Mandla Trip - III

Continued from Mandla Trip - II

After having lunch, we started around 2.30 pm for Jabalpur. Main plan was to see Dhuandhar waterfalls and Marble Rocks, both in Bheda Ghat area.

 This was the route. As shown in the map, we thought we'd reach within couple of hours.

But the road wasn't great, compared to what we saw while going to Amarkantak. I think the roads were battered during the monsoons. Although the road seemed alright most of the time, suddenly there would be a pothole. And it was also raining in between. So we went much slower than we thought. We reached Jabalpur by around 4.30 pm, instead of 3.30 pm.

First up was Ghughara Falls. Although not very popular, it was on the way to Dhuandhar Falls, so we decided to visit but not spend much time there.

There wasn't much to see. The water flow seemed quite strong. But we wondered why this was even called a waterfall. Perhaps that's why it wasn't so popular. There were very few people too.

So we didn't even go near it, just saw it from a distance and moved on.

For the first time, took a decent picture of an exotic bird in the bushes.

We talk about silver lining, but don't often capture it on camera (the black lines are electricity cables, these pictures were taken in a hurry from the car).

 

An airplane in the sky.

We reached Dhuandhar falls ('Dhuandhar' pronounced as 'dhu-aa-dhaar', both the 'dh...' rhyming with 'th' of 'this') around 5 pm.

There was a lot of perpetration going on, some VIP was visiting. A podium and dais were setup, along with a lot of lighting and seating. Got to know later that it was for some local politician, Rakesh Sinha.

Also if you noticed, there's a ropeway above the waterfalls, but we went straight towards the waterfalls skipping the ropeway tour since it was already getting dark.

On the way to waterfalls were a lot of shops selling marble-carved sculptures.

There was a huge crowd around the waterfall.

We found out why it's called by that name. It splashes a lot, and there's a "smoke" formed by water vapors or the smoke cascade.

No one's allowed near the water. Barriers and fences were setup at all places.

A little further away from the waterfalls, on the way to Marble Rocks, was Pachmatha temple.

It was dark by the time we reached Marble rocks, but it was almost full moon.

We couldn't take any proper pictures due to poor light.

However, without flash and a still hand, managed to get a not-so-bad picture of the water.

We left around 8 pm, had dinner at ICH (Indian Coffee House) in Jabalpur - we had dosas since they seemed to be very popular in that restaurant. On the way back, we saw a fox and jackal on the road, since we were driving through reserve forest. We reached Mandla by 11 pm.

7 October
There wasn't much planned for this day. We wanted to drive back home the next day so didn't want to go very far.

So we went to the Hot water spring at Babeha in morning, about 20 km from our place. It's not a popular place that we could find on Google maps, so we had to rely on boards set up by the state tourism department.

At first, it seemed like we were the only ones around.

But there were few other vehicles too.

There was a crowd when we went, so didn't take pictures since people were swimming (actually they were bathing without using soap) in the water. We too changed and got in. But by the time we wanted to leave, almost everyone had left. Perhaps people come very early in the mornings to visit this place.

The water seemed warm when we first stepped in, at around 8.30 am. However, as the outside temperature rose, by about 9.30 am, the water seemed colder. So it was only lukewarm.

The well was surrounded on all sides by the Narmada river water and further by trees. It seems this was a reserve forest. So there are chances of finding wildlife.

But all we saw were butterflies.

Later in the day we went to the closing ceremony of the wildlife week being organized by the Kanha Tiger Reserve authorities.

Some paintings on display there.

After the ceremony, we went to the temple beside Narmada river to see the worship. It was late by the time we returned, so couldn't get fish for dinner.

8 October
Plan for the day was simply to drive back to Hyderabad.

We started at 6 am from the house. I wanted to start even early but there was no point. It's too foggy in the mornings. Also there's too much cattle on roads at that time.

This was the last view of river Narmada that we got so used to in past few days.

Luckily there weren't many natural speed breakers (cattle on roads).
We stopped at Keolari for breakfast around 8 am, very close to Pench Tiger Reserve. As usual it was Poha-jalebi. I ate jalebi, the others had poha.

Around 1.30 pm, we had lunch somewhere after Nagpur. We spotted a huge number of lorries parked near a dhaba, so thought it might be a good place. Turned out it was the cheapest dhaba we ever had lunch. The food was alright, but everything was crude.

We took a small diversion to Pochera waterfalls since we had a lot of time and knew the road is going to be goo.

It was also a welcome break for me after driving the horrible stretch of road after Nagpur until Adilabad.

At the top is a statue, probably representing the river goddess.

There was a warning saying the stones are extremely slippery.

Despite the warning people were going in, so I too ventured. But slipped and sprained my left toe.

The waterfall had multiple steps. This was the lower part.

This was the pool that formed at the bottom.

We saw some variety cacti here.

After the short detour, we were back on the National highway by 4 pm.
We reached Medchal by 5 pm. If there was no traffic, we would have reached home in less than an hour. However, we had hit the peak hour traffic. It was about 9 pm when we reached our home, after dropping Revanth at his place.

The total distance traveled was 2290 KM (our gate, and back at gate a week later). I had driven all of it. Except the last stretch, driving in city traffic, I felt great driving throughout our journey.

Credits:
* All pictures with prefix "IMG_" were taken by our mom.
* Pictures with prefix "P11" were taken by our sis and a few by Revanth (especially in the Elephant Rejuvenation Camp).
* Pictures prefixed with "P10" and that seemed like they were taken from the car while traveling were taken by Revanth (except in KTR when we were in the Gypsy). Also, some of the rangoli and last day ceremony pictures were taken by him.
* All remaining pictures were taken by me, which is actually the majority of pics posted on this blog :-)