything getting canceled, my travel plans changing to go to Mumbai/Goa, to the original plan coming to life again suddenly to tatkal booking of the exit tickets from Delhi... it all happened for the last one week, which I spent away from everything and close to myself and yes Aro was around too...

He happens to me one of my best co travelers... for reasons which are strange... We usually argue a lot when we talk, and most of the time we are not talking as we have different agendas when we travel together ( can't really say what though)... his walk pace is very different then me and that helps with some space too... the bottom line is he is one of the best people to travel with and I can find 100 best most stupid reasons as well to prove that point...

So back to the trip...

We finally decided that we were going to Kanha from Delhi and thats all we knew... rest was going to Fluid... I got the tickets on Friday, and made the bookings the same day in Mogli Resorts, Kanha on Friday....

Saturday... in the afternoon, my dear friend Aro calls me and tells me that he and Sanjit were lost in Delhi and did not know how to reach NOIDA... it was just about 90 minutes before our train was to leave... fantastic... the excitement starts a li'il earlier than expected...

and India saw the introduction of a new GPS device that day... Prashant Bhardwaj... I was with him on the phone for about 35 odd minutes guiding the ways and turns before they finally managed to reach NOIDA...

A quick lunch and 20 minutes to the departure, we rushed... thanks to the DND we were at the platform number 4, to catch the Gondwana Express well in time...

now this was one long train, 20 coaches to be exact. The reason, the train splits into 2 somewhere in MP and half of it goes to Bilaspur and the rest to Jabalpur...

Our seats 1, and 2 were in the Coach B1 which was I think third to the last coach on the looooooong train which we managed to reach after walking for a mile I guess... but we did :)

The Coach B1 of Gondwana Express to Jabalpur

Being in a train coach is a great feeling.. specially the ones in which you can sleep :) After spending sometime, I was dying to be in the train in India.. and here I was... lovely... put our bags in place... and settled...


The train moved at the right time, and we were off... yippieeeeeeeee....

Halt just before Mathura Junction...

Travelling in a train is no fun if you cannot stand at the door watching the world being left behind :) so after about 30 minutes I was out talking to our coach attendents Vinod and Vinod and sitting on the wooden plank which was there for the attendants next to the doors...

Vinod and Vinod...The coach attendants of B1 (there were 6 attendants who were Vinod on this train)

I think I must have spent a good 3 hours in all on that plank in the evening, and then again in the night just staring into space and not doing anything else...

My favorite seat in the entire coach :)

Even managed some sleep on it the next morning with the early morning sunrays kissing my face, and the colder than cool breeze reminding me of the presence of the cold weather...

The naughty friend we made, Raghav and his father enjoying the morning sun from their seats...

As expected, conversations started and did not stop during our entire journey to Jabalpur... we got a number of tips from our co passengers on what do and when... we even tried making some amendments to our plan, but managed to stick to the original which was to go to Kanha straight after getting off the train...

Oh and if you are traveling on that route, then instead of eating the food in the train, you can order food from Comesum @ Agra Cantt... the numbers are : 0562-3296410/11.. just call them about 30 odd minutes before you are reaching and tell them your train name, coach and seat numbers. The food would be delivered at your seat... Also make sure that you ask for the bill amount and arrange for exact change to pay because more often than not the person who comes with your packet would not come with any change, or less than what you should get back so that he can make some money...

I woke up at 0530 hrs to realize that the train was not moving... We were at the Katni Station (The place to get down it you are going to Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve, which is about 40 kms away) Had some tea and an interesting conversation with the Tea wallah there... He was a PGDCA, however did not have steady job and decided to sell tea at the station instead of sitting idle at home... he also mentioned that the rest of the boys at the station were graduates with no jobs... not a happy situation, but what helps is that fact that they decided to work hard for a living instead of not doing anything else... Another interesting comment that he made was that put an idiot on the railway station for 3 months and he would transform into an Insaan ( read Smart Ass) in that time... giving his own example he said that he did not have a clue on how to survive there about 2 months back, but had matured and knew people by the sheer looks, and body language much better now...

We reached Jabalpur around 0800 hrs Saturday.. and our agenda was now to get a ticket for our return journey (Bhopal to Delhi)... Aro filled the form and stood in the line and was thrown out of it after 35 minutes because the lady refused to give him a ticket... well because we did not know the train numbers that will go from Bhopal to Delhi, and we were supposed to know it before we ask her for a ticket... I am wondering if there are 10 trains, do I need to fill in 10 forms and then try or once she tells us that there is no space, we find a different train number and stand in the line again.. Anyway, we decided that we go the safe IRCTC way and took a rickshaw to Russel Chawk to find an internet cafe...

A Mazaar near the Empire Cinema.. the name was interesting...

Fresh Dosas being made for us :) at Russel Chawk...

Decided to eat first, and had some nice Idli Dosa at a roadside thela before we found an internet cafe and booked our tickets from Bhopal to Delhi for the next Saturday...

Now the next stop was the City Bus Stop and we were to find a bus to Mandla, and then take a bus to Kanha from there...

Mandla Bus Stand

The distance we were to travel was about 156 kms with one change of bus... the bus left @ 1030 hrs and reached Mandla ( about 96 kms) at 1330 hrs, which is where we realized that the bus to Kanha was the bus which was coming from Jabalpur only... But this was a welcome break after sitting in the bus for about 3 hours already... so some tea, cold drinks, tea later the bus to Kanha arrived... A smaller but more comfortable bus, and was to move to Kanha at 1400 hrs... I got talking to the conductor and realised that we were still a good 2.5 hours away from Kanha... He was also kind enough to force me to eat a parantha from his lunch, and it was the yummiest thing I had eaten in the last 18 hours...


The bus moved and thanks to a seat at the back, I was able to observe much more than our previous bus in which I was sitting on the first seat... What follows are some pictures from my seat in the bus... People standing, People sitting, people looking for a seat, and people just looking, relaxing or listening to radio... loved every bit of it...



On one of our pit stops in Mocha ( not pronounced Moka, but Mocha like in Locha) I had tea with sugar and Salt... needless to say it tasted pretty different and nice... I am looking forward to having that again sometime... one of the reasons why Tiwariji liked to drink the sweet-salted tea is because it helped clean the throat after inhaling a lot of smoke and dust over the day on that route...

I was both surprised and happy at the condition of the roads in MP so far, and also was glad to see a lot of boards, signs, hoardings demonstrating a lot of work happening on the ground level in the state related to employment, child education, girl education and insurance, personal sanitation (something similar to the project I clicked in Chattisgarh)...

Many pictures, conversations, and long/short stops later, the bus managed by Mr. Srikant Tiwari reached Kanha where a gypsy from our resort picked us up...

Tiwari ji on the right...

Approximately 27 hours later, we were finally in a room.. a huge one and in the middle of almost nowhere... Mogli Resort is in the buffer area of Kanha and for all practical purpose, is a part of the forest itself... so I have to mention that walking around in the dark was pretty scary with all those freaky sounds... Aro somehow was enjoying my fear and was laughing his ass out for nothing !!!

We were to leave for the safari at 0530 hrs in the morning and we finally called it a day @ 2200 hrs... pretty long and satisfying journey this was...

The path in the Mogli Resort Lit with Bulb Lanterns in the night

Now some objective information...
How to Reach Kanha:
Take a train to Jabalpur and then a bus/taxi from there to Kanha... Delhi Kanha in a train would take about 17-18 hours and a 3rd Tier AC ticket would cost about Rs. 900.
Jabalpur station to City Bus Stand:
Can take a Metro Bus Service ( Rs. 5 per head)
Shared Auto ( Rs. 5 per head again)
Cycle Rickshaw ( Rs. 15) Auto (Rs. 20)
Jabalpur to Mandla:
Rs. 50 per head
Distance : 96 kms
Time : 3 hours approx
Mandla to Kanha:
Rs. 38 per head
Distance : 60 kms
Time : 3 hours approx

There are just about 4 buses that run between Mandla and Kanha which makes the travel time higher because they move slow and pick up as many passengers as they can...

Another alternative is to take the fast bus from Jabalpur @ 0700 hrs which reaches Kanha @ 1330 hrs.