Chitrakote Waterfalls - The Niagra falls of India

I had to visit Chitrakote waterfalls when I read a travelogue on a popular forum and the reward was justified with stunning visuals like the one below:

Step 1: Scan your calendar to find a long weekend. 

Step 2: Make a plan on how to reach the place and explore stay options.

Step 3: Again make a plan how to get back to bachelor pad and continue to work as corporate slaves.

Sounds easy. Chitrakote waterfalls in near to a town named Jagdalpur in South Chattisgarh. So how to get to Jagdalpur from Hyderabad?

Easiest and safest: Take a train to Vizag and then take the only passenger train to Jagdalpur which passes through Eastern ghats. You end up wasting a day or more in traveling.

What we planned? Reach Bhadrachalam, a town on banks of Godavari and take a APSRTC bus which comes from Vijaywada to Jagdalpur. Google maps raised our confidence levels when the distance between Bhadrachalam to Jagdalpur showed only 362 kms that too on NH221. We were glad that NH221 was saving our time instead of taking the circuitous route of going through Vizag. Bus tickets were booked and we were all set to begin our journey.

Bhadrachalam has good connectivity from Hyderabad. Reached there in no time. Then we had to wait till unearthly 0200 hours for bus to arrive from Vijaywada. And boy, that bus arrived on time. Half of the public was asleep and we settled in our not so comfortable seats with a target to reach 0830 hours to Jagdalpur as mentioned in APSRTC time table.

The road till Konta is butter smooth and passes through some dense jungles. Though it was 0300 hours, I was awake as humidity was very high in the area. And at 0345 hours, we crossed the border between Chattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh. Suddenly, the bus started rattling due to uneven road. I thought, might be a border area, hence bad roads. But when this rattling continued for a 10 more minutes, I realised the gravity of situation. There is no road in this part of country, just mud road for namesake brightened in the lights of the bus.

In 10 minutes, we were a bit out of Konta and then the dense jungles started. at 0400 hours no vehicle was coming from the opposite direction and then I saw two armoured vehicles whose width of tyre was equal to two tyres of our bus. They belonged to CRPF(Central reserve police force). Then I realised we are in red corridor, traveling in a government bus, a river flowing to the right side and dense jungles on left side. Perfect ingredients to get ambushed.

Since it had rained, the mud road was in pathetic shape. In early morning light, saw few trucks stuck in deep slush due to heavy logs they were carrying. These trucks were the first sighting of vehicles in two hours. How they will pull it out from the slush? Time will tell. Throughout the morning, my eyes were wide open and I all I could see in complete darkness was shining eyes of animals. I was just waiting for sun to shine. The CRPF camps every 5 kms of the road assured us there was some human life.

Reached Dornapal early morning, the first small village in two and half hours. The mud road gave way to gravel road which was also equally bad for our backs. Intermediately, saw some huge craters on road. Land mine blasts!

The pain of traveling on pathetic roads ended as soon as we entered Sukma, a district head quarters of the state. We had covered 80 kilometres in 5 odd hours and at 0830 hours we were in Sukma which was 108 odd kilometres from Jagdalpur. Stopped for a quick breakfast. 

The road ahead was decent and we reached jagdalpur in some two hours fifteen minutes. What we realised after enduring all this? Our return plans need to change and we need to sacrifice Tirth garh water falls if we want to reach Hyderabad on Monday morning.

The bus dropped us at Jagdalpur stand and we enquired the earliest bus next day. Canceled a booking, made some back up bookings and then we started to Chitrakote waterfalls.

Chitrakote waterfalls are around some 35 odd kilometres from Jagdalpur. We took a local transport and reach in no time. Chitrakote waterfalls are called Niagra of India. The river Indravati plunges due to change in rock structure at this point. The flow of water is enormous and best time to view this is from July to December. The fury of waterfalls is best in monsoons. We had chosen to go in first week of October and below pictures do justice to this place.

HDR image of Chitrakote waterfalls

Rainbow due to falls

The flow of water in October 2015

We had booked tickets in Chattisgarh tourism cottages and they were indeed luxurious in such remote place. These cottages had CRPF protection. Best part about the cottages is that they face the waterfalls. The food in the resort is okay, don’t expect mouth watering snacks. We had a good time at the falls in the evening and in night, the tourism department has projected some halogen lamps on the waterfall.

Slept peacefully, roamed in the well maintained property and again visited the falls. Now the time to return back. The tension was visible on our faces as we had to travel on the same road. We checked out from the cottages, took a bus back to Jagdalpur. Based upon our enquiries, we knew a bus starts form Jagdalpur to Konta at 1100 hours. Boarded the same bus.

The bus took it’s own sweet time to reach Sukma and then when we started on the dirt gravel road to Konta, we had a puncture. The bus reached Dornapal at 1730 hours, posters in town suggested that surrendering with AK47 gave you 4 Lakh rupees and surrendering with a 0.333 bore rifles earns you 50k rupees.

We started after a small tea break as this was the last major village. The mud road came to haunt us and we reached at 1930 hours to Konta and then we heaved a sigh of relief but it was short lived as we needed to catch a train to Hyderabad from Kothagudem. So again it was race against the time. Got APSRTC bus form Konta at 2000 hours, reached Bhadrachalam at 2130 hours. Took a fast bus to Kothagudem at 2145 hours and reached the Kothagudem station at 2245 hours. Raced like mad dogs are after us to catch the train which was about to leave in matter of minutes and settled on our allocated berths.

All the dust and grim of traveling on those terrible roads made me realise that Naxalism has impacted a lot in that area. If any one is seriously ill or injured, only way to save him or her is to airlift using a chopper. The government can’t construct a road in that area! Just call the army if nexus between Naxals and contractors is preventing it from getting constructed. The connectivity of Raipur with South India will increase tremendously if this road sees the light of the day.

Chattisgarh has huge tourism potential and people from South India can get good connectivity to explore this region given the mud road is turned into a tar road. The conflict between Naxals and government has benefited none. We read news all the time about ambushes, people getting killed from both sides. When you are a democratic country, you need to solve it instead of applying brute force. Though I am no one to comment on naxal conflict, I feel that such conflict make conditions worse for man to live in this planet. Chattisgarh has beautiful forests and eco tourism can provide good revenue to locals. If some plans are implemented properly, no need for conflict. I hope we will see a better day for this part of India.