week 9 logs

World's largest Shiv Ling - at Bhojpur - 11th century!

Saurabh at Omkareshwar

Omkareshwar

Saurabh tickling Narmada's navel

Nabi kund - narmada's navel - middle point from Amarkund to Arabian Sea

Party - drums, group and couple dance. 8000 yrs old

Gallery cave - 3 overlays across centuries

500 yrs ago and now. same manual labor

Disgruntled vandal foreigner - cant do the conversion! see note below

well where ppl would jump to escape invaders - who think they commit suicide. but they come out via this route :)

India's first Arabic university-later Asharafi mahal - fat women from the 15000 strong harem would be made to climb up and down 7 floors.

Roopmati's pavilion-erected in 48 hrs for her to see the Narmada.

Jedi asking - for trouble?

rest of the photos as usual on Flickr

Day 57 jun 19 fri
Sendhua – Mhow - Indore
NH3
168 kms
Decision to skip Mandu and head to Indore where we can get cyber café access and ICICI bank. More of crap highway and heat and winds. Stop at bhang shop and gingerly try one glass between us.
Cool stop at mhow and cybercafeing. More cocky boys. Lots of boy/teens loitering around in MP. Electricity cut so travel plans cant be solidified in Mhow. Head to Indore.
Reach Indore and find cyber café. Finalize ananya travel plan to Calcutta and book tickets. Have to repack and reach airport. Find the airport – actually miss the entrance and have to circle back. Only 2 hotels so far in this stretch. Head back and find place near gangwal bus stand. Jedi gives up the books and extra clothes – hopefully should be lighter load. Jedi and ananya both emotional. Leave ananya at airport and return to hotel. Feeling disoriented and unsettled.
Jedi skips Friday moun vrat. Crash early.
Day 58 jun 20 sat
Saurabh will join trip tomorrow morning. Jedi to stay put in Indore. Trip should last another 10-15 days before money runs out. Jedi starts to think about job options; debts have to be repaid and food needs to be eaten. Spends day in hotel, watching films and generally repairing mind and body. Amanya has reached Calcutta/Kolkata. Maoists – police battle on on place which would have been on original Calcutta bound route!
Jedi does photo sorting and log updates.

Day 59 jun 21 sun
20 kms
Jedi waits for Saurabh to come from pune. More photo sorting. Saurabh reaches at 12.30. Finish sorting photos and then go out and eat lunch at Jain Bhojanalaya at Gangwal bus stand. Search for cyber café but most shut as electricity cuts. Go to other side of town and find one. Upload photos and logs. Update titles for photos when comp. crashes. Do it all over again partially when electricity goes off again. Hang around and go eat samosa and sikhanji which here is ras malai ka paste. Go to Indian coffee house! And have coffee. Electricity comes back but cybercafe shut. Gone to watch T20 final. So we return to hotel and jedi starts watching and slowly passes out by 8! Wakes up 12 hours later!
Day 60 jun 22 mon
Indore – Ghat Bilod – Bagdi – Mandu/Mandav
NH59, SH31,
104 kms
Wake up and pack stuff. Bags much lighter. Jedi and saurabh exchange emergenc in case we die contact numbers. Head out on Dhar road and encounter aswewish traffic. Do the mistake of asking for a place instead of a place closerby and get routed to better road at Ghat Bilod. Do the white bumpy roads and jedi does the usual something in the bag is poking me and pushing me bits. Saurabh also finding helmet unwieldy etc. Jedi says be patient. Jedi sees more birds that he doesn’t know. Much excited about the baobab trees.
Reach Mandav and do recce around town. Huge fort with lotsa monuments. Decide that we need to stay here today to see all. Have brunch – aloo paratha. Discuss whether guide or guidebook. Guides who approached said 300 bucks for 22 points. Guide book is 25 bucks. We buy the book.
Find a place and rest for a while. Mandu or Mandav as locally known, gets about 4 hrs of electricity in the day despite being major tourist spot. Hotel owner talks to us and is quite forthcoming with area details. Seems he was senior guide and guide for big ppl like Nehru etc. Shows us a magazine with his name in it. Saurabh takes out his voice recorder and records the stuff the owner says. Good stuff. Also tells how to identify the baobab tree and its history. Read the lonely planet and the guidebook. Fairly confident on what we want to see. Jedi feels sad that ananya is not here.
Somehow electricity comes on and the owner says oh maybe some VIP has come and then runs off. We go to rest and promptly fall asleep and wake up around 4. Go the closeby Jahaz Mahal and buy tickets where a guide approaches. Jedi sees size and scale of place and decides yes guide needed.
Guide shows us around – so much history – from 11th century – Raja Bhoj! To Akbar, across 4 dynasties. Friendly good guide – shows us extra stuff. See Mandu post for details – first attempt at guide-to-place. Golkonda still kicks ass when compared to this, but this has a better love story. As has been the case so far, wherever we go, the rains follow shortly. Andhi type winds start and skies darken. We rush off triples to Roopmati Mahal zone. See Baz Bahadur palace and then to Roopmati Pavilion. See the Narmada amidst body pushing winds. We then fix up with the caretaker via guide to come back at night to photograph the Mewar plateau on this Poornima day – if the skies normalize and we can see the moon. Come back to bike to see left side carrier broken at the joint. Have to find welder.
Go to Rewa Khund and watch the guide – Lalsingh Keer – do his poornima diya across the pond. Go at Sawariya Dhaba – kickass thali.
Head back and wait for electricity due to come one at 9 p.m. Its 9.28 now and still no electricity.

Movie – kinara was shot at roopmati’s pavilion (song – aa laut ke aaja mere meet)

Day 61 jun 23 tues
Mandu/Mandav
6 kms
No electricity whole of last night. Woke up at 9.30, rather woken up by hotel owner. Lots of robins around. Have poha at Sawariya. Found welder right beside but no electricity. Seems something has fallen due to wind. Went to Echo point near Dai tomb and did echo stuff. Walked around Dai maqbara – had kickass reverb? Sound under the dome – almost 8 seconds long. Walked around dai ki choti behen ka maqbara, caravan sarai, lal bagh (non-existent, but being worked on by ASI) – work going on all over – banake ticket katwayenge. Another mosque made from old temple parts. Then went to Jami Masjid, one of India’s biggest mosque and also Hostang Shah’s tomb. Walked inside and around. Lots of photos. Saw lots of baobab trees and bought fruit for amanya.
Still no electricity. Went to Ashrafi Mahal or Madrassa – once upon a time, one of India’s biggest Arabi universities. Met the guard who was very friendly and talkative – turned out he was ex-baba now here because of Mohammedan girl, is also Betul ka Raja, comes from rich family but can’t go with mozzy girl etc. didn’t scam or ask for money. Told us why maqbaras are made etc.
Went to Sawariya and had lunch and came back to hotel to wait for electricity. Had timepass intellectual discussions. Hotel boy came and rambled in his tottla local dialect. Watched the skies turn stormy again. Walked to have tea and saw someone else’s tomb. Almost dusk and light flickered. Sped back to hotel to get bike, only to see light go off. While nearing see official cars speed by – locals say - ab toh batti aa jayegi. People keep calling us Angrez.
Took the bike anyway and went to welder who says come tomorrow at 7. Go up to the resort which has full power. Go back and vent on why if they can lay fiber optic cables, why not also electric cables. Electricity comes at 9 and we charge everything. Work on dumping photos – some 500 odd in 2 days . Work on amanya when power goes off again to come back in 15 mins. Watch the rest of aloo chat before sleeping late. Keep alarm for 7 a.m. Have to tons of panaromas. Today only some 15! Jedi plays civilization till 4 a.m.

Day 62 jun 24 wed
Mandu/Mandav – Dharmampuri – Maheshwar – Omkareshwar – Punasa – Satwas – Khategoan
NH3, white roads, dirt tracks
276 kms
Wake up at 7, then 7.30 and rush to welder who hasn’t come. Ask and find another one who does the work. Also get bottle holder and jutting pieces of carrier fixed. Come back and get saurabh for tea. Met Betul ka raja who treats us to tea and also plays harmonica and sings Purani jeans and another orig comp. Also he explained the importance of gular tree we were sitting under – root is mixed with water to form opaque semisolid liquid which is drunk to negate ‘hormone’ loss. Pipal and Bargad ka trees were also around.

Leave for Dharampuri to see Roopmati’s narmada. Reach and take panorama –what else! When she went to Mandav, she used to see the diya at the Nageshwar temple. We try to see the temple but miss the turn and then say fuck it.
Head across to Omkareshwar in searing heat and bumpy roads. Reach the place and walk to the bridge – see the temple in the distance, stop, buzz off temple darshan touts, and take photos and then leave.
Take money from an ATM in Badwah(in Hindi) and Barwah in English. Take photo just to capture the town name. Make jokes about it.
Target is to reach Karda which is the closest city? To bhim betika caves, but get directed to Satwas which is in the opposite direction. Dusty villages with villagers who warn us to head quickly coz of forest area, and you know what forest area at dark means in MP – dacoity adivasis. Reach a new dam called Indira Sagar – kickass and then ask at the Narmada Nagar whether we can stay. Again yes but sun is still up, so head to Satwas beyond the dam. First ‘track’ in the Eicher Map book taken in 62 days! Road was kickass – newly laid amidst hilly road beset with trees laid by govt. to forest the damned land. But surreal ride, speeding across the curvy road, with the sun setting with almost dry trees in red soil. Also the scare of getting stuck. At an ass rest stop – Saurabh getting introduced to the dark side of roadtripping, Jedi finally takes out the Buck knife and tries throwing it a tree. Knife falls down – hard tree!
We reach Satwas, but Jedi wants to get to Khategoan to see Khate pithe log. Night riding across thin road with tractors – note – when u see two lights in tractor land, steer wider than the lights, coz behind the lights, many tractors have trailors which are wider than the lights.
Reach Khategoan and find lodge – Saurabh lodge! – rate 175! Only with air cooler and TV! Has inverter but only for fan.
Go to have dinner at tava ki roti (ppl ask whether tandoor ki ya tava ki – tava ki is apparently better. Kickass thali for 20 bucks. MP has good food. Hotel man talks and tells us to check out Navi Khund nearby.
Electricity goes off shortly and Jedi passes out under fan.

Day 63 jun 25 thurs
Khategoan – Nabi Khund (Newawar) – Nasarullahganj - Bhim Betika – Bhojpur - Bhopal
NH59A, NH69, NH12, white roads, track
200? kms
Get up, have tea, and head for Nabi Khund, 14 kms away from Khategaon. Reach and talk to someone for directions, who then shows us the spot. It’s in middle of the river and needs to be reached by boat. Take his friend’s boat and go to the navel of the Narmada river (if she were a woman, this would be her navel – basically middle point from Amarkhand to the Arabian sea at Gujarat. Very peaceful – sounds in the distance, people at the temples doing what they do at temples. Bathed in the water – sweetest water Jedi has tasted. Even the ‘health plus’ packaged water (narmada water) has a coconut water after taste. Come back to shore and head back to Khategaon for lunch. Pack and leave for Bhimbetika.

Take track – first kacha rasta so far. Foretaste of baralach la? Again hot hot. Pour water in helmets to have A/C effect. See for the first time, automated iron stamping? Machine which bangs red hot iron rods into sharp edges.

Reach Bhim betika and walk around a bit before asking for guide. 200 bucks. No no. walk around seeing paintings without feeling anything. Old man sitting asks usual kidhar se etc. and then says guide lelo, and we say ya ya – but guide has gone balti leke – he thinks party leke and says 200 is normal rate. He goes on - how he is senior guide and shows photos and then gets up and shows us a few things – 100000 (1 lac) year old man-made holes in the rock. 1 lac! The signs all over say 6 BP, not B.C., or A.D. Guide comes and we head off – 200 bucks. Saurabh gives his Dictaphone to keep in pocket.

Kickass tour – must do place for everyone. White, red, green, and yellow rock paintings, from Mesolithic (10000-5000 BC) and Paleolithic (last ice age – before 10000 B.C – somewhere in the middle is the stone age!). BP meaning Before Paleolithic? need to confirm. Paintings are from different eras – I just used eras in a sentence literally and not figuratively! Also shows how man learnt to paint, draw, use colors, new animals – hunting, dancing, horses, bison, elephants, drums. Evolution. Still get goosebumps as I write this. A 8000 year old man’s skeleton was excavated here. This place is from Pangea times. All this has been carbon dated etc. Vindhyas after all are India’s oldest mountain range and probably the world’s.

Guide ends with headsup to world’s biggest shiv linga at Bhojpur closeby. So we head there. Raja Bhoj had rocked his times. 11th century stuff still around. From Mewar to Malwa (mandav is the border – still defined by the wall erected by Raja Bhoj 10 centuries ago). Raja Bhoj Raja Bhoj aur hum sab Gangu Taili!
Reach the temple and bigass shiv ling. Jedi unsure if Dhyanalingum at Isha Ashram is bigger or smaller. But still – this is 10 centuries old! That’s 1000 years.
All too much to take in one day and we head to Bhopal, and see signs of the 21st century. Though on retrospect the refrigeration for all the thanda pani was very much 20th century!
As we enter Bhopal, spot a storm brewing and speed up but as we hit the outskirts, the heavens open and like how. Buckets, tanks, khunds – a literal vertical river – but we still persist and ask whoever is still on the road for Hamidia road (LP recco for budget places near bustand-railway station), until it starts hailstoneing. Park the bike which is doing willgiveupsoon sounds and wait till hailstones stop. Reach hamidia road and find a hotel and drip into the room. Dinner and Doordarshan follows.

Note: ABout the Shame on India for charging different rates for Indians and foreigners.
Have wondered about it for a long time, right from childhood when I had to take some guests to the Prince of Wales museum. Even as a kid, it felt wrong. But now I think its kind of ok. Imagine asking a western to pay 5 rupees (indian rate) as compared to 100 rupees - its like 10 cents for them. Mentally i had to to pay 10 paise to enter and see a place - what value would i associate with it. and having travelled quite a bit and seeing how some foreigners treat the place, esp. israelis and russians, sorry, but thats how it is. am sure u have ur own gripes abt Indians, I feel the different rates is ok,not right but ok.