MPdiaries Part 10. Bhopal

We reached Bhopal late evening and checked into a nice comfortable Raj Bhoj Hotel.

Bhopal is the capital city of Madhya Pradesh, known as the city of natural and artificial lakes and is also one of the greenest cities in India.

I couldn't see all the lakes but did see one big lake (on route) a Bada Talaab aka Bhojtal that had a 32 feet statue of Raja Bhoj, the king of Malwa in the water closer to the promenade.

According to legend, Bhopal was founded by Parmara Raja Bhoj, King of Malwa, in the 11th Century AD. He was intellectual, believer of justice, art lover, musician and a good administrator.

We had stopped earlier at Tropic of Cancer spot to click few shots

 Tropic of Cancer, otherwise known as northernly circle of latitude, was used by ancient travellers, who used the heavenly guides, as the crucial demarcation lines. Many of my fellow travellers got off the bus to click pictures with that sign in the background.

Bhopal attracted international attention in December 1984, when there was leakage of deadly poisonous gases composed mainly of methyl isocynate. We passed by the affected area, that was shanty. This part of the city bears the scars of that disaster. The impact of the disaster continues to this day in terms of physiological and neurological disabilities, blindness,, breathing and birth disorders.

The city is developing into the smart city and there was lot of constructions going on. Very close to our hotel was a most innovative Peoples’ mall,  (still under construction) but worthy of our visit.

Spread over 80acres, PeoplesMall is the perfect option for spending a leisure time with family and friends. It is no ordinary mall with shops, food court and multiplex but it also has a huge theme park in its complex that has ship, airport and railway station. We hired an electronic cart to explore the area that had miniature monuments from around the world that included the replicas of Taj Mahal, Red fort, Taj hotel of Mumbai, Statue of liberty, Japanese and Chinese monuments and many more important monuments.

There were street performers, live.music and many more such entertainment. For children there is water park and car rides. There is go-carting for youngsters. I was told that this complex is also used for wedding and other important events at its large open spaces. It is a must see place when visiting Bhopal 

To be continued….

MPdiaries Part 9. Bhojpur

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On our route towards Bhopal, we stopped at Bhojpur during evening hours.  We were here to see the Shiva temple called Bhojeshwar temple. The bus had stopped at quite a distance, and we walked through narrow, broken roads, passing through thatched house where villagers still use dried cow dung as fuel for cooking. A musician sat at the end of the road playing drums.

We saw the big red structure stood at the distance. Friends were tired of walking up the steep hill, so we decided to sit for a while.

We walked closer and saw stairs leading up the platform. I was tired and wondered that could I buckle up so much energy to climb those steep steps that had no railing for support. My friends had already climbed up and they asked me to come from the side of the wall, luckily there was a muddy ramp on either of the temple, so there was no need to climb those steps,

The Bhojeshwar temple is contributed by the fact that it was never finished and it is believed to date back to 11^th century. It is quite an odd temple with no curvilinear domed towers, three of the walls are completely plain on the exterior, with just a few carvings on the entrance that seemed like it was made later. 

There were steel steps to climb up to reach the interior of the temple. Inside the temple there was a huge Shiv linga -18 feet long and 7 feet diameter made from one single stone, There were another set of big stone stairs that led  downwards to reach the bottom of the lingam where punditji sat there offering flowers and prasad to the devotees.

I did not climb down, instead, turned around and watched the sunset behind the temples spread over huge platform. It was lovely sight indeed and I love gazing at sunsets.

On our way back I could see some unfinished architectural fragments scattered far and wide in the various stages of extraction…

and a big park behind the temple where people seemed happy to relax

But we had to reach the next leg of our journey, so  headed back, we were in that big bus to continue with our journey

To be continued……….

MPdiaries Part 8. Bhimbetka

On our way to Bhopal, we stopped by at a very interesting site called Bhimbetka.  Here you find large rock shelters that have paintings that date back to thousands of years depicting the life of the people through different eras.  This has been now declared as UNESCO world heritage site.

At some shelters, it was easy to walk because of the wooden flooring installed there. Here is where I could comfortably walk, without loosing my balance and could scrutinise the paintings done on the inner  flat walls that served as canvas. There were no engraving in this region. The paintings are made from three different techniques. Transparent technique, opaque technique and crayons technique.

There were sign boards at regular distances that gave some information that helped us understand what we were to see.

One board read

You will see 15 rock shelters occupied by the early man and the life depicted in paintings. The habitation deposit emerge the cultural sequence from lower palacolithic to Meslithitic, you will find in the trenches of the shelter 1 and 2 have some cupules made on huge rock on the western end, considered by some scholars as the man’s earliest manifestation of creativity, prohably associated with one lakh years before. An elaborately painted shelter 4 known as zoo rock comprised 252 animals of 16 different species, from here walking towards north one can enjoy the watershed of Betwa river and natural ambience. Noticing many painted rock shelters, you will see the rock shelter no 15. Here an amazing scene of giant mythical animal chasing a human, painted with ochre color, can be seen on the upper surface of the rock shelter. You may here experience natural geological formation, various shaped rocks and other painted rock shelters. And their natural envirnoment including flora and fauna. Watching all these you will walk 1400 meters

Of course, I did not walk all the 15 rock shelters, because the path at some places was quite tricky. But it was interesting to see the drawing done on the walls

What was remarkable about this site was the paintings are done with mineral colors. mainly ochre and white on huge natural rocks of sandstone by people from different era. There are hunting scenes, battle scenes, different animals, birds, hunting tools flora and fauna of that era painted over different generation and still very clearly visible.

Besides, the caves also has a number of cupules depressions on stone, which are the man’s earliest manifestation of creativity, probably associated with lower paleolithic period.

One big rock had caved in and stone sculptures are carved out of imagination about how people must have spent their time..man painting on the rock and woman mixing paint while child waits for attention..

There are over 700 rock shelters in this region...as for me..I visited the site that had 15 rock shelters and I just saw few because of shortage of time. But i enjoyed sitting on smooth black rock admiring the panoramic view of the landscape surrounding the rocks.

--> To be continued……

MPdiaries Part 7. Panchmarhi

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………