Our Trip with pictures:
https://www.gaiagps.com/public/u7OHcIl9KhX89aJ3AlgkkXi9
We got ready, had breakfast and started walking at 8:45 am. Late start. Baiju had to do some work before his team got to the office. We are still walking through farmlands. We came one spot and saw that a gentleman had set up a tent to serve Tea and coffee. We could not deviate from Tea. From there we went through a small village and came to the bank of Narmada and walked for one or two kilometers. We saw people de-silting the river. Truck loads of sand was being pulled out of the river. It will be used for construction. We came to a spot called Paanch Laddoo. There is rock formation on the river bank that looks like two people lying down and a third person massaging their feet. This is where they say Parshuram did the last rites for his parents. We don’t know how the local people know this to be true. Faith is very strong in these parts. From the river bank we came up to the farms and actually walked on a pugdandy (walk path) in between farm fields. These fields had Wheat and Toor Daal. We wound our way around the maze of fields and were standing in the middle wondering which way to go to get the road we could see.
We heard a voice coming from the road come this way. We followed his voice and walked through his field. When got to the road he asked to use the phone. Baiju gave him the phone. He made a call home. At the end of the call I understood few words. He instructed his son to stand outside the house to receive us and to feed us lunch. He told us to go to the third house on the left. 1 2 3….the village was just a few meters away. As we got closer sure enough a young man was standing outside. He invited us into a typical small farmer’s home. We had to bend our heads to walk in. The roof in the entrance was low as well we sat on the ground. They gave us water first followed by black Tea. By then the farmers had returned. His whole family was there to greet us and ask many questions. They had many goats lying around in the small courtyard. There was also the fattest chicken I had ever seen hanging around. It was the family pet. We started to leave after the Tea (# 5 for the day). But they insisted we have lunch. We said we will eat little bit. We had already had an invitation for lunch in an ashram few kilometers from this village. We ate Puri and Rice Kheer ( Rice Pudding). This was very filling. We said bye to the family after a photo session. We walked through the village. As we approached the next village, Karoand, 3 kilometers away, everyone we met told us to go to the Bhandara (special lunch – many ashrams along the Narmada River feed everyone who comes there on New Moon day, specially little girls) in the Karuna Dham Ashram. There was no way we could have missed it. When we got there we saw many people having lunch, many others were in the temple singing bhajans. We were asked to take blessings from the Guruji and then have lunch. There were many ladies all dresses in red Sarees sitting in the temple singing bhajans. We spoke to Guruji for few minutes took pictures and then came out from the temple. We sat at a table
To have our second lunch. Here also they had Puri Subjji and Rice and Gulab Jamun. Each place they serve as much as you can eat. I could barely finish the first serving. We spoke to some young buys who had finished their studies and were looking for jobs. They live across the river and had come the Bhandara to serve and help. We left there arojnd 3:00 and walked till 4:30 and got in the car. We wanted to go about 20-30 kms to an ashram. When we go to the ashram we found out they did not have any bathrooms at all. We decided to drive to next bigger town. We reached Sulkanpur by 7:00 pm. Baiju had his call as I found a suitable place. There was a Dharmashala here but the rooms were not good. We got two rooms in a hotel near by. Hotel Dhadak. Dinner was same two Subjjis and Rotis. No yogurt. We ate and went to sleep. Today we walked 21.7 kms.