The weekend trip with the wing was a wonderful and satisfying experience. The idea of writing about the trip came about when I stood at the edge of the highest point in Madhya Pradesh, facing strong cold breezes, watching the red sun rise. Not really, I just put the previous line to dramatize the prologue a bit.
Our fourteen-strong group boarded the train, the Lucknow-Chennai express, from the Kanpur Central station on the evening of 17th Feb. I found out that the sleeper class is excellent for travelling in a group since there is something about air-conditioned berths and elevators that one feels the unnecessary need to keep silent. So we decided to plan on the trip, played cards and a game of dumb charades.Everybody was at the top of their voice. People around were curiously looking at the group which made it all the more humorous.
We got down at the Itarsi junction at around 6:30 am and bought tickets of a local train to Hoshangabad nearby. But with the train due to come 2hrs later, we decided to take a random train heading the same way. We jumped on the Punjab mail and came to know that there was some fair/fest going on and like our group, others were going to Hoshangabad illegally as well. I stood at the edge of our coach jam packed with ladies. In this hurry, someone in our group lost the packet containing my sandals and slippers. I could just smile at myself. Well, another first.
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| en route |
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| on the bus |
We then took a bus to Pachmarhi on affordable tickets. Initially level, the road was steeping as soon as we arrived at the outskirts of the hill station. The weather began to cool and we could see bright yellow leaves of the spring. Combined with the blue-green mountain-landscape, we were delighted with the visual treat on offer. People (well, only me) began to experiment with continuous shots of the surroundings using Arnab's spanking new Nikon. We arrived at the bus stop and finally settled for the DeLite hotel which offered us two comfortable rooms for total of around twelve hundred and fifty rupees a day.
We had our lunch and the first destination of the day was the Jatashankar caves. The origin of the nomenclature is related to Shankar, the mighty god of Indian mythology. The caves are something out of the ordinary. The place is holy and the guides there organize a very entertaining tour to the bottom 400ft below. The name of our guide was Cobra and all the guides are named similarly. Cobra's pal Black Diamond informed us that their chief goes by Anaconda. The tour points out various striking similarities of the rock features to Hindu mythological characters. Although I was skeptical, but many rock-features were too good to ignore. There was the lion, the vehicle of goddess Durga; then there was a rock Ganesh, sandstone crocodile, a rock bull and the shesh nag as well. I had a doubt about the region between two cliffs being called the map of south India. One thing for certain - religious travelers would have been mesmerized.
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| the pathway to Jatashankar with high rock walls on both sides |
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| lion-esque rock feature (Durga's vehicle) |
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coral brought from rameshwaram, the floating stones used by the monkey army of Ram to go to Lanka |
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| route to the bottom |
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| size of an onion which grows exclusively in that area and used in making herbs |
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| similar to south India |
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| bottom of the cave; really cold water |
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| Cobra :) |
The bottom of the cave had really cold water and gave a feel similar to 127 hours , but more realistic and enchanting. They have also set up stalls selling religious books like hanuman chalisa et al. I bought myself a toy-catapult and a herb-based powder for stomach (it does work amazingly, my experience back home suggests). We left the caves at around dusk and felt that it was a wonderful start. We went back to our nest to catch some sleep after hiring a gypsy for 3k bucks. An awesome day followed..
We had to be up by 4 am and that was a drag. Everybody was sleepy-eyed as the car made its way through to the top of Dhupgarh hill, the highest point of the region. We were quite amazed at the fact that the road leading to the sunrise point had a slope of 45 degrees if not more.The weather there was quite cool and a sizeable crowd was present. A yellow moon behind us, it was a tiring wait for the sun. The panoramic view of the surrounding valley was quite sobering and most of us were rendered silent.
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| the sunrise point, dhupgarh |
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| the moon (i swear it looked much bigger there) |
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| the couple of our wing |
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| like father like |
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| wider view |
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| spectators |
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On the opposite end of the cliff, the sunset point is equally impressive Next up was Reechgarh, famous for a cave inside a cave and a huge pit. I can't describe more and was not the most impressive place I saw, so.. check out the pictures themselves-    low angle experiment by Arnab Dhabal The only interesting part was the five-second wonder and delight at the massiveness of the pit. Otherwise hmmmm... only suited for low angle photography professionals (our group had one) :( The nice part about Pachmarhi is that any two spots are not very far from each other. So, in no time we had come to the area outside the Bee falls. We ate stupidly overpriced maggi and poha like hungry dogs. And I ate to the point that I was looking pregnant. Okay, now I am pumped up to tell you about the best portion of the trip- the Bee falls. 'One of the better things I've ever seen' to put it mildly. A loooong winding staircase led us to the bottom of the gorge where cold water fell from a height of 200 feet. The stairs were unending and the fatsos of our group were already feeling upset as the thought of climbing these stairs back again haunted them.
random web 
 The previous joke apart, I, the avant-garde of the group, could not go further and this point has been henceforth named the C-Top dead end. Bahoot maajo aayo To sum up the day, we went to the Pandava caves and the site of the monsterous Dutchess falls.  the Pandav caves   bheem  Well, after the caves, it was all awe-inspiring. We had set-up another guide to take us through the jungle. He showed us prints of a bear which might have come during the night; ate a very bitter medicinal leaf (dont recall the name) and some other entertaining stuff. Then we were led on to the following view-point:    After that we were to see the following small fall. A sequence from Shahrukh Khan-Kareena Kapoor starrer Ashoka was shot here. Kareena bathed here for a song sequence to be precise. We all were like :)  Apsara falls; was so named when the tribals saw white british women bathing and confused them to be angels. There was another site close by called Paanchali, and had five kiddie falls together. That was it for the day. Before I go ahead, I would allocate some space for the people I met in Panchmarhi. The people are very sincere and humble. When I needed some directions, they helped readily. They have a different accent and a strange hindi dialect as well. The men are more visible and the women seem shy. Middle-aged uncles maintain stylish and thick moustaches; and the women have soft earthly-coloured skin and large beautiful eyes. The foreign tourists seemed to be at ease as well.I recall an instance when the locals invited them to dance at a dhol practice- middle of the night.  Our next stop were the Bhimbetka rock shelters en route to Bhopal. Wikipedia says the following on the Bhimbetka rock shelters- "World Heritage site located in Raisen District in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The Bhimbetka shelters exhibit the earliest traces of human life in India; a number of analyses suggest that at least some of these shelters were inhabited by man for in excess of 100,000 years. Some of the Stone Age rock paintings found among the Bhimbetka rock shelters are approximately 30,000 years old". And the place was no less epic.      another one      another low angle shot   My great1000 grandfather might have been here. So this was cool too. Then we were out, we didn't have a bus, couldn't afford a car. So what did we do? We jumped on a random truck- all the fourteen of us.. and made our way to Bhopal- right on time!  |
