Conquering Kalinjar Fort on a Bumpy Bike Ride
A bumpy bike ride, Kalinjar Fort taken over by monkeys, and an unexpected twist – this is what describes this day best 🙂
The day started early so that we could leave for Kalinjar Fort at 8 am. Somehow a bike ride to a fort has to be part of every trip 🙂 One of the guys from the hotel, Lavkush, was the driver for today.
The roads were bumpy and led through villages, Panna National Park, and endless fields. I don’t think we spent that much time on highways. There’s no better way to explore the countryside 🙂 Apart from the bumpiness (#ouch, my poor butt…), it was amazing!
We reached the fort after around 2 1/2 hours which didn’t seem that long. It’s on top of a hill and as old as Khajuraho. The (firang) entry was 300 INR/~4.30 $ but it’s more of a local attraction. Very badly maintained as it is, they need every rupee they can charge more from foreigners. (I actually fully support this although I know a lot of foreigners who get extremely annoyed with it).
The first place we visited was the main attraction: the Neelkanth Temple, one of the biggest Shiva sculptures I’ve ever seen and the till date nicest sculptures of Kali I’ve come across (“Kali Ma Shakti De” playing in my head every time I see her 😀 #TempleofDoom) and a holy lake in the mountain. Apart from that, lots of monkeys – langurs to be precise – have taken over the entire fort, Rise of the Planet of the Apes style.
We continued to the next attraction, the Kalinjar Fort Museum at a small lake with some other ruins around it. It was closed though.
The last stops were the Rang Mahal, Rani Mahal and the main gate of the fort.
The good thing about being there in March is that there are hardly any tourists around. The bad part: it’s freaking hot and everything is just brown. Which makes the bushes with red flowers stand out even more though. Every season has its own beauty. If it wasn’t for the sun burning down on us, showing no mercy…
The way back to Khajuraho seemed endless in this heat. It was now 1 pm and the sun was at its peak. And after having spent 3 hrs on the bike already, I could hardly sit anymore…?
Halfway back to Khajuraho, during a short coke stop at Ajaygarh, I came to the conclusion that a stay in Kanha National Park would be senseless in this season. Years back, I had seen Ranthambore in April and it was just brown. So was Panna National Park which we had crossed on the way.
This opened so many new options! Back at the hotel, I discussed it with the guys there, and the owner, being the oldest and having travelled through the whole of Madhya Pradesh, told me that Bhedaghat wasn’t even that great and that I should rather go to Pachmarhi, a hill station in Satpura National Park.
While thinking about it, someone said “There’s a direct train to Indore at 11:30 pm today”. Huh! When I had planned my itinerary, I had been really disappointed that I could only cover such a small part of Madhya Pradesh on this trip. But this opened whole new options! Indore, Ujjain, Maheshwar, Mandu, Bhopal…
“Ellora caves are nice too”. Ellora, hm? Let’s google that… holy shit, why haven’t I heard of that before?! Done!
Within only one hour my itinerary was entirely changed and the train to Indore was booked. A 14-hour train ride… Phew! This time, I booked AC 2 Tier since there had been no curtains in AC 3 Tier. Hopefully, that should be better… (spoiler alert: it was 🙂 )
I ended up having a whole afternoon and late evening for myself and went once more to Raja Cafe. It said “Swiss” on the signboard so I suspected the “tender chicken chunks in creamy white wine sauce” to be Geschnetzeltes, one of my favourite German dishes. Apart from the green capsicum which in my opinion has no place in that dish, it turned out to be exactly this 🙂 Zuericher Geschnetzeltes even, since they’d put mushrooms in it too. I prefer my own version with extra bacon in it, but it was definitely nice! Especially with the view over the temple complex, now during the day time even better than yesterday evening 🙂
(Side note from 2023: Since I turned vegetarian 3 years ago, I can’t leave my bacon remark uncommented. I’ve now been making Geschnetzeltes with either only mushrooms or including mockmeat and it’s as good.)
The day ended with star gazing on a huge rock in the fields which made up for the loss of my star gazing plan at Astroport Kanha. I think the last time I’d seen so many stars was in the camp at Triund. Simply stunning!
The train to Indore left on time at 11:30 pm and off I went. AC 2 Tier turned out to be an excellent choice, they even handed out fresh bed sheets. I usually don’t feel like touching any sheets in buses, but this was just great!
Well then: Indore, here I come!
The Summary
Distance covered
By bike: 204 km
By foot: 3 km
Acommodation
Ramayana Hotel
Half day extended: 300 INR/~4 $
Food
Raja Cafe
Dinner: Chicken chunks in creamy white wine sauce with mushrooms
Cost: 500 INR/~7 $
Rating: 5/5 (although I would’ve left out the capsicum and added bacon 🙂 )
Entries:
Kalinjar Fort: 300 INR/~4 $
Other:
Bike ride: 2000 INR/~29 $
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