दिल ढूंढता है, फिर वही फ़ुर्सत के रात दिन …
जाड़ों की नर्म धूप और
आँगन में लेटकर
आँखों पे खींचकर तेरे
दामन के साए को
औंधे पड़े रहें, कभी करवट लिए हुए |
An accommodation in the midst of vibrant shades of verdant green, a place that was inhabited yet very calm, where silence was the music, days started with the avian choir, progressed under the shadow of mango trees and slept under millions of twinkling stars. This is how we remember Anil Farms.
Sangla, the quaint Himalayan village/town/valley is an over-deserving candidate for the travelogue that I was yet to write. But then between the ‘no-travelogue-at-all’ or a ‘hotel-review-quickie’, I am choosing to force down the latter. Procrastination is overwhelming and a hotel-review-quickie must be done within the expiry-date of your memory for the objective details, so let me do that; and I would try my best to throw in some good pictures to display what Sangla has in the offing. The second stop for our ‘Chalo Kaza’ run was to be in Sangla. We were advised by the internet that we should spend at least 3 nights there so we decided to increase our stay from one night to 2 nights at Sangla. It looked like a stop good enough, a provision to rejuvenate the calf muscles from active driving and to get us some worldly pleasures, before we reach Kaza and take the great Kaza-Manali drive head-on (almost literally!).
We had a three day long weekend coming up in September,2009 and wanted to drive down to someplace close to Delhi in a radius of 200 kms. After a lot of searching on the internet and asking around, we zeroed in on the Bharatpur Bird sanctuary. The next challenge was to find a place to stay. Again, internet came to the rescue and we decided that we’ll stay at The Birder’s Inn (http://www.thebirdersinn.com ). However, the decision to book the place was left at run-time and we didn’t reserve the birder’s inn beforehand (we were really thankful for that afterwards)
The Road
We started at 9:30 a.m. in the morning in our Maruti Swift. Took the road via Faridabad towards Mathura, onto the NH-2 and then there s a right turn for Bharatpur.The road is real good except for the last 10 kms which does not have a road at all. It has only potholes and mud. We reached bharatpur at around 2:30 p.m. One can reach quicker than we did. We just took a lot of frequent breaks in between.
En-route, the only good option to eat is either one Mall towards your left when you enter Mathura (which has a Pizza Hut) or a Mc Donald’s which is near the Mathura Refinery. If you choose to eat at the Mc D’s then you’ll have to go straight for about 8-10 kms and then come back again to take the cut towards Bharatpur. So, stick to Pizza Hut or carry your own food. We had our food so din’t stop anywhere. (more…)
This is part 2 of my visit to Chitrakoot and contains a brief of my visit to the many shrines that dot the district. Part 1 of my visit or the Road Review can be found here. Karwi Railway station is named Chitrakoot Dham. However the actual Chitrakoot is about 5-6 km before Karwi when approaching from Banda. The religious shrines are spread over the town on both sides of the UP – MP border. Since I am not an expert on the Hindu religion I am going to be quoting a lot from Wikipedia, so do bear with me. The photographs though are all mine.The important shrines include the Ramghat, Kamadgiri, Bharat Milap, Janaki Kund, Sati Anusuya ashram, Sphatic Shila, Gupt-Godavari, Hanuman Dhara and the Bharat Koop.
I started my visit with the origin of the Paisuni River or the Mandakini as it is locally called which is pretty much the life line of Chitrakoot and on the banks of which are many of the shrines and ashrams. The origin is located about 50 – 55 kms south of Chitrakoot nearer to Manikpur. It is formed from a massive gorge which then empties into another gorge and the River is on its way. The Mandakini must have been a pretty ancient river judging by the volcanic looking rock formations on that gorge and the literal force of water that must have carved those gorges over thousands of years. As you look down them you can almost feel the Mandakini thundering down.
