The plan was to wake up early and leave for Pachmadi… But then sleep being one of the best things to rest with, we were just not ready to get up… finally managed to leave the beds around 1100 hrs…

Oh.. but I think before I start the story, I need to remind you of what we were doing so far…

Read HERE, for our trip from Delhi to Kanha…

and HERE for Kanha to Piparia…

Ok, now back to the morning in Piparia…

The foot was better now, thankfully yesterday night’s sprain was not there… there was not much thinking to do today… it was just getting up and moving to Pachmadi, which was to be our bunker for the next two days with us intending to walk around the place and explore as much as we can…

The station was not too far, and the buses/jeeps for Pachmadi were on the other side of the station… so we walked up the over-bridge and crossed to see many jeeps, one of which was to take us to our destination…

We hired one, and had to now wait for more passengers to join the jeep before we could move…

Meanwhile, the taxi guy suggested having some food at a nearby restaurant called Naivedya… We ordered a parantha and chole poori there, and manh were they tasty or what !!!

I think we then ate atleast 7 plates of chole poori… paid the bill to Mr Hansmukh Jaiswal who runs and co-owns the place…

The taxi was not still full.. rather we were the only two passengers yet… what followed was a wait of about 1.5 hours before we finally moved…

People come people went… people stayed people waited and came and went in those 90 minutes… basically I don’t remember getting bored at all…

The Tempo Gama finally moved… and about 54 kms and and another 90 minutes later we were in Pachmadi… It was interesting to see Deepak, the helper of the taxi, to use the tyre at the back of the car as his seat for these 54 kms… Infact thats where the helpers sit… there is no space for them in the taxi after a total of 14+1 passengers sit in that 8 seater vehicle…

Spend about an hour roaming around with the taxi wallah to find a decent hotel for ourselves, but did not really find anything interesting… so we moved up hill to see if there was something away from the town… though the taxi guy strongly opposed the idea, we still wanted to check a few places out, which we did and after a while, we asked him to drop us and leave…

I guess me and Aro were not comfortable with the way he was trying to guide our thought process of taking up a room etc… so there we were.. about 3 kms from the main town, and looking for a place for ourselves… checked two hotels and on our way to the third, we stopped to take some rest… i was sitting on the road and i suddenly turned towards Aro and said, lets go back… I don’t like this place !!!! And Aro almost freaked out !!! he told me he would have said it in a minute, if I had not…

so a quick decision later we were laughing and moving back to the taxi stand making the next best plan… where to go now… Indore, Ujjain or Bhopal? or maybe back to Jabalpur and stay put there…

Walked a while, took a lift from a gypsy fellow and reached the Taxi Stand… Some people recognised us from the taxi stand in Piparia, and wondered why the hell were we going back… did not have a convincing answer for them anyway 🙂 However we got talking to a few local there and made a new plan !!! the first leg of which was to reach Piparia and then take a bus to Bhopal !!!

The drive back to Piparia was not the best of all, as there were six people in the last two seats facing each other in that Mahindra, and I almost suffocated myself to death… thanks to two people who stopped the car to puke, I was able to stand outside for a couple of minutes each !!! We finally managed Piparia and rushed to the bus stand only to realize that the last bus to Bhopal leaves at 1730 hrs, and it was already 1800 hrs…the alternative was to take a bus to Hoshangabad and then to Bhopal from there… I was not feeling too well because of the taxi ride back from Pachmadi, and Aro was kind enough to get me some limca while I got the bags loaded and found a decent seat for us !!!

About 2.5 hours and loads of amazing small conversations later we were in Hoshangabad… Could have taken a bus to Bhopal right away, but decided to take a break, eat something and then go from there… There were regular buses to Bhopal till midnight anyway !!!

So we walked out of the bus stand, roamed around a bit and saw one of the most interesting boards in a long long time !!! Ghamandi Lassi !!! this was interesting and called for a drink or two !!! So we were there after a quick steps and feasted on the lovely Lassi!!! nothing special about the brand name here, except that this was a name that was given to the Lassi some 30 odd years ago to attract customers…

Times had changed, and the brothers who set up the juice and lassi shop had split, but the name Ghamandi Lassi remained… The highlight of this pit stop was the Badam Milk though, something that was to be eaten and not fit for drinking… never had badam milk so full of Badam in my life !!! Calls for a celebration, and we did celebrate with 2 glasses each of the Lassi and Badam Milk each !!!!

This is where we met a few locals who suggested that we could stay back in Hoshangabad itself instead of going to Bhopal… visit a local temple there in the morning and then move to Bhopal… get down at Bhojpur to see the Shivling and then proceed to Bhopal… They even recommended a nice hotel nearby called the Vatika to eat and stay… this looked like a decent plan, and we decided to stay back !!!

Walked to the hotel to realize that it was full ( yes… surprising) and because we were in no mood to look for hotels there, we came back to our original plan of going to Bhopal !!! Took a bus from the bus stand, and we were in Bhopal around 2330 hrs…. checked into a hotel near the railway station… moved out to have some food… Ate, came back and crash landed on the bed…

No plans next nothing !!! knew a few places that we wanted to go to !!! but still no plans…

Lets see what happens next morning !!! Looks like its more fun this way 🙂

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Some Information now..

Taxi Fare : 40 bucks per person if you are ok with a total of 15 people in the taxi… if you want more space, be ready to shell out some extra money… We paid 200 bucks on our way to Pachmadi for the two of us as we practically took 4 seats ( Fat guys we are) and 40 bucks were the “you are new to this place” charge… The taxi has to earn Rs. 600 per trip, and that gets divided…

Hotel Tariff in Piparia in Alka Lodge : Rs. 400 for an AC room… no electricity backup though…

Hotel Tariff in Pachmadi : Anything between Rs. 350 to Rs. 2000. Try and not roam around with Taxi walas to save 50-200 bucks on your tariff… The high end hotels are outside the town, further uphill…

Roaming around in Pachmadi : The only option is Taxis, which can be hired exclusively for about 1000 bucks a day or shared with someone… There are tickets to enter the common interest points as well, and be prepared to see a lot of honeymooners around the area…

Piparia to Hoshangabad bus fare : Rs. 50 per head; Travel time around 2 hours…

Hoshangabad to Bhopal bus fare : Rs. 40 per head; Travel time around 2 hours…