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We started our journey from Bangaluru on October 15 early morning. The flight was at Getting to Narmada Maiya (Mother Narmada)
7:30 AM and we left home at 5 AM. The rain was pouring heavily and we wondered if the flight would even takeoff. As we got closer to the airport rain slowed down and eventually stopped. The flight was uneventful. We reached Indore on time but we had to wait for the taxi for about half an hour. As we were waiting there were other taxi drivers willing to take us on our journey. Talking to the local people we found out that we could hire taxis much easier at the airport than pre-booking. Next time we might try that. The driver arrived and loaded the bags. We drove to Ujjain In 1 1/2 hours and went straight to Mahankaleshwar Temple. The place is changed a lot. They have improved the area surrounding the temple. The finished parts are looking very nice. A lot of large statues and gardens have been created. There is still a lot of construction going on. Once all that in completed the place will look beautiful. Since we had very little time we took a special Darshan with Rs.250 and were done within half an hour. It took us another half an hour to get back to where we had left our shoes. It was a lot of barefoot walking. We found our shoes and headed for lunch. Most restaurants are pure vegetarian so it was easy to pick one. We had lunch and started driving out of Ujjain. Somehow Baiju wanted to meet with Vasu Kaka( my dad’s childhood friend). He is 86 now. We called him and turned the car around. Getting directions is easy as pie. Just keep asking the local people every few hundred meters “where is this place?” And you will find your destination. We walked a bit and found Vasukaka’s house. He is wonderful man who treats me as his daughter. We spoke to him for a while and left. As we were leaving he gave us some food to eat on the way. Finally we were on our way to Omkareshwar. Most of the road was good. But there were stretches they were all pot holes and no road. The driver must have been a race are driver or a truck driver. He was weaving in and out of traffic. The car was running on CNG (clean natural gas) so we had to fill it couple of time on the trip. We reached Omkareshwar at 7:30 in the evening. We checked in. The manager at the Hotel Panchavati Palace is a young man named Mangalsingh Rajput. He owns a roadside Dhaba next to the hotel where we had dinner. Food was freshly made. We asked him to make it less spicy and his cook obliged. It was a long day so we turned in by 10:00pm.