Bunnygoespop in MP India

If you are looking for an off the beaten track holiday destination in India, consider Madhya Pradesh (MP).

For most Indians, the state of MP, which sits right in the middle of India, is literally in the middle of nowhere. Most don’t know much about MP besides its mild mannered people who speak funny. TBH we were of the same opinion but how wrong could we be!

4 years ago, we were blown away by our trip in MP (Indore—>Gwalior—>Orccha—> Panna—>Khajuraho). We saw amazing forts and forests, >1000 year old temples with Kamasutra sculpted on it in the most artsy ways, and million year old volcanic craters (my personal highlight of the trip). Then we went to Maheshwar and Mandu, also very nice places but there are no blogposts on these because I lost all my pictures…

This year, we went to see Bhedaghat near Jabalpur to see the GORGEOUS marble gorges of the river Narmada and then to Panna to see a dear friend and some tigers, and loved our trip again.

This is what we saw, some thoughts, and some recommendations.

Day 1- we woke baby Ne up at 4am to catch the early morning turbo flight (Indigo) from Indore to Jabalpur. Straight from the airport, we made our way down to the Dhuandhar falls. We saw fish jumping upstream here, it was very cool.

It was only 1030 am but the sun was hitting hard (Later that day the temperature went up to 41 dg C! Note this was just March!). So we rushed back to our hotel which was right across from us at the falls but still 22km away because of very few bridges to cross the river (not complaining) and tiny roads through little villages (another India). We stayed at the Grand Gopala, which was very basic and their nice looking geese attacked baby Ne, so we do not recommend this place. The view from the hotel was amazing though- see pic later.

Later in the afternoon, we headed out to the very famous Bhedaghat marble cliffs that Narmada ji has carved over millions of years.

A quick lift down from the MPT cafe, one can reach the boating point where boats slowly make their way upstream to see some jaw dropping cliff formations. Any geology enthusiast’s and artist’s dream!

Tip- take a manually operated boat to fully take in the scenery.

While waiting for the Narmada Arti (river prayer) post sunset, we were lured into buying some exquisitely handcarved marble pieces (the biggest revenue source for the villages here).

Next morning I woke up at 6 am to go and paint next to the falls. The air was fresh and wisps of sprays reached me every now then, all the while the falls roared- it all felt absolutely wonderful.

We then drove around a bit on our side of the river bank and saw amazing viewpoints of the river gorge.

Sadly we saw quite a bit of littering again. I just don’t get it. On one hand people worship the river and on the hand, they just leave whatever they brought with, right next to it/in it?

Despite it, it was so darn beautiful and we definitely recommend a trip there. Bonus tip- if you are into tigers, there are three wildlife sanctuaries just 3-4 hours by road from here (in different directions)- Pench, Kanha, and Bandhavgarh.

But we decided to go to Panna, also a tiger reserve, as an old friend is posted there. Technically Panna is about 5 hours by road but it took us only 3.5h. The road was good and our driver too. He drove fast and furiously not committing himself to left or right hand side driving. We passed forests full of blooming Palaash trees (“fire of the Forest”- Rabindranath Tagore, Nobel laureate) with occasional monkeys, marble quarries, golden wheat fields, and also vast expanses of nothingness.

That evening we went on a night safari and spotted a baby leopard in the very first hour. We also spotted an almost dead bull flicking its ears nearby. This meant it was a fresh kill and that the leopard mum was nearby. And lo behold, she was, with one more baby!

As leopards are rather shy and humans aren’t, about 20 or so jeeps surrounded this leopard in no time and she couldn’t finish her kill. On our way back, we stopped by the half dead bull, who was sitting up by then, meaning the leopards couldn’t reach it still. Hopefully they could eat later that night…

We also saw some other animals and another leopard crossing the road but the star of night for me were the fireflies who looked like stars themselves.

The next day, Swiss bunny went on an early morning safari and saw 3 tigers while I looked at the wild animal baby Ne has become.

Around noon we went to the core area of the forest where there is a beautiful beautiful pond surrounded by shards of limestone rocks, which also happens to be within the territory of a tiger (#622)! It was really really beautiful.

Legend has it the pandavs in Mahabharata lived here during their exile and they used their magical powers to create this spring that drips water at the same speed 365 days of the year. The water here is supposed to have therapeutic properties and it actually tasted so good …

Here also we saw littering (just 2-3 objects) and it broke our hearts.

All in all we have now travelled quite a bit around in MP but we know this state has a lot more. Don’t go on its unassumingness, this state is awesome.

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P.S. we traveled back from Khajuraho, the train station for Panna, back to Ujjain. It was just unpleasant. Waiting for Indigo to connect India a bit more.