Bastar - Part 1 - Arrival at Raipur and Half day Sight Seeing

Bastar was never in my go-to list and honestly, I had never thought that what is going to unfold in front of me during my stint in Bastar is going to give travel a completely new definition called “Experience driven travel”. So, in my next series of blogs, I will be taking you all along an exciting tribal adventure.  

As always giving you some background behind the planning of this offbeat adventure trip. My travel buddy found out through social media about “Travel_Bhramar” who plans these exciting, offbeat itineraries to take you around in Bastar. So, thanks to her, we signed up for this trip and set off from Bangalore for an exciting weeklong adventure trip which involved understanding tribal artisans, hiking through the interior jungles of Bastar under the guidance of tribal men, savoring tribal food in tribal ways, exploring ancient caves, camping by waterfalls and many more exciting elements. 

Arrival at Raipur airport and exploring Raipur

We reached Raipur airport at around 9:00 am in the morning and we were supposed to be picked up by our tour operator by 1 PM. Hence, we thought of exploring Raipur City until then. We came out of the airport and hired taxi from “WTi cabs”. Cabs were immediately made available for us at a rate of Rs 2100 for 6 hours which we felt was quite reasonable. We hopped onto our cab and began our tour of Raipur city

Budha Talab

Budha (in Hindi) means old and Talab means lake. So as name suggests this is a very old lake hosting the statue of Swami Vivekananda in the middle of the lake. From the parking lot entrance, you need to walk a bit to reach to the main place where you can see Swami Vivekananda’s statue. The walking path has trees on both sides giving you a good room of shelter but path is yet to be built hence there were stones all over the place. 


We then made it to the main spot. This larger-than-life status of Swami Vivekananda is the prime attraction of the park. 


Driver told us that in the evenings there would be boat rides also. This place requires maintenance since we didn’t find the surroundings clean. 





Marine Drive

As any other marine drives, this spot also is located at the central part of the city. The brick layered pathway makes it ideal for an evening stroll with a great companion, jogging or even cycling. 



Once can also find “More Raipur” (means My Raipur) inscription here to click pictures and take back home as a souvenir. 





Ram Mandir

This place is very close to Marine drive. Hence we planned to visit this next. The first look of this temple gave us a WOW feeling. 



You will find few steps leading to the main temple and there are few more small temples around this main temple. 

The main temple hosts the deities of Lord Ram, Lord Seeta and Lord Hanuman. 






After offering prayers when we came out of the temple, we noticed that lawns are very well maintained which adds to the serenity of this place. 




While taking Parikrama, we went to the backside of the main temple and noticed 2 temples. Rameshwar Shiv Mandir. There was a Shiv Linga inside this temple. 



Next to it we saw a Shri Anjani Mata temple hosting the deity of Lord Hanuman’s mother which is very rare. I have never seen a temple hosting Lord Hanuman’s mother. Inside the temple you can find the deity of Shri Anjani Mata with Bal Hanuman on her lap. Beautiful and very rare sight to behold. 




After coming out of this temple on our left we noticed “Nakshatra Vatika” (Vatika means garden). Here we noticed that for each sun sign the corresponding matching plant was sown which was interesting. At least we got to know which plant corresponds to which sun-sign. 




After taking a tour of this beautiful vatika, we came to other side of temple and noticed Shri Navagraha Mandir. We offered prayers here, took some pictures of the entire temple premises and hopped onto our vehicle. 



Mahant Ghasidas Memorial Museum

This was the last spot of the day since we were supposed to meet our tour guide and rest of our co-travelers at Gadh Kaleva for lunch which is located in this campus only. 





This museum is one amongst 10 oldest museums in India. In the ground floor you can see the various places you can visit around Chhattisgarh. 



The sculptural gallery showcases sculptures from different parts of Chhattisgarh. The sculptures of Ardhanarishwar, Brahma, Shiva, Parvathi are unique with regard to Indian art form.




Tribal Gallery – the lifestyle, attires, ornaments, pots, musical instruments and other commodities od daily use belonging to the tribes like Mariays, Gond, Korku and Bajara have been displayed here. 






One can spend almost 4-5 hours easily here. Lots to see especially for people who are interested in culture and heritage. 

We got a call from our tour guide and we headed to Gadh Kaleva where we got introduced to local Chhattisgarhi cuisine. 





Here we met our group - our trip lead, local contact who would take us around Bastar and another bunch of travel enthusiasts with whom we are going to explore Bastar in the coming days. 

Post lunch we started on our journey to Jabarra which is a small village in the middle of dense forest and the total journey time from Raipur to Jabrra is 3 hours. So I will end this blog with information around things to see in Raipur and will explain in the next blog on the intriguing village walks we did in Jabarra next day morning along with a jungle hike to the hill-top. 

Bastar - Part 2 - Exploring Jabarra : The Tribal Village of Natural Healers

Bastar - Part 3 - Drive to Tatamari View Point

Bastar - Part 4 - Bell Metal Handicrafts of Kondagaon

Bastar - Part 5 - Official Introduction to Baster Vibes

Bastar - Part 6 - Cave Explorations 

Bastar - Part 7 - Stroll through the Colorful Traditional Tribal Haat Market

Bastar - Part 8 - Teerathgarh Falls 

Bastar - Part 9 - Mendri Ghumar : Valley of Fog

Bastar - Part 10 - Chitrakoot Falls : Niagara of India

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