Chhattisgarh Chronicles VIII - Bhoramdeo, Khajuraho of Chhattisgarh

We always believe that the most exciting part of any travel experience starts with planning. The excitement increases as you Google for details, talk to friends to know their experiences, find out small nuances of the place etc., Especially so when you are going to an offbeat place like Chhattisgarh. When we started this process, some places became must sees – Chitrakote falls, Tribals, Chiukhadan palace and to that list was added Bhoramdeo – The Khajuraho of Chattisgarh.

A good breakfast in Chiukhadan made us ready for the long drive. The road from Chiukhadan to Bhoramdeo via Kanwardha is excellent. Driving in central India between March and May is a colourful experience. No doubt it will be hot, but you will see the colourful “Flame of the Forest” trees blooming in abundance. To our bad luck, we did not come any of them in Bastar. But here in Kanwardha, our wishes came true and there were many. Interspersed in the fields, they made the landscape look beautiful. 

Excitement mounted as we crossed the welcome arch of Bhoramdeo temple complex. The tourism department and Archaeological survey of India have joined together to maintain this place neatly. There are good restaurants and Chattisgarh Tourism has Bhoramdeo Jungle resort inside the complex. We had to wait for couple of minutes as the circuitous road led us to Bhoramdeo temple. The temple is not imposing like the ones in South India. It is small. But the location of the temple in middle of the forest next to a pristine lake gives it a tranquil setting.

The temple is a little gem. It reminded of the Jain temple at Ranakpur near Udaipur in Rajasthan which is also in the middle of forests. The temple architecture is similar to the ones in Khajuraho. If I am not wrong, the same group of rulers’ were responsible for building this. I wonder as to what made them to build the temple in the middle of jungle! 

The walls of the temple are embellished with erotic figures of men and women in different poses of making love. The carvings are intricate and capture the mood of the lovers very well. I don't want to deliberate much on this. Like they say, “seeing is believing” and here are the pictures.

The sanctum sanctorum of the temple has Shiva linga. It is located few steps below the ground. The entrance to the sanctum sanctorum has some beautiful figurines as well. 

Our next stop was “Madwa Mahal” situated a kilometre away from Bhoramdeo. ‘Madwa’ is a word from the local dialect synonymous to marriage pandal. Madwa Mahal was originally a Shiva temple but due its shape, like a marriage shamiyana, it came to be known as “Madwa Mahal”. This is a small temple dedicated to Shiva. The erogenous idols of this temple are also extremely beautiful. On the outer walls there are as many as 54 erotic sculptures in different poses. These asanas from the “Kamasutra”, are truly an epitome of eternal love and beauty. The Nagwanshi Kings were believed to be practitioners of ‘Tantra’ as their contemporaries in Khajuraho.

It was the end of the Chhattisgarh leg. We could only see half of the beautiful state in this trip. We then travelled to Kanha National Park.

We will be posting details about the trip from planning perspective in the next post.

We encourage you to read other posts in Chhattisgarh Chronicles series which will help you explore this beautiful state. Please click here for more details.

Chhattisgarh Chronicles

If you need any help in planning a trip to Chattsiagarh, you may send an email to poorna62@gmail.com

Happy to help.

Chhattisgarh Chronicles VII - Painted rooms of Chhiukhadan Palace

The drive from Kanker to Chhiukhadan was very good except for few KMs in Rajnandgaon town. 

Chhiukhadan – many including us would not have heard of this small town in Chhattisgarh. When we were browsing Outlook Traveller, we stumbled upon this palace and its painted rooms. We had made up our mind that we should stay here some day. We were excited that that will happen today.

Giriraj, the Yuvaraj of Chhiukhadan - a young man in late twenties - met us as we arrived at his palace. This is not a huge palace like the ones you see in Rajasthan or elsewhere. It looks more like a large Haveli. We were disappointed when Shivraj told us the painted rooms were under renovation and offered us different rooms. 

Chhiukhadan palace is built over 10 acres of land by Giriraj’s grandfather. With abolition of privy purses, the family moved to Raipur and the palace had gone to ruins. Jai, the Kanker yuvaraja during one of the visits to the palace happened to see these beautiful paintings in the rooms and that was when he and Giriraj - they are cousins - thought of restoration of the palace into a heritage hotel. They have started the restoration and lot of work is needed to bring back the place to acceptable standards. Once done, I have no doubt that this will be sought after place in Chhattisgarh. 

We went around the painted rooms and were zapped to see beautiful paintings on all sides of the room. No one knows who and when these were painted. There are scenes from Ramayana, Mahabharata, Ras leela and surprisingly there are scenes of British dancing, dining etc! The rooms somehow look surreal and once done up should provide a different expertise for guests.

The evening was exciting. Giriraj offered us a night picnic to a nearby reservoir in the middle of jungle. He is the Chairman of Town municipal council and has huge clout. But the guy looked simple. We drove up a small hill overlooking a reservoir under clear night skies. The whole place was pitch dark and quiet. He had got his team to cook and serve hot dinner. 

It was an experience we had not bargained for but came as a sweet bonus! 

Chhattisgarh Chronicles VI - Kanker Palace

We never knew that Chhattisgarh boasted palaces before we started planning this road trip. When we started doing some research on stay options, i stumbled upon some real gems – Kanker, Kanwardha and Chiukadan palaces. We decided to stay at least in one of the palaces and Chiukadan was the chosen one. Thanks to Outlook traveller, we were able to get some information about this place and planned our routes to make sure we spend a night in this palace. But we did not want to miss visiting others either. So I called up Jai, the Yuvaraja of Kanker – who also runs Bastar jungle resort where we stayed in Jagdalpur - to tell him that we will have lunch in his palace on the way to Chiukadan.

We left Jagdalpur after breakfast and reached Kanker comfortably by 1 PM. The road was excellent and had a row of trees on either side. It was virtually like going through a green tunnel. It was nice to see that majority of them were mango tress which had just bloomed. We kept our windows open to savour the aroma of these flowers. The road took us through beautiful views of Kanker ghat as well.

Kanker Ghat

Kanker town is the headquarters of Kanker district. It is a small quaint town. This must have been a small principality during British days. The Kanker palace is a huge British Bungalow built for British resident commissioner. It had all trademarks of a good old British bungalows – long corridors, large living room spanked by large bed rooms on either side. The high ceiling kept the interiors cool. 

Ravi standing next to tiger and yours truly on the sofa

Notice the hunting trophies on the wall

As per Jai, the Yuvaraja of Kanker, the original palace which was bigger was donated by his grand father to government and is now the Government office. The living room was decorated with hunting trophies of bison’s horns, tiger heads, stuffed tiger, old crystals, weaponry etc. Jai said that the forests of Kanker had many tigers and his grandfather was a good hunter. We could now fathom the reason for dwindling tiger population in these forests!

The rooms were big and elegant. The rooms sported the charming “Pankha” or “Fan” which was being pulled by servants to generate air in the room in good old days. 

The lunch was good and the "mutter paneer" was god sent. The “Pankha” in the dining hall gave  the room a subdued elegance.

As we left Kanker, we were bidding good bye to Bastar and entering the western Chattisgarh area of Rajnandgaon. Just outside the palace on the highway we saw this small lake with Shiva statue in the middle which was glowing in afternoon sun.

We were now heading to the interesting palace at Chiukadan and looking forward for our stay there.

Chhattisgarh Chronicles V - Chitrakote Falls, Niagara of Asia!

As we left Tokapal Haat, we were feeling little tired. It was four in the afternoon and Bastar sun was in full glow. We were relieved as we got back to Scorpio and switched on the AC.

From Tokapal, Chitrakote is around forty KMs. The roads in Chattisgarh are top class. We took forty five minutes to reach the place.

I have not seen Niagara Falls though I have been to USA couple of times. But having seen the pictures of Chitrakote falls in full glow during monsoons, this was to be second to none. In fact Chitrakote falls was one of main reasons for us to make this trip. 

We were all excited to see the falls. You will not appreciate the enormity of this mighty waterfalls when you approach the place. All we could see was River Indrāvati flowing gently. I park the car and we walk closer to the view point. When we reach the view point, we all stop – dumbstruck!! 

There it was – the largest waterfalls in Asia. 

Wow! What a fall! (look at the small boat at the bottom of the waterfalls)

Look at the huge arc shape of the waterfalls

The beautiful Indravathi valley

The view is magnificent. If this was the scene in early summer, we could visualise the brilliance of the falls post monsoon. The arc shaped falls has a huge expanse. The volume of water falling during monsoons must be outrageous. Nevertheless even in March, we were able to enjoy its beauty. Having seen the highest waterfalls – Jog falls – in full glory, we were now seeing the largest waterfalls. 

The water was falling in two cascades from a height of 100 feet. During monsoons you don’t see any rocks as the water flow will be high. The bottom of the falls form a huge lake. A staircase takes you to the bottom of the falls from where you can go boating on the lake – not sure how safe it is as we didn't see anyone wearing a life jacket - to go close to waterfalls at this time of the year. We did not go down the stairs as it was quite hot and climbing up would have been tiring. We decided to come back again after monsoon to see the falls in full glory!!

This is how the waterfalls get transformed in monsoon...........

The river valley after the waterfalls is very wide and looks beautiful. Being a weekday there was not much of crowd. We spend some time enjoying the serene place and return to the resort as the sun sets in the horizon.

It was an eventful day spent in Bastar!

Take a look at this excellent video shot by dear friend H V Kumar during his trip to Bastar in 2008 after monsoons.

Chitrakoot Falls

Please also look at the following posts in the series here

Chhattisgarh Chronocles 1 - Drive from Bangalore to Bastar

Chhattisgarh Chronicles 2 - Dancing with Bison Maria tribe!

Chhattisgarh Chronocles 3 - Caving in Kutumsar and Tiratgarh falls

Chhattisgarh Chronocles 4 - Tokapol haat and lal chinti ki chutney!

Chhattisgarh Chronicles 6 - Kanker Palace

Chhatisgarh Chronicles 7 - Painted rooms of Chiukudan Palace

Chattisgarh Chronicles 8 - Bhoramdeo, Khajuraho of Chhattisgarh

The above pictures of water falls shot during monsoon is the courtesy of Mr Anirban Ghosh, who is an amazing adventure traveler. You can read more about his journey in Chattisgarh here

Travels in interior Chattisgarh and Orissa - In search of Tribals and water falls!

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Back of the blog - Liquor from Mahua Flowers in Chattisgarh!

Back of the blog. Here we will share tit-bits and snippets on India Travel which may be useful for a traveller in India. It may be some new information about the place, a new cuisine one can explore, a bit of history, a funny anecdote or a good travel book. Anything connected to Travel in India. 

Chattisgarh in Central India is an amazing state. It is rich in flora and fauna. It is known for its indigenous tribal culture which is intact to a large extent though civilization is slowly creeping in. 

One of the interesting thing we found while traveling in Chattisgarh was the liquor which is brewed out of the flowers of Mahua tree which grows abundant in the forests. The tribals collect the mahua flowers which fall, dry them and then make liquor by fermenting it. 

Called locally as "Mahua" is is tangy and has high alcohol content to give you a good "kick"!

Dried Mahua flowers being sold in weekly market in Chattisgarh

Next time when you are touring Chattisgarh or Jharkhand or Orissa, make sure you taste this unadulterated country liquor which is sold in tribal "Haats" or weekly markets to feel high!!

Useful Links

Mahua in Wiki

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