Trip to Khajuraho, Panna & Lucknow

After returning from my last trip to Lahaul & Spiti, all my friends had only one question “What is your next plan in winter ?”. Normally my mind looks for “ A place where the high Mountains and the floating Clouds chat with each other  OR Some beautiful creation of nature playing in the green fields ”.  It was December 2015 and 25^th December fell on Thursday, so planning for the right destination began with my friends. One day my friend Anirban called up to inform that we need to book our train tickets the very next day as the booking window was opening then. My initial reaction was “YES we are going” and then enquired about the place. Anirban is a Mountain-lover but this time he said that we are going to Lucknow. Next day morning he booked our (Anirban,Moumita,Ratul, Payel,Nivedita and Me) tickets in Rajdhani Exp till Kanpur and also booked  return tickets after couple of days. Main attraction of our Lucknow trip was FOOD, market and obviously it’s rich heritage.

Our journey was  to start on 24^th December but Anirban and Moumita had to dropped off from the trip due to some unavoidable situations. I started some analysis on the trip plan and as is obvious put some real spice to the plan by  adding Khajuraho and Panna National forest to the 3 days’ plan !!!

THE J’NIGHT: Day Zero

It was 24^th December, I, Ratul, Nivedita and Payel reached Sealdah station at 4:30PM from our offices and took 4:50PM Sealdah Rajdhani. We were very excited as it was our first journey in Rajdhani Express.  Train left the station on time and in  due time,  snacks was delivered and we said WoW after looking at the food J . We had very good dinner too and went to bed a bit early.

Day One : 25^th Dec, 2015 :

We were bit worried that  train might reach late due to the prevailing foggy conditions during December time,  but to much of our relief , it was bang on  time, we reached Kanpur at 5:10AM in the morning. A car for next 3 days was already booked so I called our driver and came to know that he is waiting outside. It was chilly morning in Kanpur. We boarded  the  car and started our journey. After 2 minutes he asked “ Where are we going ??? “. I said OMG, I had told and mailed my complete plan to your agency and you are asking this question. Anyways Ratul pacified me  and told him to drive to Khajuraho when another funny thing happened as he asked “US” for the route!!! At last Nivedita used her mobile app and we started our journey !!!

Sunrise on the way to Khajuraho

It was 5 hours beautiful journey with sunrise on the way, we reached Khajuraho at around 10:30AM. We went to our hotel “Hotel Casa Di William” which I had already booked through Yatra. Hotel was wonderfully located bang opposite the Western Group of temples. We took some refreshments and heavy breakfast at rooftop restaurant from where we got the glimpse of Western Group of temples. We took some guidance from  the hotel manager who also gave us a map of Khajuraho, we then started our day tour in our car.

Khajuraho has got three campuses: Southern , Eastern and Western. As Western campus was a stone’s throw distance from the hotel, we decided to go to Eastern and Southern campus first and then to Western campus.

We proceeded to Eastern Campus first. It was around 3-4 KM from our hotel. We visited some beautiful temples as follows :

Javeri Temple

Brahma Temple

Vamana Temple

After spending around 1hr we moved to Southern Campus. It was around 1-2 KM from Eastern Campus. This section has got more temples than Eastern section.

Parshvanath Temple

Kosti Pathor er Murti

Adinatha Temple

Duladeo Temple

Chaturbhuj Temple

After completion of Eastern and Southern campuses, we came back to our hotel  for some refreshments and then were ready to head towards the Western Group of temples. The entrance fee is 10 Rs for Indians and 150 Rs. for foreigners. The Western group of temples is the largest group and is maintained very well by ASI (Archaeological Survey of India) and  are one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in India.

The Western group had 85 temples by 12th century but only about 20 temples have survived and couple of them are as follows :

 

Varaha Temple

Lakshman Temple

Mahadev Temple

Vishwanath Temple

Chitragupta Temple

Devi Jagdambi Temple

Kandariya Mahadev Temple

Parvati Temple

We saw  a beautiful sunset and then decided to pack up as the complex closes with Sunset and the security at some  sections were already clearing the visitors.

Sunset at Western Group of Temple Campus

We walked towards MATANAGESHWAR TEMPLE.

12 Feet Shiva lingams at Matanageswar Temple

This is the only temple where puja is still performed by devotees and this temple is outside the boundary walls of ASI Western Group. The shrine is 12 feet high that is made of shiny yellow limestone. It is considered as the holiest of the temples of Khajuraho. This temple has one of the largest Shiva lingams of India.

By this time we were quite hungry and decided to eat some freshly prepared Aloo Parathaas followed by a cup of Tea. We then decided to check out the Sound and Light Show at the Western temple complex. There are basically two shows one in English and followed by Hindi version. The English version starts at 7.30 PM and goes on till 8.30 PM. The Hindi version starts at 8.30 PM and ends at 9.30 PM. We decided to check out the Hindi version as we were told that the Hindi version has voice over by Amitabh Bachchan and we could not afford to miss that.

Cost of the ticket is Rs.200 per person. There is basically no seat reservations, there are rows of plastic garden chairs and you grab whichever position you want. We were over- enthusiastic before the show, so chose the first row to have a clear view. We were feeling real north Indian chilled winter while sitting under the stars. The show started with the familiar baritone of Amitabh Bachchan and the temple started getting lit from different angles in different hues ably presenting before us the many stories that these temples have seen unfolding

After the show we went back to the hotel and had our dinner. We went to bed a bit early as next day we had planned for 6:30AM morning safari in Panna National Forest.

Day Two : 26^th Dec, 2015 :

Woke up early and started our journey by 4:30AM in our car. Madla Gate was only 35KM but took more than an hour as some part of the road was horrible. I had already booked a safari car so met with the driver and gave him all our documents. The queue was quite long so took sometime to get the permit.

Our safari started around 6:30AM , we   came across Nilgai, Peacocks, spotted deer ,sambar deer, Cheetal, Chinkara, Langoor, Wildboar etc.

We were very excited after seeing Chinkara and Nilgai for the first time in our life.  Nivedita and I have visited many Tiger reserves but so far have had no luck of tiger-sighting,  Ratul had seen some couple of times so we were relying on his luck this time. Panna is a tiger reserve but tiger sighting is not that common  so I was actually not expecting to see the BOSS.  Although our  guide tried to give us hope by saying   “Main Jaan laga dunga aapko Tiger dikha ne ke liye lekin aapka naseeb bhi ho na chaiye !!!”. I was smiling as I had heard such commitments in the past too, anyways I was enjoying every moment of the journey and capturing them with my 150-500mm lens. Our Guide told the driver to go to a particular place and told him to wait for sometime and then moved towards a view point where we saw a big queue of safari cars. We got down from our safari car and reached to the view point. We saw that many people along with the guides were looking towards a island in  the Ken river. The jungle is really beautiful specially along with the Ken river. Suddenly a guide screamed with excitement saying there is the BOSS. I used my “bazooka” and yes I saw two young tigers playing in the island.

I was overwhelmed as this was my first tiger-sighting and you can understand my reaction. I shared my camera with Ratul,Nivedita and Payel for close view of them.

After sometime their mom came out from the jungle and three of them were playing with water in the Ken river.

We spent almost 30 minutes before they disappeared inside the jungle. It was a GREAT safari experience as I and Ratul also sighted a black Bear  and many birds while returning towards exit gate.

 

We came back to the hotel at Khajuraho , had early lunch and started for Lucknow at around 12:30PM. Again a long journey of 300KM took around 7.5 hrs with couple of small breaks. We went to our hotel “Hotel Charans International” which I had already booked through Cleartrip. It is on Vidhan Sabha Marg so centrally located. Our next destination as per plan was Dastarkhwan restaurant. Luckily this was 5 minutes walk from our hotel. We ordered Galawati Kabab, Awadhi Biryani, Ulte tawe ka Parantha, Chicken Masala. This restaurant and the menu was also part of my prior googling J . The food was really awesome specially Galawati Kabab and Chicken Masala. We came back to our hotel with more than FULL stomach and went to bed with 200% satisfaction J

Day Three : 27^th Dec, 2015 :

After having last night’s dinner we had a wonderful sleep and woke up at around 7AM and then had Tea and started our Lucknow day trip at 8:30AM. Our driver was very much aware of all the tourist places of Lucknow so quickly we planned our route and started with Bara Imambara (Bhool Bhulaiyaa).On the way my photographer mind was expecting crowd free Bara Imambara (Bhool Bhulaiyaa) at 9AM in the morning and YES when we reached it was almost us who visited FIRST so quickly I completed my photography of Bara Imambara campus. The entrance fee is 50 per person and guide is must for Bhool Bhulaiyaa. We took the same guide for complete Bara Imambara complex and he told us many interesting stories.

Bara Imambara

Masjid at Bara Imambara

He took us to the upper stories of Bara Imambara via Bhool Bhulaiyaa and on return he threw a challenge to us to go out by ourselves. It is almost impossible to come out on our own at the first attempt but our driver knew the trick and we could come out J. It was really interesting and the best part of Lucknow.

Bhool Bhulaiyaa

We took some breakfast from Lucknow street just in front of Roomi Darwaza. The structure is very beautiful of it.

Roomi Darwaza

We then proceeded towards Chota Imambara. This is small but much beautiful than Bara Imambara.

Chota Imambara

Our next destination was Husainabad Clock Tower, one can see it from the road but there is small museum attached to it. We went to the Husainabad Clock Tower and visited the museum.

Husainabad Clock Tower

In order to make our Lucknow visit more interesting, we had watched  Feluda’s bengali movie  “Badsahi Angti” just before our trip as the whole movie was shot in Lucknow and all the famous tourist places are shown. One of my eye catching place was “Residency” so I was very excited as our next destination was “Residency”. We spend almost 2hours there and I liked the most.

Residency

By then we were really hungry and our lunch destination was “Tundey Kabab” restaurant but this is the only part of my tour plan which FAILED completely. This restaurant is completely inside the old market place and it was completely in mess due to “Sunday Haat”. After some real trouble, somehow we managed to reach to the restaurant. It is very old in Lucknow but we were very disheartened as they only serve “Paratha” and “Beef Tundey Kabab” so we had to return from the restaurant and without wasting any more minute, we went to our favorite restaurant “Dastarkhwan” and had another round of sumptuous food. While waiting, Ratul very casually told me that cricket commentator Charu Sharma was having lunch just behind us but it was exciting moment for me being a cricket lover.

After lunch we came back to our hotel and started for Kanpur railway station at around 3PM and reached at 6PM. I and Ratul went to pack our dinner and got into Rajdhani at 21:20 and said “Good Bye“ to Lucknow on a HIGH !!!

 

Tagged: Adinath Temple, Amitabh Bachchan, ASI, Bada Imambara, Badsahi Angti, Bara Imambara, Bhool Bhulaiyaa, Brahma Temple, Charu Sharma, Chaturbhuj Temple, Cheetal, Chinkara, Chitragupta Temple, Chota Imambara, Dastarkhwan, Devi Jagdambi Temple, Duladeo Temple, Galawati Kabab, Hotel Charans International, Husainabad Clock Tower, India, Javeri Temple, Jungle, Jungle Safari, Kandariya Mahadev Temple, Ken river, Khajuraho, Khajuraho Eastern Campus, Lakshman Temple, Langoor, Lucknow, Madhya Pradesh, Mahadev Temple, MATANAGESHWAR TEMPLE, MP, Nilgai, Panna, Panna National Forest, Parshvanath Temple, Parvati Temple, Peacocks, Rajdhani Express, Residency, Roomi Darwaza, sambar deer, Shiva lingam, shrine, spotted deer, Tiger, Tiger Sighting, Tourism, Tundey Kabab, UNESCO, Uttar Pradesh, Vamana Temple, Vishwanath Temple, Western Group of Temple Campus, Western Group Of Temples, Wildboar