Weekend Ride to Maheshwar and Mandu
It all started with a friend sending me a post on Instagram. It was about 3 day ride to Maheshwar and Mandu in Madhya Pradesh. It was a group ride organised by Nishant Jha for his new venture called On The Road Rides. He is an experienced rider and traveller. This was the first guided ride for his new venture and we were 4 riders in total.
This is a rough outline of the route we took to Maheswar and back.
Vadodara - Dabhoi - Chhota Udepur - Alirajpur - Kukshi - Maheshwar - Mandu - Vadodara
Day 1. Vadodara to Maheshwar - 23rd March 2024
We started on time at 5.20 AM from Vadodara. A fuel stop later, we had breakfast in Alirajpur - poha and kachori. I think poha is a phenomenon in Madhya Pradesh. I’ve explored only a tiny fraction of it but from what I’ve seen and heard, poha is the go to breakfast here. The roads till Alirajpur were good but the roads after it for an hour or two were amazing. Tree lined roads with fields as far as the eye can see, winding roads and a rising sun - it was perfect. As we closed in on Maheshwar, the road quality did decline a little as the number of speed breakers increased exponentially. It is understandable tough as we had started passing through a lot of small villages. We reached our hotel at 12 PM just before the peak hours of the hot summer. We had some lunch and rested for a while.
In the evening, we walked to the ghat. Maheshwar sits on the bank of Narmada. There is a an old palace and a lot of temples right in front front the river. We explored a little and then sat down at the steps of the ghat to watch the sunset. There were quite a few tourists there because of Holi I assume. Still it was quite peaceful. The ghats have something for everyone I guess - small cars for kids to ride in, two person bicycles, some small food stalls, picture booths, boating and more.
As the sun set we headed to a restaurant called ‘Shree Banke Bihari’ for dinner. We had a local thali whose usp was dal bafla. Baflas are dough balls that are boiled and dipped in ghee. The food was great. It was quite a heavy meal. After dinner, we walked back through the town back to the hotel. The town has a charming old school vibe to it. Houses that are built on top of a tall foundation with a small veranda and stairs were a common sight. It reminded me of houses in small villages I had seen as a kid. A chaiwala was using coal to make tea with an old hand operated air pump. The streets aren’t formally designed but they still felt organised in a weird way. This small town had an old school charm to it. We made it back to the hotel in a few minutes and called it a night.
Day 2. Maheshwar to Mandu and back
We started early to avoid the afternoon heat. The ride to Mandu was great. We went through some fields and climbed up some small hills though winding roads. We visited a few monuments. They were all well maintained and clean. The view from the top of Roopmati Pavillion was great. I think this place would be amazing after the monsoon. We started to ride back at around 10 AM and were back in Maheshwar by 11 AM. We rested in the hotel till the evening.
At around 6 PM we rode to the Sahastradhara. It’s the rocky riverbed of Narmada. There’s kind of a waterfall towards the middle of the river because of the rocks. You can climb and walk over big rocks and make your way towards it, literally into the river. There are some small natural pools that have formed where people bath. I assume it is only accessible in the summer when the water levels are down. You can see in the image below, how Nishant’s smart watch captured us literally walking into the river. We did have to try a few times to find a path towards the waterfall. You have to be careful to only walk dry rocks as the wet ones turn slippery. We headed back after the sunset and rested for the night.
Day 3. Maheshwar to Vadodara
We started well before the sunrise at around 5 AM. We took the same route as we did the first day. One notable stretch from Alirajpur to Chota Udepur was really good. Butter smooth winding roads lined with trees on both sides. Finally, we reached home at around 12 PM.
The trip was around 700 kms in total and it was a nice weekend getaway.