Travelogue: Pachmarhi Trip - Day 3

After a good sleep at Highland Hotel, Pachmarhi, we were fresh for the adventure that awaited us the next day. Hotel is, almost, in the middle of the forest, so we were excited to hear the chirping of Birds and to feel the freshness of the air. Sound was evident enough in the room, but its intensity increased as I walked out of the room. To enjoy the aroma and the nature little more, I went for a small walk in the forest.

I walked on the main road connecting A to the outside world. The air was fresh and cold. Everything, in the morning, oozed serenity and provided rejuvenation to the body. After a short time, Mayuri joined me. After spending half an hour, we returned to the hotel, to prepare for the day’s adventure.

We had fixed the driver in the evening so that we could start early in the morning. Though we asked him to come at 8:00 Am to start the trip early, but Mr. Pappu came at, his usual time, 10 AM. So from the beginning, we were already 2 hours late.

Without wasting time, We started to the base of the Dhoopgarh. Dhoopgarh is the second highest point of Madhya Pradesh. Dhoopgarh is primarily known for Shiva temple. Devotees offer Trishul to Lord Shiva when Shiva fulfills their wishes. After reaching the top, you can see the Trishul lying in the heap weighing 1 kilogram to 100s of kilograms. According to our guides/instructors, it was only 1700 steps to the top. Mayuri was sure that she could finish this climb within 1.5 hours as she has already climbed 10,000 steps at Girnar Mountains.

It was hardly a 30 minutes drive to the base of Dhoopgarh. We were told to choose LEFT on all the turns that helped us the most in our journey. As soon as we entered the forest, there was any other soul except us. At the start of the journey, there was a temple inside a cave, and a Panda was sitting to shed his boon on people who were reducing burden of their pockets. After choosing LEFT for 3-4 times, we reached a point where it was tough to decide the correct path. Even after having the urge to move to RIGHT (Because it seemed the correct path to us), we took the LEFT turn.

We were already in the dense forest, and we were unable to locate a walkable path. Even though, we were scared, but we kept moving in the same direction. Soon enough we realized that we took the right decision. We saw the people who were climbing the staircases. It took us approximately half an hour from parking to stairs starting point.

Oops, Vishal it is not merely 1,700 stairs. Let me rest a little

Soon enough we realized that 1,700 was not merely the steps instead it was a jungle walk of approximately 3 Kms each side. After one and an hour, we were at the peak. As told by villagers, devotees have offered so many Trishul that it has become difficult to maintain all these in the temple. So such unwanted offers (Offers with no resale value) all were lying on the ground of the temple.

Forest, we reached from one end to another in this forest.

I went inside the under construction temple without considering that two monkeys were already in the fight over the offerings offered to Shivling. These both little monkeys considered me as another shareholder, so, according to the game plan, one monkey ran away with the offering whereas another monkey tried to scare me off from the temple. But it was an over smart creature. So instead of providing me the chance to run, it caged me inside the boundaries, built with Iron Pipes. It was sitting on the top of the door, which was the only way to come out of the cage. I convinced myself of the intentions of Chota monkey after throwing few nervous glances at the monkey. I submitted in this fight without imagining the upcoming scenes and requested an outsider to help me. As soon as Chota Monkey saw me resigning in the Man2Monkey fight, it considered me a waste of time and left the premise after another monkey who had already started enjoying the offering.

Heap of Trishul, Do you believe me Now?

We returned to our Jeep within another hour. It was a nice walk in the middle of the Jungle. It would have been a better and enjoyable walk if there were not any stairs.

Picture Perfect, my beautiful wife

We visited another Shiva temple that is situated at the base, and the idol is established in the middle of a cave. Though there were others temples on the hill, but I did not have any intention to meet all the gods, so I skipped a few. On the way back to Market, we checked other viewpoints.

On the way to another view points

For lunch, we were dropped at Nandanvan restaurant. All the drivers drop their customers to the same restaurant. The restaurant is located on the four-way road and edge of the forest. So location can be one reason that all the drivers chose the same location. However, food at restaurant was tasty as well as cheap. Pappu came within half an hour after finishing his lunch.

Shortly we started for Pandav caves. Buddha followers used these caves for the living purpose. These caves are referred as Pandava caves because number of caves is five. But people linked these caves to Pandava’s. Entry/exit for these caves is from a well-maintained garden developed by local authorities. This garden serves as a nice picnic spot for the local people.

Pandav Caves

From the Pandav caves, we moved to the Panchmarhi Lake. It is not a huge water body, but it attracts lots of people and offers various fun activities including boating, chit chatting over the coffee, and horse riding. As per the information received later, the lake is a water collection pool that serves the people of Pachmarhi in case of the water problem in the area.

Munmun, in the backdrop the beautiful lake and sunset

Now it was time for our last but most awaiting sight i.e. Sunset point of the day. As always rising sun and setting sun generates the magic with the help of sky, but in mountains that enigmatic beauty multiplies to manifolds due to support of these hills. We waited patiently for the sun to go down behind the mountains. It moved slowly and intently. As if it was telling us that it is not the end but the preparation of better tomorrow.We sat for some more time to salute the surroundings to give us the joyous day. 

Sunset point at Pachmarhi

Pappu dropped us back to our hotel room. We enjoyed the dinner at Hotel Highland. It was tasty and fabulous. Mr. Jeet and another friend were our guests of honor today. After seeing off our guests, we retired to our room, to get ready for another fun-filled day that included a trek to waterfall from Jungles.

Travelogue: Pachmarhi Trip - Day 2

We had planned to reach Pachmarhi as soon as possible; so second day we left the hotel room by 8:00 AM without wasting time in breakfast. I didn’t know that there are no government buses in Bhopal. Public Buses, essential for intercity transfers, were not operated in Bhopal for last 10 years. Bus stands were in complete mess and buses were running on the mercy of local transporters. I asked the conductor about the timings of the bus; conductor told me that bus would start as soon as there are enough passengers in the bus, and accordingly to bus conductor the bus would take 6-7 hours to reach Pachmarhi, hardly 200 km from Bhopal. Hell, we ditched the plans to take the bus instead planned to take the train which was running 2 hours late from the scheduled time.

Anyway it gave us the chance to taste Poha and Jalebi. Oh, but the Poha were not as good as I expected. (Later, I came to know that in Bhopal Indori Poha are not served; instead shopkeepers are misusing the name of Indori Pohas). After trying it at various shops, I gave up. We boarded in the train after waiting for 3 hours at railway station, but reached to Pipariya Junction by 1 o’clock.

It was not hard to find a vehicle to take us to Pachmarhi from Pipariya. We found a cab and within an hour we reached Pachmarhi. On our journey we were told mysterious stories on the vehicle. A guide and a family told us that a lady must not keep her hairs open and walk outside the room. Another mystery was about a pool where people die without any significant reason. According to them, there are various mysterious stories about the place and all the deities of the region must be provided enough reverence from the tourists.

We were planning to check the facilities in the hotel that is run by MP tourism. So we planned to stay with Hotel Highland, Pachmarhi. Though driver and guide tried to convince us to not to take the hotel, but we were adamant to check the facilities in the Hotel. Later we found that hotel rooms were quite good and spacious. We spoke to the manager and told him the purpose of our visit. He gave us some insightful information about the place, and rejected all the myths that locals told us.

There are numerous places to visit in Pachmarhi, so based on the time available we sorted out the important places. We were planning to start the tour in the evening but the driver asked us a exorbitant amount for the ride in the evening. So we dropped the plans to visit any place except Jata Shankar which is just a km walk from the hotel.

Jata Shankar Temple

We planned to walk to the Jata Shankar, a temple in the middle of mountains. Kids, as guides, were eager to guide us to the caves. We hired one guide to understand more about the place but later we felt that guides were fooling people, though it did not matter much. Guide told us about the quality of medical herbs present in Satpura range, and it was quite a important information to us.

My Partner in Crime and My Wifey

We visited the place and later met Jeet. Jeet, lieutenant of Indian army, was undergoing training in Pachmarhi. We went to the market with Jeet and his friend. We spend some time in market. In the market we had awesome Samosas at Laxmi restaurant. End of the day we enjoyed our dinner at Highland hotel, and retired to our room.

Travelogue: Pachmarhi Trip - Day 1

In the process of exploration, we had already covers ten and more destinations in this year. In the continuation of our exploration, we were planning to explore unseen and less explored beauty of India so we decided to visit Bhopal, the capital city of Madhya Pradesh, and Pachmarhi, a hill Station in Satpura mountain Range.

We reached Bhopal in the morning. The biggest task, after reaching Bhopal, was to find a decent hotel to rest a little. Auto drivers offered us the rides within 20 rupees to some good family hotels. But being a shrewd person, I declined all such offers. It made me struggle for almost half an hour, and finally I got an indecent hotel in cheap rate.

At 10 AM, we checked out the hotel assuming that we could cover Bhopal by lunch time, and start for Pachmarhi. We started our trip with Laxmi Narayan Temple. Though the temple is new and it’s just like any other Hindu temple, but it offers a panoramic view of Bhopal overlooking both the lakes and other important monuments. As temple didn’t offer much, so we excluded remaining temples from our itinerary.

Laxmi Narayan Temple, Bhopal.

We moved to Birla museum which is adjacent to the temple. The museum exhibits the demolished but beautiful idols, ancient art object and artillery, and other objects representing the life style of people living in ancient Madhya Pradesh. All these artifacts were found during the excavation of various sites across the state. There were innumerable items to observe; so we rushed through them after examining a few with complete intent. Oh! I do not have any photographs from the gallery, as the guard kept an eye on us only.

Our auto driver was kind enough to leave us near Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya - National Museum of Mankind which is situated next to the Bari Lake. We filled our tummy in a restaurant near the lake. Don’t expect to fill your tummy with the things you desire, because these restaurants do not operate fully until noon.

We started exploring the national museum of mankind with the intent to finish the tour within an hour. This museum can be divided in two major areas i.e. outbound and inbound. Outbound area is spread across various hectors to demonstrate the life style, home, culture of various tribes, people, and states, whereas inbound area exhibits the human evolution, living style of various tribes of India.

We ignored few of the places on the way. First major halt was at Fisherman village. It village was primarily to represent the living style of fisher mans across country. In the similar fashion, living styles of various states i.e. Rajasthani, Gujrati, Oriya, Keralite, Nagpura, and etc and its tribe were demonstrated on the way to internal museum. We were really exhausted by the time we reached to the inbound museum.

Gallery to demonstrate the Art work of various states

Poles erected in front of a tribe house, Outbound portion of the Museum

Creations of a porter

Inbound museum has 13 galleries in it. Each gallery is rich with thousands of artifacts about the style, living, fashion, ornaments, rituals, weapons, and etc. It became way too difficult to keep track of each and every artifact. Information received today was way too more than a mind could hold. Now every new area or gallery was becoming intolerable. We were looking for food as we had already spent 4 hours in the museum.

Oriya tribe's house

The only restaurant, approved by central government, was another 500 meters away from the inbound museum. To add to our existing irony, there was not any meal available for next one hour. Anyway we managed to flatter the owner and sneak out two plates for us after waiting for 30 minutes. We had already missed our deadlines, but we were still positive about leaving Bhopal. So we planned to drop by at another important sight for 15 minutes only.

Van Vihar is a zoo situated next to the lake. Animals are not sheltered into cages but they have been provided enough space to survive. We hired bicycle, provided by MP tourism, to stroll through Van Vihar. It took us around 3 hours to cover the complete zoo on bicycles. It was the ride of approximately 12 km in the zoo. We were ecstatic with the use of bicycle after so many years in such a beautiful environment.

We getting ready for our ride in the park/zoo/Van Vihar

Lake glitters with the light of Run, on the way back from Van Vihar

Now we were sure that it was not possible to leave Bhopal today, so we relaxed at the lake for a while. Gathering, in the evening, near the lake was very similar to a fair in a town. People of various ages were swarming it. Couples were sitting under a tree shade and were engulfed with each other without the knowledge of people around. Elderly folks were walking briskly to keep their body and soul intact. Ladies were all around eatery stalls, and boating facilities. Due to a little emergency, we had to leave the place little earlier than planned, but it all was fun to become a spectator of such a lively environment.