Khajuraho

We did a Bandhavgarh National Park + Khajuraho trip over the Republic day weekend. The travelog for Bandhavgarh can be found here

After another hearty breakfast, we bid adieu to the Tiger Den resort at Bandhavgarh and started for Khajuraho (230 km away) at about 8 am. We figured we should reach Khajuraho by 12.30 pm – accounting for the not-so-fast MP highways. What we didn’t account for was the difference in standards of service between the Shining India (Bombay/Delhi/Bangalore) and the interior of India. Our only black mark on the trip was our driver. He just couldn’t wait to solve some crisis back home in Jabalpur, and he would be on the phone every 15 min for the first 2 hours of the trip – and keep searching for mobile signal on his cell phone the rest of time (because we were in a forest area) – all the while driving.

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Bandhavgarh National Park

When we first drove through Bandhavgarh National Park, all we saw were the godawful roads inside the sanctuary. It was a neverending series of potholes which even backward Africans would refuse to acknowledge as a road. At 9 pm in the night, after 2 hours of traveling in the car from Katni station over Madhya Pradesh’s not-so-good roads, immediately after a 21 hour train journey from Mumbai, we were at the end of our lines – just hoping the journey would get over soon. However the road conditions ensured that the last 15km stretch took us an hour to finish.

Only once we reached Tala gate and found our surprisingly plush resort that we heaved a sigh of relief and attacked the homely food with gusto. January in Central India is quite cold and the entire place was covered in mist. However, our cottages were equipped with serious-looking room heaters and the warm service of the staff of Tiger Den Resort soon made us at ease. After the meal, the smiles were back on our faces and we retired early to get up in time for our first tiger safari

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Kerala

It was the first full-family holiday for Pradosh's family - us both, Pradosh's parents and his brother and his wife

Munnar (Day 1)
We caught the Spicejet flight to Kochi from Mumbai, which left at 0830. After landing in Kochi around 11am, we headed off towards Munnar in our vehicle for the trip. The first half of the trip was nothing much to write home about, but once we were closer to Munnar, we were greeted with the first views of the beautiful tea gardens. From afar, Munnar seems like a tiny town, awash in seas of green tea gardens. After checking in, we explored the town on foot. The town center is really small and all we could spot there were hotels, restaurants and spice shops. The weather in Munnar was chilly, but in an invigorating way - probably around 20 deg C at daytime and single digit at night. One could comfortably get away without winterwear during the daytime.

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Hampi, Pattadakal and Aihole

Large and diverse as our country is, it can claim to only 28 odd UNESCO world heritage sites. Hampi and Pattadakal are both on that exclusive list. The capital of the 15th century Vijaynagar empire, Hampi had a small but bright existence in India’s vast history (compared to some of our cities which span several millennia), with its rise and decline spanning scarcely 200 years. Yet in this small time, it became one of the biggest city in the world at its time, with half a million inhabitants, as traveler Nicholas Conti recorded during his visit to Hampi in 1420.

Hampi’s fortunes were linked to the Vijaynagar kingdom, which flourished between 1350 and 1565. They built their capital near present day Hospet in Northern Karnataka (10km from away) in a hostile-looking rocky landscape flanking the Tungabhadra river. Honestly, if I were looking for a spot to build my new capital, I’d have chosen someplace else, but the rocky landscape did provide natural defensive structures. The landscape can be best described as low lying hills completely covered with ochre colored rocks (granite) – much like sprinkles covering a cake.

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Satara

After the superfun monsoon-trips to Koynanagar and Vikramgadh this year, the independence day weekend beckoned us to another trip out of Bombay. The incessant rains for the last month meant that the whole state had received a good dose of rainfall, and so we didn’t have to worry about things not being green enough. And when the turn came to pick a destination, without much deliberation, Satara emerged as the automatic choice.

Situated at about 110 km from Pune and about 262 km from Mumbai, Satara has been on our radars for sometime. Satara is famous for a lot of things – like the Kaas plateau. Sometimes referred to as poor man’s Valley of Flowers, Kaas plateau becomes covered with wild flowers of different hues and colours at the end of the rainy season. While this wasn’t the end of the rainy season yet, we figured we’d see at least some flowers, if not the entire plateau-full of them (didn’t quite see any flower actually).

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