A plan to trek, getting converted into living a few days in towns with people to everything getting canceled, my travel plans changing to go to Mumbai/Goa, to the original plan coming to life again suddenly to tatkal booking of the exit tickets from Delhi… it all happened for the last one week, which I spent away from everything and close to myself and yes Aro was around too…

He happens to me one of my best co travelers… for reasons which are strange… We usually argue a lot when we talk, and most of the time we are not talking as we have different agendas when we travel together ( can’t really say what though)… his walk pace is very different then me and that helps with some space too… the bottom line is he is one of the best people to travel with and I can find 100 best most stupid reasons as well to prove that point…

So back to the trip…

We finally decided that we were going to Kanha from Delhi and thats all we knew… rest was going to Fluid… I got the tickets on Friday, and made the bookings the same day in Mogli Resorts, Kanha on Friday….

Saturday… in the afternoon, my dear friend Aro calls me and tells me that he and Sanjit were lost in Delhi and did not know how to reach NOIDA… it was just about 90 minutes before our train was to leave… fantastic… the excitement starts a li’il earlier than expected…

and India saw the introduction of a new GPS device that day… Prashant Bhardwaj… I was with him on the phone for about 35 odd minutes guiding the ways and turns before they finally managed to reach NOIDA…

A quick lunch and 20 minutes to the departure, we rushed… thanks to the DND we were at the platform number 4, to catch the Gondwana Express well in time…

now this was one long train, 20 coaches to be exact. The reason, the train splits into 2 somewhere in MP and half of it goes to Bilaspur and the rest to Jabalpur…

Our seats 1, and 2 were in the Coach B1 which was I think third to the last coach on the looooooong train which we managed to reach after walking for a mile I guess… but we did 🙂

Being in a train coach is a great feeling.. specially the ones in which you can sleep 🙂 After spending sometime, I was dying to be in the train in India.. and here I was… lovely… put our bags in place… and settled…

The train moved at the right time, and we were off… yippieeeeeeeee….

Travelling in a train is no fun if you cannot stand at the door watching the world being left behind 🙂 so after about 30 minutes I was out talking to our coach attendents Vinod and Vinod and sitting on the wooden plank which was there for the attendants next to the doors…

I think I must have spent a good 3 hours in all on that plank in the evening, and then again in the night just staring into space and not doing anything else…

Even managed some sleep on it the next morning with the early morning sunrays kissing my face, and the colder than cool breeze reminding me of the presence of the cold weather…

As expected, conversations started and did not stop during our entire journey to Jabalpur… we got a number of tips from our co passengers on what do and when… we even tried making some amendments to our plan, but managed to stick to the original which was to go to Kanha straight after getting off the train…

Oh and if you are traveling on that route, then instead of eating the food in the train, you can order food from Comesum @ Agra Cantt… the numbers are : 0562-3296410/11.. just call them about 30 odd minutes before you are reaching and tell them your train name, coach and seat numbers. The food would be delivered at your seat… Also make sure that you ask for the bill amount and arrange for exact change to pay because more often than not the person who comes with your packet would not come with any change, or less than what you should get back so that he can make some money…

I woke up at 0530 hrs to realize that the train was not moving… We were at the Katni Station (The place to get down it you are going to Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve, which is about 40 kms away) Had some tea and an interesting conversation with the Tea wallah there… He was a PGDCA, however did not have steady job and decided to sell tea at the station instead of sitting idle at home… he also mentioned that the rest of the boys at the station were graduates with no jobs… not a happy situation, but what helps is that fact that they decided to work hard for a living instead of not doing anything else… Another interesting comment that he made was that put an idiot on the railway station for 3 months and he would transform into an Insaan ( read Smart Ass) in that time… giving his own example he said that he did not have a clue on how to survive there about 2 months back, but had matured and knew people by the sheer looks, and body language much better now…

We reached Jabalpur around 0800 hrs Saturday.. and our agenda was now to get a ticket for our return journey (Bhopal to Delhi)… Aro filled the form and stood in the line and was thrown out of it after 35 minutes because the lady refused to give him a ticket… well because we did not know the train numbers that will go from Bhopal to Delhi, and we were supposed to know it before we ask her for a ticket… I am wondering if there are 10 trains, do I need to fill in 10 forms and then try or once she tells us that there is no space, we find a different train number and stand in the line again.. Anyway, we decided that we go the safe IRCTC way and took a rickshaw to Russel Chawk to find an internet cafe…

Decided to eat first, and had some nice Idli Dosa at a roadside thela before we found an internet cafe and booked our tickets from Bhopal to Delhi for the next Saturday…

Now the next stop was the City Bus Stop and we were to find a bus to Mandla, and then take a bus to Kanha from there…

The distance we were to travel was about 156 kms with one change of bus… the bus left @ 1030 hrs and reached Mandla ( about 96 kms) at 1330 hrs, which is where we realized that the bus to Kanha was the bus which was coming from Jabalpur only… But this was a welcome break after sitting in the bus for about 3 hours already… so some tea, cold drinks, tea later the bus to Kanha arrived… A smaller but more comfortable bus, and was to move to Kanha at 1400 hrs… I got talking to the conductor and realised that we were still a good 2.5 hours away from Kanha… He was also kind enough to force me to eat a parantha from his lunch, and it was the yummiest thing I had eaten in the last 18 hours…

The bus moved and thanks to a seat at the back, I was able to observe much more than our previous bus in which I was sitting on the first seat… What follows are some pictures from my seat in the bus… People standing, People sitting, people looking for a seat, and people just looking, relaxing or listening to radio… loved every bit of it…

On one of our pit stops in Mocha ( not pronounced Moka, but Mocha like in Locha) I had tea with sugar and Salt… needless to say it tasted pretty different and nice… I am looking forward to having that again sometime… one of the reasons why Tiwariji liked to drink the sweet-salted tea is because it helped clean the throat after inhaling a lot of smoke and dust over the day on that route…

I was both surprised and happy at the condition of the roads in MP so far, and also was glad to see a lot of boards, signs, hoardings demonstrating a lot of work happening on the ground level in the state related to employment, child education, girl education and insurance, personal sanitation (something similar to the project I clicked in Chattisgarh)…

Many pictures, conversations, and long/short stops later, the bus managed by Mr. Srikant Tiwari reached Kanha where a gypsy from our resort picked us up…

Approximately 27 hours later, we were finally in a room.. a huge one and in the middle of almost nowhere… Mogli Resort is in the buffer area of Kanha and for all practical purpose, is a part of the forest itself… so I have to mention that walking around in the dark was pretty scary with all those freaky sounds… Aro somehow was enjoying my fear and was laughing his ass out for nothing !!!

We were to leave for the safari at 0530 hrs in the morning and we finally called it a day @ 2200 hrs… pretty long and satisfying journey this was…

Now some objective information…
How to Reach Kanha:
Take a train to Jabalpur and then a bus/taxi from there to Kanha… Delhi Kanha in a train would take about 17-18 hours and a 3rd Tier AC ticket would cost about Rs. 900.
Jabalpur station to City Bus Stand:
Can take a Metro Bus Service ( Rs. 5 per head)
Shared Auto ( Rs. 5 per head again)
Cycle Rickshaw ( Rs. 15) Auto (Rs. 20)
Jabalpur to Mandla:
Rs. 50 per head
Distance : 96 kms
Time : 3 hours approx
Mandla to Kanha:
Rs. 38 per head
Distance : 60 kms
Time : 3 hours approx

There are just about 4 buses that run between Mandla and Kanha which makes the travel time higher because they move slow and pick up as many passengers as they can…

Another alternative is to take the fast bus from Jabalpur @ 0700 hrs which reaches Kanha @ 1330 hrs.