Joe and Lotte at Sambhavna

So keeping with the themes of beauty and nature we spent the weekend in Pachmarhi. This hill-station is famous amongst Indian families, in particular honeymoon couples, for the mesmerizing beauty and cool relief it provides from the heat of the flat plains in summer. The location was discovered in 1857 by Captain James Forsyth of the British Army which lead to the formation of the hill station and a sanatorium there. The state of Madya Pradesh itself is probably the least visited by Western tourists in India. This holds true for Pachmarhi also and this can be frustrating when a some points 5 minutes struggles to pass without a request for a photograph. This seemed hilariously ironic that in such a photogenic location people were more interested in a pair a sunburnt students but c’est la vie! Besides this though we were swept away by the lush jungle valleys, waterfalls and temple caves. The video included earlier in the blog is of a settlement near to the Jatashankar caves, site of an important subterranean Hindu pilgrimage site. We hope it gave you some idea of the joy in this small community at sunset in the backdrop of what seemed like the landscape from the Lost World.

We headed down the long stone pathway as sunset and reached the shrine in near darkness. Imagine if you can stepping down into the jet black water by the shrine to wash with invisible fish nibbling your ankles as frogs croak eerie songs somewhere beyond your vision.

The pictures tell the rest :)

Hope your enjoying the heatwave! Sorry to hear about the hosepipe ban in Lymm!

Love as always

Joe and Lotte

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