For a dose of faith in a leafy embrace take a leisurely day trip from Raipur to Jatmai and Ghatrani. within 25km of each other. both these picturesque spots host pretty – candy coloured temples alongside splashing cataracts and snuggled up against lush foliage.
Ghatarani
At Abhanpur, NH43 gives way to a narrow country road that veers left to Rajim and beyond to the waterfalls. It slices through luxuriant rice fields and minty fresh landscapes (particularly post-monsoon) before wooded tracks close in. As you piece deeper into the bucolic land. Patchy stretches of road and traffic snarls considerably bovine in nature are likely to slow you down. The more Scenic of the two falls. Ghatrani is very nearly the end of the road. the last 11km of which is largely a sal forest. A circular cleaning for parking skirted.
Gleaming white temple tops at Jatmai by tea-stalls leads past kiosks selling prayer offerings The waterfall announces itself through sonorous gushing before it reveals itself through sonorous gushing before it reveals itself amidst verdant foliage. Comfortable broad stone steps lead up to its boulder-strewn base. while the tiny temple clings to its sides up above. cross the bridge over the cascade, go past the Bhariav statue and left through the Kitschy portal – a lions gigantic open-mouthed roar. Here within the narrow confines of a rocky overhang resides the revered local deity, a priest squeezed in beside her. The spot will be teeming with enthusiastic posers and phone- wielding shutterbugs unmindful of the drenching spray. Another short climb up from this point will bring you to the top of the cascade.
Jatmai
From Ghatarani, retrace your steps to merge back with the road (really a strip of patchy tarmac) to Jatmai which, if even possible, gets greener by the yard. A gentle ascent, roughly 7km, via thicky wooded hills heralds the proximity of your destination. you know you have arrived when you spot a cluster of roadside eateries across from where another open-mouthed lion ushers you down a number of steps towards a temple unlike Ghatrani, this temple with all the signs of a recent makeover – snuggles along the far side of the cascade, almost till where it drops.
Hundreds of feet below to form a stunning fall. Photography is not allowed at this temple.
