It’s been a very hectic tour down to the unknown state of Chhattisgarh. I had a pretty adventurous journey right from the start from Hyderabad to Raipur. I didn’t get a train ticket from Hyderabad to Nagpur so had to hire a cab. I thought the road which is NH7 would be good to start with although the fears were always there that I had to wade through the jungles of Adilabad. We started around 7:00 pm in the evening after a hectic days work in the office. Till we crossed Nizamabad it was 11:00 pm in the night and in these areas the winter had already set in. So it was starting to fill a bit chill out there. Then at around 1:00 AM we started to get into the jungle that we had to wade through. It was really very dense forest and with not much of traffic on the roads it started to be a bit scary. The as we moved on to our surprise the roads were badly damaged since the new construction of the roads in that area have just started and the whole of the NH7 till Nagpur was dismantled. There were boulders on the roads and we had bumpy ride throughout the night. It was one of the scariest journeys that I have undergone in my short span of life. I dint sleep for a moment throughout the night. The scariness had increased more since Adilabad had recently seen some communal riots. Even after crossing Adilabad the roads weren’t that good. At last we reached Nagpur in the early hours at around 5:30 Hrs in the morning. We got down the cab and noticed that all the four wheels of the cab were bent. I was worried how the driver would again drive back to Hyderabad. I gave him some extra money which could help him out in returning back to Hyderabad. I never thought that this would be the beginning of an adventurous tour ahead. Then the journey to Raipur from Nagpur was very smooth in the train. Once I reached Raipur I thought the monkey which was riding on my back had gone. Then I spent a good time at Raipur for the next couple of days meeting new people at my in laws place. Once diwali was over the other day we had planned to roam around a few places in Chhattisgarh. I din't know in the beginning that the area which we were going to visit is one of the naxal hit districts. The district is known as Bastar. It has a great history for being naxals Bastion. We had to move through the Satpura ranges to enter the district. The places which we visited were Jagadalpur, Chitrakoot (very good and pleasant natural water falls from river Indravati), Tirathgarh was more scarier since the Waterfalls was in a place which was in the midst of the dense forest.
ChitraKoot Water Falls TirathGarh Water Falls
It was as if I had an opportunity to make a documentary which we normally see in discovery channel. I had seen people who still use fire wood to cook. I was really a great visit. Parallel to this water fall there is caves which are only opened 3 months in the whole year hence we dint have the opportunity to visit it. The place where the caves are present is called Kutumbsar. The folklore goes in this manner that Lord Rama spent lot of his years of Exile in this place. Apart from that when I went into the recent history of these places I found that these places were ruled by the kakatiya kings. After visiting Tirathgarh, where it was like shaking hands with Mother Nature. We set our journey to another historical and mythological place called Dante Wada.
Entrance to the Temple Goddess Danteshwari
Dante Wada is famous for the Goddess Danteshwari. The mythology goes like this every one knows about the formation of the 52 Shakti Peets in India. This is one of them and the place where Goddess Sati's tooth had fallen. If any one doesn’t know the story of 52 Shakti Peets I shall recite to them later. The history of this place is it is the Kuldevi (Family Goddess) for lot of Telugu people and more specific to people from Warangal district (i.e. persons who belonged to the kakatiya kingdom). The journey was a bit on the rough side as the roads there are being laid now and it falls under the NH43 zone. After the visit there we had a delicious lunch at a small hotel where we had good vegitarian marvadi food. The food was much better than the ones we get at good hotels here at Hyderabad too.
On the way back the driver drove the vehicle just near over and above 120 KMPH so that we could return back to raipur before its too dark. The reason being its not that safe to drive in the dark at that place.
This marked the end of a very adventurous as well as happy visit. In the process I discovered
one of the most beautiful places on the earth where man has not yet started the exploitation of nature.
So all those who read this blog can definetly plan out a tour to this beautiful place and have a gala time.
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