Like every state in
India have their own hill station, Madhya Pradesh has its hill station at
Panchmarhi at 1067 meters, commonly known as Satpura ki Rani. It has also been
recognised as UNESCO biosphere reserve.
We checked into
InderPrasad Hotel late in the evening after a long drive from Jabalpur.. We had
a good room with twin beds and a beautiful view outside the window. There was a
small market nearby, where we went to buy few local products. The lobby had a
small comfortable cubicle, outside the dining hall, where we spend our leisure
hours playing cards. Surprisingly, the wifi was free in this town and we had free
internet access even when we were on the road.
Early next morning, we
hired jeeps to go around the city. It is a city of natural beauty with caves, waterfall
and temples.
Although there are lot
of tourists visiting this place for natural beauty and caves, the
infrastructure is very poor. The gardens are well developed but the roads are
poorly developed. I needed assistance during my walks and I did not dare to
walk up the steep hills. I wanted to see the Pandav caves, but there were
narrow steep steps to climb up and I would not dare. I sat for some time under the
tree, then decided to walk around the garden. The garden was well maintained
and had manicured plants and trees. It had lots of cactus and rich flora and
fauna.
The city has many
naughty monkeys who surprise you with their sudden appearance and may even
steal your belongings if you are not careful. The jeep driver advised us to
pick up the sticks to scare the monkeys away. We walked down the dirt road with
sticks in our hand and headed towards Mahadeva temple. We just climbed 52
steps to reach a cave. The cave was dark and wet. There was a small waterfall
inside the cave, water was cool to touch, I washed my feet and walked towards
the Shiva idol. The energy inside the cave was very positive and it really felt
good.
There were more caves in this area, there was too many steps to climb, but then
all caves will be same, you see one, you have seen them all, unless you want to
be adventurous and do some more exercise, then it will be a good pastime to
explore. Everywhere there was trident (Shiva’s Trishul). That is recognised as
Lord’s ubiquitous symbol and there were hundreds of them everywhere….
After lunch, everybody
went to see Jatashankar caves. I did not go because I was told that it would be
too steep for me to walk. I rested at the hotel till they came back to fetch me for an evening drive to Priyadarshini view
point to see the deep valley from the mountain top and later went to panorama
point called Rajendragiri point where we were able to see beautiful sunset...
Later in the evening we
went shopping again..In the hotel was this map of Madhya Pradesh and it was fun
marking the route we had travelled during our trip
To be continued………
