MP Trip April 2017 Part 2: Maheshwar

The intention of this blog is to facilitate aspiring travelers to plan their trip around these areas. Hence some links and photographs are added here. This blog does not promote any shop, hotel or any other establishment mentioned here in. 

09/04/2017 Ujjain to Maheshwar

Distance from Ujjain to Maheshwar is about 150 - 160 km. En-route to Maheshwar, some 50 km from Ujjain we pass through and around well planned city of Indore. Devi Ahilyabai Holkar had been ruler of this Sansthan in 18th century. She had a major role in making Indore a trade hub of central India.

The outer ring road called Kushabhau Thakarey Road of Indore keeps you out of the city traffic. A few km ahead you hit NH 3, Mumbai Agra Highway after a restaurant called Terminal 10. A real Boeing 737 houses this restaurant! For Maheshwar you have turn right at this junction and travel towards Mumbai. The Indore Bypass of the highway is on East - South East side of city of Indore. Rau Chawk is the place where you hit the main highway after Indore bypass. This is near Rau Railway Station. Shreemant Thorele Bajirao Peshve was called as Rau by his near and dear ones! Yet another site where a Maharashtriya warrier has found place in MP. Some 11 12 km ahead on the highway, there is BPCL petrol Station, if you need to tank up.

Next town is Manpur with thick habitat on either side of the road. So drive carefully through the local traffic of bikes and trucks. Further Chittorgadh - Bhusawal highway merges at this place with NH3. Some 2 3 km ahead of this junction,you pass through Manpur Ghat. The downhill road has speed breakers every 200 m. Seems till a few years ago this ghat was even steeper and all heavy vehicles had trouble climbing up. There are no major turns in this ghat road and the road is through a “Pass”. 

Manpur Ghat

 
The exit for Maheshwar is on your left, some 13 km after the Manpur Ghat ends. There are couple of dhabas or road side restaurants just before the exit Take another left at  a place called Dhamnod, and you hit the road to Maheshwar. The road to Narmada Retreat, (narmadaretreatmaheshwar.weebly.com) where we stayed, is some 13 km from Dhamnod. There is a sign board directing towards there. It is a concrete road so driving here in monsoon may not be difficult. 

Narmada Retreat is a cottage type hotel with rooms spread over a large plot of land. It has nice stepped landscape garden and a small swimming pool.

Hut type cottage

Bharadwaj i.e. Greater Coucal bird in the garden

Food quality is nice but choices are limited. They serve morning tea, coffee in the room but you have to go to the restaurant for breakfast and meals. There is a small terrace where you can have your meals looking at the serene river Narmada. Having morning breakfast here on this terrace is a great experience.

View of restaurant at Narmada Retreat from terrace

Steps leading to river Narmada from Narmada Retreat seen from the river

The fort and Shivalay were rejuvenated by Devi Ahilyabai Holkar in 18th century. 

Shivalay at Maheshwar

She constructed a nice Ghat on the bank of river Narmada for people of Maheshwar. One has to climb down many steps to reach to the river. 

 

Steps to get down to river seen from river

Steps to get down to river seen from river

Steps to get down to river seen from river

The fort next to the Shivalay was where Devi Ahilyabai used to live. It also houses her own personal temple. It is well maintained even today, some 150 years after she lived here. Though called as palace, this house is very simple and small. Now it showcases the main events of her life in the form of paintings and small models along with written boards. It also houses a nice old painting of the ghat, the fort and the palace drawn probably from the opposite bank of the river. You can can carry your phones and cameras herein but photography and video shooting is not permitted. Just outside the palace there is a big statue of Devi Ahilyabai holding a Shivaling. When you stand in front of it you get a feel that she is looking right into your eyes.

Statue of Devi Ahilyabai

There is one more Shivalay right in the middle of the river Narmada. You can hire a boat for going upto there. The charges of these boat rides are really reasonable. It costed us INR 200 for three. We had been there just before sunset and thus could captured this image of golden Sun light reflecting from the Shivalay!

Shivalay in the middle of river Narmada as seen from river bank

Shivalay at centre of rive Narmada accessible from boat

There are many shops of MaheshwarSpecial Silk Sarees which have nice variety at a reasonable price.

The next day we checked out to travel to Mandavgad.