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Going to Neverland
I have always desisted from making plans for a trip in plains. Never bothered to do a one at least in summer months. Yet, Amarkantak had always occupied some mind space since year 2011 when I first came to know about it. Thereafter, I made several plans to travel but the 1100 kms distance that too in hot, arid plains always discouraged me. However, this time it was winters when I was planning a trip and Amarkantak came to the fore. With this another dream of boating in Narmada river between the marble hills on full moon night seemed to be getting fulfilled. Since the day I saw Asoka movie at Batra theatre while my days at North Campus, Delhi University, I always wanted to do the same. I would have preferred if Kareena could have given me the company but never mind. Bhedaghat was the first stop-over.
So a plan was hatched. We had 23rd to 26th January i.e. 4 days at hand. My friends and regular travel mates Praveer and Rakesh pitched in. And we decided to do the trip on Praveer’s Dzire instead of my Thar. I was in agreement. Day 1 was about 875 kms in distance, hence we decided to start by 5.00 am.
I reached at Praveer’s place by 5.30 am. I did not encounter any fog. I sincerely hoped to find clear weather. There was slight change in the plan since we had to now drop Praveer’s wife and child to his in-laws place at Agra. We picked up Rakesh enroute. But now fog had appeared on Mathura road. And it was dense and it kept worsening as we moved ahead. The going got painfully slow with almost zero visibility. I was behind the wheels and I was driving extra carefully. It took us about 4 hours to reach Agra. We had a hearty breakfast at Praveer’s in-laws place. After a rest of one hour, we bid the adieu and soon driving hard to cover up some lost time.
Car for the trip
Destination for the day was Bhedaghat. We has reached Jhansi bye-pass by 4.00 pm. We still had to cover almost 400 kms to reach Bhedaghat. We started thinking of place where to break journey since reaching Bhedaghat was looking highly improbable. We were thinking of halting at Sagar, which was about 210 kms, for the night. However, we covered Jhansi to Lalitpur which was about 100 kms in distance in one hour. This gave us a boost. We further covered a distance of about 110 kms till Sagar in another hour. So, we crossed 200 kms in just 2 hours. Such was the road conditions – super smooth and devoid of any traffic. Now, we decided to keep on driving and halt only at Bhedaghat.
A little ahead of Sagar, we left the luxurious 4 lane roads. Double lane but again super smooth roads welcomed us. We covered the first 100 kms again in about an hour. Now we were relaxed and going easy on the accelerator. With 50-60 kms remaining, we stopped at a truckers dhaba and ordered chicken to celebrate the distance we covered in quick time. After a 45 minutes break, we reached Bhedaghat by 10.00 pm. We headed straight to MP tourism property but it was prohibitively costly. We got another hotel nearby at substantially lesser rent. Tomorrow being a full moon night, we were happy thinking about boating in the moon-lit river amidst marble mountains. Sleep came easy.
waiting for the dinner at the dhaba
time to gobble up the chicken-rice
So a plan was hatched. We had 23rd to 26th January i.e. 4 days at hand. My friends and regular travel mates Praveer and Rakesh pitched in. And we decided to do the trip on Praveer’s Dzire instead of my Thar. I was in agreement. Day 1 was about 875 kms in distance, hence we decided to start by 5.00 am.
I reached at Praveer’s place by 5.30 am. I did not encounter any fog. I sincerely hoped to find clear weather. There was slight change in the plan since we had to now drop Praveer’s wife and child to his in-laws place at Agra. We picked up Rakesh enroute. But now fog had appeared on Mathura road. And it was dense and it kept worsening as we moved ahead. The going got painfully slow with almost zero visibility. I was behind the wheels and I was driving extra carefully. It took us about 4 hours to reach Agra. We had a hearty breakfast at Praveer’s in-laws place. After a rest of one hour, we bid the adieu and soon driving hard to cover up some lost time.
Car for the trip
Destination for the day was Bhedaghat. We has reached Jhansi bye-pass by 4.00 pm. We still had to cover almost 400 kms to reach Bhedaghat. We started thinking of place where to break journey since reaching Bhedaghat was looking highly improbable. We were thinking of halting at Sagar, which was about 210 kms, for the night. However, we covered Jhansi to Lalitpur which was about 100 kms in distance in one hour. This gave us a boost. We further covered a distance of about 110 kms till Sagar in another hour. So, we crossed 200 kms in just 2 hours. Such was the road conditions – super smooth and devoid of any traffic. Now, we decided to keep on driving and halt only at Bhedaghat.
A little ahead of Sagar, we left the luxurious 4 lane roads. Double lane but again super smooth roads welcomed us. We covered the first 100 kms again in about an hour. Now we were relaxed and going easy on the accelerator. With 50-60 kms remaining, we stopped at a truckers dhaba and ordered chicken to celebrate the distance we covered in quick time. After a 45 minutes break, we reached Bhedaghat by 10.00 pm. We headed straight to MP tourism property but it was prohibitively costly. We got another hotel nearby at substantially lesser rent. Tomorrow being a full moon night, we were happy thinking about boating in the moon-lit river amidst marble mountains. Sleep came easy.
waiting for the dinner at the dhaba
time to gobble up the chicken-rice
