Our overnight on the train was...interesting? We both took the top bunks, so we could try to sleep a bit early without interrupting those around us. We used earplugs throughout the night, which definitely helped drown out the crying 2-year-old below us. The train ticket agent woke us up a few times asking for our tickets. Around 1am, the ticket agent even tried to force us to move everything around so we were in our proper seats. However, after James tried in English and the people below us spoke to him in Hindi about it, he eventually just let us go back to sleep.
Unfortunately, we both had to use the squat toilet on the train in the middle of the night. It was pretty bad. Squat toilets aren't generally desirable, but if they are clean, they are fine. However, this one was not clean at all. And, along the way to the toilet, there was a soldier in full attire (including a very large gun on his lap) sitting in the middle of the train. (A bit startling at 1am when you are trying to make your way to the toilet).
Our train arrived in Jabalpur around 7:45am. From there, we packed into our tour van, and headed to a nearby restaurant for breakfast. The views along the way for breakfast were interesting. Again, there was a lot of chaos along the roads. People were selling things on the streets, as well as bathing and urinating in full view of the driving public. We eventually arrived at the restaurant, which was also a hotel and a national tourist office. We were told they had good toilets here so we could freshen up a bit after our long night on the train. However, in order to use the toilet, you had to order food first. So, we did. We told our tour guide we wanted to try a traditional Indian breakfast, so he suggested a few things for us to try. (We often don't really know what we are eating here in India, because the names are so different and a lot of the time you can' really decipher what it is based on its appearance). Our food took about an hour to come, so we were quite hungry by the time it arrived.
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| This sign was on the wall inside the restaurant we ate at. Good advice, right? |
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| Our Indian breakfast, which included stuffed paratha and poori-bhaji. |
After our breakfast, we walked to the Narmada River and took a nice boat tour at Bheraghat. The boat was a very large rowboat manned by a crew of four, with a guide who told us stories and even sang at points. The banks of the river were made of marble, and the Indian tour guide was very proud of the marble and kept pointing out specific spots for us to look at along the way. We also saw several children swimming up to the boat trying to do tricks for money. Some of the children said they would jump off a high cliff on the river bank if we paid 10 Rupies (or about 20 cents), so a few of the people in our tour group told the children said they would pay the amount. And, the children jumped! After they jumped, they swam up to our boat and collected their payment.
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| The Indian boys standing on the cliff preparing to jump into the water. |
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| The marble rocks along the banks of the Narmada River. |
Following the boat ride, we walked through some small market areas before boarding our tour bus again. Our next stop was the nearby Dhuandhar Waterfalls. The Waterfalls are a primarily-Indian tourist area, because they are part of Hinduism's holy land. There were many vendors on the ground trying to sell their goods before we arrived at the waterfall. The waterfall was very pretty, and it was interesting to see many people actually from India visiting the area. We were the only Caucasian people at the waterfall, and a lot of people were staring at us. One entire family came up to us and asked if they could get their pictures taken with us, and almost everyone in our group was accosted in the same way. It was a different experience and we weren't really sure why they wanted the picture. In Egypt, we were used to the people trying to get money from us, so we were a bit cautious as we weren't sure if they were trying to scam us in some way. But, we obliged and posed for a picture or two. Afterwards, our tour guide said that in the countryside (where we were), they don't see tourists very often, so it was fun for them to see us and they wanted to take pictures of us to share with their friends and families back home.
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| Some of the Indian women were selling dyes at the waterfall. We thought they were quite beautiful! |
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| Tabitha made her way to the waterfalls along the Narmada River. |
Once we finished walking around the waterfalls, we headed back to the bus for a very interesting ride. However, along the way we made a pit-stop at the balancing rock. (Basically, a large rock that is balanced on top of another rock).
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| James and Erin in front of the perilous balancing rock. |
Our tour van then began heading towards Kanha. The roads along the way were extremely bad. In fact, we are certain that it was probably the bumpiest vehicle ride either of have ever taken. Erin even got a bit nauseated during the ride. About three hours later, we stopped at a very small restaurant to have lunch. The restaurant was at a hotel, but it was very empty – we aren't sure that there were any guests actually staying there. We all ordered a small amount of food, and waited again quite some time. Our money goes pretty far here in India. For example, our lunch cost about 125 Rupies for the two of us (including beverages); in US dollars, this was only about $2.75.
After our lunch, it was beginning to get dark. We got back in the van, and headed to the Mogli Resort – which was about an hour and a half away. We arrived and checked in at about 7:30pm. We quickly realized that despite the name, it wasn't a resort. In fact, the sign on the outside actually said, “Mogli Resort...resorting to nature.”
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| James got some snacks from a street vendor near the Mogli Resort. |
We decided to have dinner as a group as the hotel offered a buffet. The food was quite good and we were glad it was a buffet because we were very hungry and both felt the need to eat more than one plateful.
Following dinner, our tour guide invited everyone into his room to try some rum and coke (from India). We joined along and chatted a bit with a few of the members in our tour group from Denmark. We learned a bit more about Danish culture and they learned a bit more about American culture from us. Then, it was time for bed, as we had an early-morning wake-up in store for our first safari day in India, where we would be hunting for a glimpse of the Indian Tiger.
