It's not everyday that you end up thousands of miles away from your base on a random weekend trip without taking a single flight (but everything else), but so it happened and how!
Before I go on with my accounts of the trip, watch this beautiful video by the MP tourism board:
Before I go on with my accounts of the trip, watch this beautiful video by the MP tourism board:
Planning to visit the Tiger Reserve at Pench, Madhya Pradesh (Literally the heart of India!) over a weekend, we took a train from Hyderabad to Nagpur.
However on reaching the sanctuary, we were told to expect to be disappointed as tiger sightings in the reserve have been rare, if not zilch. Demotivated by this advisory and the steep safari rates for just the both of us, we missed the safari altogether and just spent the evening at a beautiful resort tucked away in the middle of the Pench forest.
Since we were in MP, the home to some of India's most beautiful sights, we decided to visit Khajuraho- a temple town, famous the world over for its Kamasutra temples- or basically pornography from the ancient times!
After surviving a volatile journey in a bus, that wouldn’t stop convoluting thanks to the craters on the infamous MP roads, we reached Jabalpur in the wee hours of the morning and had a glorious breakfast comprising of the famous MP Poha and tea before moving on take a train to Satna towards our final destination. We boarded a local passenger train towards Satna in the morning & a 3hour journey in this passenger train involved sitting on the luggage seat, making small talk with a bunch of local kids. After another bus and shared auto ride, we finally reached Khajuraho in the evening and after a bit of sightseeing and roaming around, attended the 'sound & light' show which basically entails 3D projection mapping of the history of Khajuraho on the temple surfaces, making for a beautiful spectacle under the already starlit sky!
After surviving a volatile journey in a bus, that wouldn’t stop convoluting thanks to the craters on the infamous MP roads, we reached Jabalpur in the wee hours of the morning and had a glorious breakfast comprising of the famous MP Poha and tea before moving on take a train to Satna towards our final destination. We boarded a local passenger train towards Satna in the morning & a 3hour journey in this passenger train involved sitting on the luggage seat, making small talk with a bunch of local kids. After another bus and shared auto ride, we finally reached Khajuraho in the evening and after a bit of sightseeing and roaming around, attended the 'sound & light' show which basically entails 3D projection mapping of the history of Khajuraho on the temple surfaces, making for a beautiful spectacle under the already starlit sky!
Here are some of the photos from the trip. (My DLSR gave away to my humble phone camera towards the middle of the trip, i.e. Orccha onwards so excuse me for the drop in quality)
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| The very awesome breakfast outside one of the temples in Khajuraho. Notice the fridge magnet and the risque keychain there! |
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| The self-appointed tour guide pointed to the various deities and legends on the temple with the help of a mirror! |
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| Kids learn to pose early these days |
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| For some perspective |
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| I'd put off putting my shoes. |
After finishing the “temple run” in Khajuraho, we boarded the train to Jhansi
This was one of the best parts of the trip, a source of much entertainment and mirth. Because we hadn’t been prudent enough to make any reservations in advance for a proper seat, both of us decided to rough it out in the general compartment and how! We sat squeezed in the compartment, where thankfully and almost miraculously, we found a corner to sit, with the beedi-smoking, sharp-featured, colourful locals of MP and shared some of the best moments of the journey, knowing and appreciating that we both could have a great travel experience without caring in the least about luxury or creature comforts.
Orccha turned out to be the surprise package of the trip! A small, barely known town, as big as banjara hills, tucked away in a corner of MP and just as we got off the bus, a large castle-style fort materialised in the front!
We trekked up to the Orccha fort, and the other fort and were enamoured by its grandeur and style and were thankful for this little detour that landed us there.
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| Orchha fort |
This was the last chapter in our trip and a couple of hours later we boarded the train back to Hyderabad.
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| And these happened. |