Poorwa's blog

[Note: This post was written on Jan 17]

Last weekend I went on a trip with my family to a nearby hill station. Actually, the plan was to go the first Sunday of the month, but my cousin who was most excited about the trip, along with my sister, fell sick and we had to cancel that day. But since my sister only gets one day off from her new job, dad suggested we go hiking to a nearby place.

So we went, and to all of our surprise, the whole place was packed with tourists. I’d seen crowd before on picnic spots, but not like how it was there. And I didn’t understand why so many people would choose to come there because I thought I had discovered all the good scenery of the said mountain before (since it’s actually very nearby), and of course it was beautiful but I couldn’t fathom what caught the attention of so many people. Until I saw this…

Well, turns out, there’s a whole lot amazing places where I live and I’ve only been to a few of those. So after visiting this site, I became one of the most excited people about our trip to the hill station – Mainpat, which we scheduled for next Sunday. But before we get into that, here are some more pictures from the hiking day that I shared on my Instagram…

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The village Mainpat is also known as the Shimla of Chhattisgarh as it is the coldest place in our state. The whole place is surrounded by lush green mountains and natural phenomena (I mean there’s actually a location there where water flows backwards), making it the most popular tourist place of the district.

And of course, despite being only about 50-60 km away from my hometown, this was my very first visit there. Ahh I really need to add ‘discovering all nearby tourist places’ to my 2025 wishlist, who knows it may come true.

We were supposed to departure at  9 AM in the morning but since it was a full family trip, including my uncle’s family, and two more of my cousins with their families, and of course my own sister who never gets ready on time, being punctual was out of the radar for us.

Still, somehow we managed to leave around 10:30 AM. The ride seemed too short to me probably because I was busy reading Everything We Never Said by ………., and I was totally lost in the book until mom snapped me out of it and warned to take my phone away. And as the good girl I am, I obeyed and started taking pictures of the journey instead.

I missed capturing many wall-arts but definitely, if we were somewhere else I would’ve asked to stop the car and taken pictures but I didn’t since the roads were kinda risky and slopy as we were heading up the mountain. Before long, we reached to the top and looking down, all we could see was the green forests and the fog.

We stopped for a moment to grab snacks and take pictures before we headed to our first destination.

There are many popular locations to visit in Mainpat but all of them are like at a distance of about 5-10 km from each other. We knew we could only see a couple of places before we’d have to leave for home, so we voted for which place to visit first and decided on this location called Tiger Point.

Note: I didn’t vote for this one.

If you got your hopes up after hearing the name Tiger Point, I’m sorry to disappoint you but there are no tigers there anymore. People go to this place to see a waterfall, which is… well, just a waterfall, no offense. Apparently, decades ago, we had tigers here on this mountain and they used to come to this place to drink water, hence the name. But now the place only has monkeys and hopefully, some other animals live there too, not that I could see them because the crowd there was just astonishing. The reason why I didn’t enjoy there much was because my social anxiety kept creeping in and there were just too many people that I couldn’t even go down there and take the scenery in for a minute. Also, I’ve seen a bit too many waterfalls these past few months, I would much rather explore the other locations.

Not gonna lie, I was a bit upset when I realized it was already 2 PM when we left for our next location. The thing was that there’s a Buddha Temple that I was really looking forward to see, and on our way to Tiger Point we passed the other side of the temple. I insisted we stop there for a little while but well, democracy won and at the end all I could do was make a pouty face and keep reminding everyone that they should’ve listened to me. Typical childish behavior I know, but what can I do, being the youngest child at home I grew up this way, lol.

Before deciding on our next location, we found a peaceful spot next to the river that was perfect to relax for a while and have lunch. I wish I had pictures of our lunch because from every home we had brought our own special dishes, but at the moment all of us were literally so tired and hungry, all we could focus on was food and some quality family time. Later, everyone took pictures… Well, this time I only played the cameraman while my sisters posed since I was still trying to act grumpy because they dismissed my plan earlier.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to keep up my act for long because of course mom noticed my drama and suggested we visit the place I want to go to next. Youngest child privilege, I’m aware! In fact, I knew beforehand that my family won’t break my heart like that, I was just playing my part hehe.

So we went! And point to be noted, I’ve fancied this temple since I was in 8^th grade, and finally last weekend I got to see this in person. My pictures don’t really do justice to the place because the sun was already low and I’m still getting used to my new phone’s camera settings. But whatever we have, just take a look…

I couldn’t stop smiling and adoring the beauty of the whole moment. The details in the walls, the sculptures, the history of the village marked by the arrival of Tibetan refugees in the 1960s, and the blend of different cultures and traditions, it was all so wholesome to see. Above all, I was glad to see that everyone was having a good time and I got to say “I told you so” every moment I had an opportunity (wait, I really am kinda being annoying this whole post).  

So that’s all for this post. Thanks for reading! Hope you’re having a good month. I’ll try to post more frequently this year. Let me know how’s your 2025 going so far!

Here are some more pictures that I shared on my new Instagram account…

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See you!