Tweet
Ride to Khajuraho via Sanchi & Indore on 15th Aug weekend...
Some teaser pics...
Some teaser pics...
-
-
Re: Khajuraho…. Thousand years old Poetry on Sandstone…
Travelogue Approved
Waiting for more!Biking is not about what you have between your legs, its all about how well you use it!!!!!!!
Give your details here if you want to help your fellow xBhpian stranded in your city
Touring Blog: Cycling in Mongolia! -
Re: Khajuraho…. Thousand years old Poetry on Sandstone…
Monk thanks for such a quick approval...Originally posted by The Monk View PostComment
-
Comment
-
Khajuraho… Thousand years old Poetry on Sandstone…
(Admin - Submitted this as a new Thread due to some technical issues in updating old one.)
Khajuraho…. Thousand years old Poetry on Sandstone…
Khajuraho…. the name is enough to excite any traveler. This destination was on my list ever since I started gaining interest in archeological sites and ever since I got introduce to Kam Sutra, the masterpiece of Vatsyayana.
Somehow it is tragic that Khajuraho Temples are simply linked with Kamasutra due to very few erotic sculptures it has on its outer walls. Most of mind-blowing beauty of Khajuraho temples are over shadowed by these few erotic sculptures. Same time it is also important that these erotic sculptures only largely gave a fame to this temple complex and Khajuraho has becomes the second highest most visited monument of India after ‘The Great Taj Mahal’.
There is plenty of literature is available on internet about explaining the history of Khajuraho and I do not want to bore you guys here by adding some more to it.
After returning from Khajuraho, with its beauty I was so stunt and almost lost the interest of writing any blog about my ride. Why….?? simply because, it would be beyond my capacity to narrate what I have seen and experienced at Khajuraho and Sanchi Complex during my two days trip.
However before planning this ride, I found relatively very less material available on riding/ driving communities about explaining this circuit to and fro from Mumbai. So, I have changed my mind and this is an attempt to present my ride log for your reference.
I picked up 15th Aug’s weekend for Khajuraho considering I will get 4 full days in hand. The main agenda was to spend one and half day in Khajuraho. One full day for Western Group of Temples & half day for Southern and Eastern group of Temples.
Plan was open, either to drive by car or ride by bull depending upon companions as my wife has already fixed her seat in advance. My riding club member Zatin showed interest in my plan and we finalized to visit Khajuraho on bike. ‘ZATIN’ needs no separate introduction as he was my partner in earlier ‘Dandeli’ ride.
After tackling Friday evening traffic of office to home and post managing few household stuffs, we managed to start rolling by 11 pm from Thane.
We marched through Thane – Nasik – Dhule (bypass) – Indore – Bhopal route. While we are getting ready for ride it’s started raining slowly in thane and without taking any further chance we covered our self in rain-gears along with riding. Exit points of Thane till Bhiwandi bypass was fully dominated by heavy traffic but after Kasara roads got deserted. It was bliss ride till Nasik. Nasik City was in deep sleep while we were passing through City Overhead bridge.
We took our first tea break near Chandwad, till here it was drizzling in between and climate was pretty cold. Hot steaming ginger flavored tea at small tea stall gave us booster to proceed towards Dhule. With one quick butt break we managed to reach till Sendhwa by dawn where heavy rain stopped us. We utilized this stop for another round of tea. Rain was not in mood to stop and we extended our tea break to power nap of one good hour. By the time we got up the sky was spotless. We refreshed ourselves with another round of Tea-Biscuits and started rolling towards Indore around 7am.
For next breakfast break, we struggled till outskirts of Dewas bypass to find a good restaurant to halt. At the end, we stopped in front of one Family Dhaba where we got refreshed and had mouthwatering ‘Aloo Paratha’. These parathas were so delicious that no other parathas could manage to beat or match that test in our next three days of ‘Madhya Pradesh’ (MP) scouting. By loading these two jumbo paratha’s each, we converted this breakfast break in to brunch and headed towards Bhopal.
Sehore is famous for its wheat brand and we passed through its birth place.
Road surface till Bhopal via Indore Bhopal bypass was unexpectedly smooth and pothole free. Good roads helped us to remain energetic till second half of the day and we were well ahead of our schedule.
Just 30kms after Bhopal there is one must stopover, it is ‘Tropic of Cancer’ line which passes through ‘Bhopal – Vidisha Highway’. This is a perfect photo point for every rider. We didn’t miss this opportunity to get clicked here.
This is third time I am standing on Tropic of Cancer line after Rajasthan & Gujarat. And yes, it further passes through Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tripura and Mizoram.
To keep ride interesting on day 1, we have planned to visit ‘Sanchi Stupa’ which is around 50Kms from Bhopal. Our night halt destination for day 1 was Sagar and we were in Sanchi around 3pm. Considering Sanchi to Sagar distance is just 125Km we got plenty of time in hand to explore world heritage site of Sanchi Stupas.
Sanchi has significant importance in India History and I believe every one of us could have studied this Stupas at primary schooling. The great Sanchi Stupas are built by Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya Dynasty in the third century BC.
Till reaching Sanchi, Trupti (my wife) and Zatin was in casual mood thinking this is merely another 30-minutes stopover break but as soon as we entered the Stupa site it took us in different era. None of us had any great expectation from this site but the Golden Light at dusk and enthusiastic tour guide made our evening memorable at this historical site.
Very soon we will find Sanchi Stupa on upcoming ₹200 note.
New 200 Rupee Note with Sanchi Stupa on it.
We did not realize when clock tickled to 6. We simply used to get freeze in front of each gate of main Stupa where every inch of stone was carrying glorious history of ancient India.
As soon as we came out of Sanchi we realized that we are extremely hungry and did not had anything after morning brunch. With high hopes, we entered Vidisha city to find good snacks corner but immediately we got pissed off with its crowded narrow lanes, traffic and most disappointing was the Aloo Paratha we had there.
Sagar was just 120km ahead and we were thoroughly satisfied with the ride so far but another surprise was waiting for us on fence of Sagar town.
We had booked ‘Hotel Royal Palace’ in Sagar for our night halt and with my past experience usually these ‘Royal’ and all are just misleading nouns used in hotel names and it has no correlation with hotels hospitality status.
Likewise, google map set to ‘Hotel Royal Palace’ was navigating us through narrow shabby lanes of Sagar City and slowly it started taking us outside of this small town. At 8pm in the night, after riding almost 900kms I was not having any patience to fight with my wife on hotel location as she has chosen this hotel for night stay. After one dark potholed patch of road, we come across to a big gate and security on gate recognized us that we are the guest for the night and opened the gate of hotel.
The site in front of us was unbelievable, it was a well-built ‘haweli/Palace’ kind of building illuminated in attractive manner. This place kept us surprising till we hit the bed.
Look like this hotel was mainly built for marriage functions, having more than 30 fully functional well decorated rooms. Hotel has the huge lawn restaurant where we and one more family was served dinner live karaoke singer. I know it’s unbelievable. With Aashiqui songs in background by Local Kumar Sanu, we had full four course dinner wherein we didn’t expected more than Daal-Rice.
<font size="4"><span style="font-family: book antiqua">
Altogether it was power packed day with lots of riding and Sanchi Stupa has set the fire in our souls to hit the Khajuraho as early as possible on next morning.
Day 1 Summary – Thane to Sagar via Sanchi Stupa
Route: Thane – Nasik – Dhule – Indore – Bhopal – Sanchi – Vidisha (Bypass in under construction) – Sagar
Distance – 950Km
Road Condition – Excellent double carriage road till Bhopal, Single Carriage road from Bhopal onwards till Sagar but surface is smooth & fast.
Hotel for night stay - Hotel Royal Palace, Sagar. Little over priced for night halt.
Day 2 – Sagar to Khajuraho
With excellent food and hospitality from small town hotel we decided to start our next day by 5am. As per plan we managed to start rolling in dark by 5:15 am
Khajuraho is around 215 kms from Sagar via Chhatarpur and we had budgeted 5hrs for it. Early morning start and nicely paved MP state highways helped us to maintain good amount of speed till local traffic started mobilizing by 8am.
Enjoying early morning tea near Bada Malhara.
Meanwhile ever since yesterday after crossing Bhopal, freely roaming & relaxing Cows on the MP state highways has becoming big headache for us. On a serious note, like in Maharashtra we don’t need any speed breakers on road as potholes takes care of your speed likewise these freely roaming cows on MP State highway plays a perfect role of speed breaker. During these two days we could have seen more than 10k cows on road, roaming in groups or just seating ideal on the middle of road. Even we found few lying dead on road which might have taken a heavy vehicle’s hit at night.
Some time you need to get off from the road to give way to upcoming traffic.
Out of curiosity when we asked locals the reason for such freely moving cows on road, the answer was shocking. Most of these cows are left on the road mainly because they are old, dried off & can’t produce milk so they are left on road to die. The second falls in category of people who have so much cows at their backyard that they do not have sufficient place to park them. We really felt sad for them.
So other than these cows no one else could manage to slow us down and we reached Khajuraho by 9:30am. We covered 215Kms merely in 3 and half hours with one tea break in between. After riding 200+kms we were not at all tired. Maybe good roads, cool early morning weather and sound sleep of previous night was the secret of our freshness or maybe be our excitement to visit Khajuraho temple complex.
We dumped our luggage in pre-booked hotel & quickly completed check inn formalities. This was small home recently converted into a new hotel just beside entry gate of Khajuraho Western group temples. I have already requested hotel manager to arrange good, experienced Guide to take us through first Western and then Eastern & Southern group of temples.
We found our tour guide sensible and experienced gentleman who is in this profession for last 15-20 years. We cracked a lumpsum deal for all three temple-complex & agreed on of action.
Our first question to guide was where to have a quick morning breakfast and he took us to this hotel Shyam Sweets in Khajuraho main market.
Don't miss Samosa & Jalebi from this shop if you are in Khajuraho.
This small shop was serving hot Samosas & Jalebi in morning breakfast. The shop was packed with local and we found most of them busy in enjoying these Samosas & Jalebi. For any Mumbaikar it was rare sight to have Samosas & jalebi in morning but yes, I had heard about this traditional breakfast menu in MP. Without wasting much time, we ordered one plate of Samosas & Jalebi for each of us. They tested out of world and once again we converted our morning breakfast to brunch.
While we entered Western group of temples it was 10:30am and next 3 hours were amazing hours of our live. Instead of talking let’s picture speak but I am sure they will fail to do justice this ‘Thousand Years old Poetry carved on Sand Stones’
You could literally spend hours and hours just looking at each wall of sculptures. Even after 1000 years, they are so beautiful and inviting. At every glance, you may come across a new wonder.
The expressions, esthetics, body proportions, stance, appeal will make you kneel. Wisely said by our guide. “Sir yah pe sundarta har kaan kaan me basi hai bus dekhaneki nazar chahiye….” (the beauty is hidden in every inch here, what you need is an eye to watch it).
For next couple of hours our Guide become our eyes and we followed his footsteps. While he is explaining expressions, stances, stories, meaning & historical importance of these sculptures though we got tempted to click some pics but we did not disturb or broke his link
After his session was over we relieved our guide and decided to meet him after 2hrs for Eastern & Southern group of temples. While he could attain few more tourist, we took two more rounds of all temples and clicked photographs as much as possible.
Me, Trupti & Zatin
We finished exploring western group of temples and met our guide at 2:30pm to proceed towards Southern and Eastern group of temples. These temples are less visited as these are less attractive compared to the western group of temples.
Jain Temple
Very Interesting Idol from Chaturbhuj temple
You may give them a miss to Jain Temples or can pick only Chaturbhuj temple if you have limited time in hand.
By 4pm we finished sightseeing and returned to hotel room for quick shower. We decided to spend evening once again at Temple complex to watch Light & Sound Show at 7:30 pm.
By the time we were back to temple it was 7 pm and we missed important golden hour light for photography. It was really a big mistake as temple complex was looking amazingly beautiful at this hour.
I Could manage to click few pics before it was complete dark & temple gate was already closed.
Light and sound show ticket was Rs.250 and we all didn’t find it great in terms of scripting. You may give it miss if you are staying in Khajuraho overnight. If in case you are planning to attain then do not forget to carry mosquito repellent with you.
Local shops at Khajuraho was also not great attractive for any kind shopping. After dinner, we hit the bed by 10pm.
Considering we finished entire sightseeing of Khajuraho we tweaked our next day plan and decided to target Indore as next halt. While Zatin want to have some extra sleep, me & wife decided to have a quick early morning visit to Temple complex and start our return journey by 7 am next day.
Day 2 Summary – Sagar to Khajuraho via Chhatarpur
Route: Sagar – Bada Malhara – Chhatarpur – Khajuraho
Distance – 215Km
Road Condition – Excellent Single Carriage road. Needs to be cautious of cows on road. Some part of Chhatarpur to Bamitha was little narrow.
Hotel for night stay - Paradise Luxury HomeStay, Value for money for night stay.
Day 3 –Khajuraho to Indore
Today me & wife woke up by 4:30am and managed to hit the Khajuraho temple by 5:30am. It was pristine morning. Except security guards and few singing birds there was no one in temple complex. This was one of the best early morning walk to be remember for lifetime. The experience was divine. You could sense the power of silence and can deeply meditate with these sculptures for hours.
We took two rounds around temple complex and managed to click some nice photographs without any photo bombing.
As agreed with Zatin he called us at 7am when he was saddle ready. With his phone call, we returned to hotel by saying sayonara to this lovely place.
Before starting our return journey, all of us once again wanted to have MP style Samosa & Jalebi breakfast. So, we stopped in front of the same shop (Gaurav Sweets) for our morning brunch… yes by now it has become a ritual to have heavy brunch in the morning and then keep riding for next couple of hundred kilometers either till we or bike becomes thirsty.
Now roads for return journey towards Indore was very much familiar so we kept on riding and with couple of fueling & tea stopes we could manage to reach our Indore hotel by 6:30pm. This time we could manage to bypass Vidisha city through half done bypass road. 1km off-roading bypass connecter to Sanchi state highway was much better than cattle crowded Vidisha town. It was express ride of 575Kms from Khajuraho to Indore via Chhatarpur.
The hidden agenda for Indore halt was a visit to Sarafa Bazar Food Street which opens at 10pm & goes up to midnight 3 am. I have heard lot about few exotic food items of this street and we all wanted to try that tonight. The street was hardly 10km from our hotel location. We got refreshed and started for Sarafa Bazar around 7 pm. Its took 45 minutes to reach Sarafa bazar due to rash city traffic and overexcited patriotic citizen who were began Independence Day celebration from 14th August evening only.
We lost half of the charm of this food street due to jam packed lanes near palace area. We enjoyed the food here till 10 pm but except few items we found almost everything ordinary. While returning to hotel we concluded this is over-hyped & onetime visit place and you can straight forward give a miss to it if not a hardcore foodie.
At Sarafa Bazar
We call off our day around 10:30pm.
Day 3 Summary –Khajuraho to Indore via Chhatarpur
Route: Khajuraho – Chhatarpur – Sagar – Vidisha Bypass – Bhopal - Indore
Distance – 575 Km
Road Condition – Excellent road end to end. Single Carriage road till Bhopal.
Hotel for night stay - Hotel Lords Inn Regency, got cheap deal on OYO hence felt value for money. Nothing great as such for night stay.
Day 4 –Indore to Thane
Plan was to start the day by 6am but due to sluggish housekeeping by hotel staff we could manage to check out by 7am. The road was pretty straight and it was home calling so we took limited breaks till reaching Nasik.
Cold weather & heavy rains at Nasik forced us for stop and luckily, we stopped in front of ‘Nagpuri style hotel- specialized for Saoji Cuisine’. Here we had fiery mutton bhakri and took a relaxing late lunch break around 3pm. Saoji mutton made sure that our mouth and ears remain burning for long time and chilly weather at Kasara foothills didn’t made any impact on us.
We reached Thane around 5:45pm and our much-desired ride ended here. Zatin obeyed goodbye to us and proceed for Borivali via ghodbandar.
As I said earlier these Sanchi & Khajuraho sculptures are mind capturing and left their impact on all of us for long time.
At the end I would like to say….
“तारीख हज़ार साल में बस इतनी सी बदली है,…
तब दौर पत्थर का था अब लोग पत्थर के हैं”….
(Free-form translation - The only change over last thousand years is… that age was of stone and now the people are become the stone)
Good day,
SandyComment
-
Re: Khajuraho…. Thousand years old Poetry on Sandstone…
Photos are brilliant to say the least!A bike on the road is worth two in the shed.
Weekend Rides Around Kolkata
My Ride To Sunderbans - Hemnagar & Samsernagar
Saagar Kinare - Bakkhali Calling
Comment
-
Re: Khajuraho…. Thousand years old Poetry on Sandstone…
Thanks Krishna77... I know this too long to read.Originally posted by krishna77 View PostComment
-
Re: Khajuraho…. Thousand years old Poetry on Sandstone…
Nice log.
Appreciate you taking the time out to write the log and post. Been trying to that for the last few days for my recent ride and keep getting distracted.
Now Showing: K2K 9000Km of Solo Bliss
Rolling Thread: Bangalore Backroads
My Last few rides:
Kumaon Wanderings - Darma Valley
2400Km of Solo Spiti Sauntering
From the rains of Uttarakhand to the deserts of Ladakh
Other Rides: Riding BlogComment
Comment