Day 5 -- Kanha National Park to Bandhavgarh National Park

12-04-2017
We had our breakfast and got ready to leave Kanha. The destination for the night was Aranyak Resort near Bandhavgarh National Park.

10:15 AM We left the resort.
We wanted to also visit Ghughwa National Park where plan fossils were discovered. Unfortunately, nobody knew about it. Finally, some searching through Google and road signage told us that the Ghughwa National Park was midway between Kanha and Bandhavgarh on the same road.
12:34 PM We stopped at MPTDC Mandla Tourist Motel for a quick Lunch and continued on our journey. The roads are little bad in these parts but nothing that is not drivable.
2:50 PM We reached Ghughwa Fossil National Park. As expected the park was completely empty with no soul in sight.

Ghughwa Fossils Park is the first park in the country where plan fossils as old as 65 million years old have been preserved. It was discovered in Dindori district in year 1970 by Dr. M. R. Ingle (Jabalpur Science College) and Dr. M. B. Bandhe (Birbal Sahni Institute of Paleobotanic).
Plant fossils are wood like pieces which feel heavier, almost like stones. Fossils are priceless beacuse they are extremely rare and give us invaluable information about earth's past and the life that existed millions of years ago. The park has these fossils and there are trails around these.

The fossils found in the park are plans of very ancient times. Palm fossils are numerous. Other fossilized plans include ancient forms of Banana, Rudraksh, Eucalyptus, Jackfruit, Jamun and Aonla. Their woody parts, leaves, flowers, fruits and seeds are represented in these fossils. 

Places where fossils have been found are, Mohgaon Kalan, Samnapur, Mohgaon, Parapani, Ghughuwa, Deori Khurd, Mehadwani, Devargarh.
How was Ghughwa then?
About 65 million years, the area of Ghughuwa was covered by forests similar to evergreen and semi-evergreen forests of today's western ghats and northeast India. These forests were made up of moisture loving plants. There was a three-tier forest structure consisting of small trees or shrubs growing below moderate to large-sized trees. The middle level had mostly trees of the palm group. Ghughuwa enjoyed a humid equatorial climate in ancient times with uniform temperatures throughout the year and an annual rainfall above 2000 mm as compared to 1400mm now. In those times, it also had a very long rainy season.

Why did these plants die?
The single landmass called Gondwana, comprising peninsular India, Australia, Madagascar, Antarctica and Africa, split up into these constituents which then slowly moved apart to take up their present positions. The Indian peninsula moved north. With this, the Indian peninsula no longer remained in the equatorial region. The seas receded from central India.
These changes were initiated by frequent earthquakes, the flow of lava and upheavals which covered entire regions with salicaceous sediments. All this meant a drastic change in the climate and the moist evergreen forests died out to be replaced by the tropical dry deciduous forests of today which were more suited to the changed climatic conditions.

Was Ghughuwa near the sea then?
Mollusk fossils found here, as well as at Matka-Deorikhohani, Palasunder, Silthar-Chanti Hills, and Chargaon, indicate the presence of a large water body nearby. Some scientists have conjectured that an ancient branch of the sea called the Tethys Sea extended up to this area.

Earliest forms of human beings began to appear only about 2,00,000 years ago. The earliest signs of human civilization are only 10,000 years old. These fossils were formed 65 million years ago, the Himalayan mountains were not even in existence then. Even the continents were not in the same position as they are now.

4:30 PM We left Ghughuwa and headed towards Bandhavgarh.

6:15 PM We arrived in Aranyak Resort near Bandhavgarh. Here is my review of the place.

Day 4 -- Kanha National Park

11-04-2017
The day was reserved for safaris at Kanha National Park. We had one confirmed booking for safari and the resort had indicated that they would try to get us another safari in the evening. So our fingers were crossed.
05:50 AM We were at the gate in the queue of cars to enter the park.

The morning safari was uneventful. We came back hoping for another chance for evening safari. Finally, the resort guys came through and we were ready for evening safari.

That was the end to both the safaris in Kanha. Even though the jungle was interesting, it was very quite and at the end of both the safaris, we had seen gaur, some monkies, deer.

Day 3 -- Pench National Park to Kanha National Park

10-04-2017
The plan was to attend the morning safari in Pench National Park and then move on to Kanha. We entered the Jungle at 6:00 AM and were back by 10:35 AM. Here are some pictures from the Safari.

We were back to resort by 10:45 AM, got ready, had lunch and we were ready to leave for Kanha by 2:15 PM.
2:15 PM We left Pench for Kanha.
We reached Kanha at 06:00 PM. We stayed at The Baagh. Here is my review of the place. We had a sumptuous meal and retired for the day.

Day 2 -- Nagpur to Pench National Park

09-April-2017
The destination for the day was Pench National Park. Since it is around 3-4 hours, we decided to get ready leisurely.
10:00 AM We started from previous night's destination after breakfast.  We quickly got onto NH-44.

The roads are fantastic in the Maharashtra section of NH, once you enter MP, the roads are under construction. The roads have significantly improved since last December but still, work in progress.

12:11 PM We reached Pench Jungle Camp. Here is my review of the place.

After Lunch and little rest, we got ready for our first jungle safari into the park. Here are some of the sights from the first day of safari.

And finally good night.

Day 1 -- Bengaluru to Nagpur

08-April-2017
06:00 AM We were on outer ring road towards Airport. Crossed the airport toll at 6:45 AM.

7:10 AM Stopped at Kamat in Chikkaballapur for the breakfast. It turned into a slightly longer break and we could leave around 7:50 AM.

9:30 AM Crossed Anantpur
9:45 AM Stopped at Bluemoon Highway restaurant.
12:55 PM Stopped at Bharathi 97 Food n Fuel for a small break. This place has a petrol bunk adjacent to it. The toilet facilities here are clean. This was a half an hour break.
2:20 PM Entered the Hyderabad Outer Ring Road, exited ORR at 3:05 PM.
3:25 PM Stopped at the Cafe Coffee Day for a break and some food. We prefer this place just for clean toilets etc. This is also adjacent to a petrol bunk so one can fill up if required.
As one drives towards TS-MH border, facilities dry up. There are no decent restaurant and toilet facilities. So we continued driving.
7:15 PM Stopped at a small Dhaba (Shiva Shakti Garden Family Restaurant) kind of place for some chai. Chai turned into pakora and it became slightly longer break. 40 minutes later we left the place.
10:20 PM We arrived at Le Meridien hotel in Nagpur which was our halt for the night. Here is my one of the earlier reviews of the property.
We had a quick dinner and retired for the day.

Christmas 2016

The plan was to travel to see the remaining places in Rajasthan during Christmas of 2016.

Following itinerary was followed for this trip.

• Day 1 -- Bengaluru to Nagpur
• Day 2 -- Nagpur to Bhopal
• Day 3 -- Bhopal to Noida
• Day 4 -- Noida to Hanumangarh
• Day 5 -- Hanumangarh to Bikaner via Kalibangan
• Day 6 --  Binaker to Jaipur
• Day 7 -- Jaipur to Agra via Bharatpur
• Day 8 -- Agra
• Day 9 -- Agra to Sagar
• Day 10 -- Sagar to Bangalore

The distance covered was  5476 kilometers. Approximately 3000 rupees of tolls were paid during the journey and approximately 550 liters of diesel was consumed. This was the first trip after the demonetization so the cash expenses had to be kept to a minimum.  All the fuel expenses were done electronically by credit card and most of the toll expenses were done using FasTag. Wherever FasTag was not working, PayTM was used.
I had booked quite a few hotels with Hotels.Com. Couple of those booking were with Hotel LemonTree in Jaipur and in Hyderabad. Both of these hotels called me and wanted me to tell them my credit card over the phone. I refused to give the card because I was not sure who called it. Both the hotels told me that they would cancel my bookings.

Day 10 -- Sagar to Bangalore

31-December-2016
The original plan was to drive up to Hyderabad on this day. We started early at around 5:15 AM.
During our last drive, we had taken this route till Nagpur, but the road was pretty bad 100 kilometers around Nagpur. We were advised that it is better to take Narsingpur-Chhindwara route.
7:00 AM We reached Narsingpur. We were told to find breakfast in Narsingpur, but we ignored that advice, at our own peril, thinking that we will find something on the way to Chhindwara. There is practically nothing on this route till Nagpur. Few dhabas that you see on the road don't open before Lunch.
8:25 AM Crossed Chhindwara.
10:00 AM We reached Nagpur. We were hungry, and we straightway drove to this place called The Breakfast Story. Unfortunately, that was an unfortunate decision. We waited there for quite some time, but the place was completely booked.
We finally left that place and reached Le Meridien at around 10:50 AM.
Five-star hotels are not good for doing things quickly. Since we had reached after their regular breakfast hours and before regular lunch hours, they told us they will cook something for us but it took quite some time. We could get out of this place only by 12:20 PM.
1:10 PM Crossed Hinghanghat. Bad roads start, at least some construction work is in progress, so there is hope that this section would improve in near future.
3:00 PM Crossed border, we see good roads again.
3:15 PMWe crossed Adilabad
3:55 PM We reached Singh is King Dhaba just around Nirmal. This has become our favorite place to stop on this section of road. The food is hot and quick.
At the time we also decide to not stop in Hyderabad. Even though we are running late, we decided that since our hotel has anyway canceled our booking and this is new year eve, it is better to continue driving and stop at Bengaluru.
7:15 PM Entered the ORR in Hyderabad and exited at 8:00 PM.
8:40 PM Stopped at Cafe Coffee Day near Mahboobnagar for dinner.
11:10 PM Crossed Kurnool

Just before Gooty, we ushered in the new year.
12:50 AM We crossed Anantpur
1:33 AM We crossed Penukonda
2:30 AM We crossed Chikkaballapur
As we crossed the Airport, we realized that traffic police had closed all the flyovers as a precautionary measure on New year eve. So we had to crawl through till Hebbal.
3:30 AM We reached home.

Day 9 -- Agra to Sagar

30-December-2016
9:30 AM We started from Agra after the breakfast. The roads were foggy and the progress was slow.

11:20 AM After two hours of driving, we were near Gwalior. This section of the route has pretty much zero facilities on the highway, so we decided to take a small detour towards the Gwalior town and stop at the Barista.
The place is good, and it is around one kilometer from the national highway and the approach road to the place is not crowded at all. So this makes for a good stopping point particularly if one is traveling with the family. Here are my thoughts on the place.

We continued after a small break at Barista and soon hit the bad Gwalior-Jhansi section of the road. This road is pretty bad and shows no sigh of being improved. 

1:20 PM We realized that we were near Datia and decided to stop at MP Tourist motel for a lunch. That would save us from going into Jhansi city to look for food. When in Madhya Pradesh, it is always a good idea to look for MP Tourish Motels, they are pretty good for small breaks and food.

Jhansi Fort

2:30 PM We started after lunch.

3:10 PM We crossed Jhansi

4:10 PM We crossed Lalitpur

4:40 PM We crossed Malthone

5:20 PM We were in Sagar.