Hyd to Bhubaneswar(train) >Bhubaneswar> Lalitgir> Bhubaneswar to Konark,Puri (Bike) Puri to satapada (Bike), satapada to Ramba (Ferry) > Ramba to Bhubaneswar (Bike) , Bhubaneswar to Hyd (Train)
Day 1 :
Train from Hyderabad to Bhubaneswar
Day 2 :
Bubhuaneswar to Laltigiri > Udaygiri > Ratnagiri > Bhubaneswar
Day 3
Bhubaneswar to Dhauli>pipili >konark > Puri > Satpada
Day 4 :
islands in Ramba(Chilka) > Bhubaneswar
Day 5 :
Train from Bhubaneswar to Hyd
Day 6:
Home sweet home
Photos:
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Day 1:
After lot of preparations we were able to pack our bike and parcel the same in train to Bhubaneswar. As our train's scheduled stoppage was only 5 min in Bhubaneswar we are looking for option of sending our bike in some other train. We didn’t have much of confidence in our Indian railways that they would unload our bike in 5 min. We were funnily discussion the option of taking the bike back from Howrah as trains last stop is Howrah,
Next day we came an hour earlier to ensure that our bike is safely kept in the brake van of our train. Not to our surprise they were yet to load the same, after following couple of times we were sure that they would load our bike.
We managed to find our seat in a compartment, we were surprised to see 10 people in our compartment, and the guys casually asked us do we have a reservation we said yes. They gave a smile and said okies carry on. We were just curious to know if everybody in the group is going to travel with us in the same bogie. We just cursed us why didn’t we book AC tickets.
Just minutes before the start couple of police guys walked in with the huge group of young kids, they asked the group in our compartment if they had ticket to travel, they showed the police platform tickets. Well built police guys pushed the entire gang out of our compartment and took them away. We could then see only 2 guys sitting opposite to us. We were just surprised how Indian railways could make profit if people start traveling with platform tickets
The guys in our compartment were traveling to Cuttack after year and half, long time isn’t it? They were more than happy to go home after such a long time. Then funny things started to happen. I have never seen such a powerful mobile in my whole life, the speakers of the mobile were sounding loader than my personal stereo. The quality of the sound was good enough to irritate us or rather the whole bogie. Unfortunately either it was ringing or they were playing some songs. Even the message tone was so loader it ensured who ever were sleeping got up.
After enjoying the train journey for almost 8 hours we were kind of exhausted with the blazing sun, whereas our fellow passengers were still busy with their mobile. I was kind of wondering what would be their battery back up as it already quite some time. Suddenly they pull of a spare battery pack... Oh my god…we have no relief.
Finally we managed to get some sleep,
Day 2:
There were few young kids who managed to wake us up early in morning around 4 AM. They were so excited going to their home that they were shouting at everybody in their sight in railways station. I struggled to manage an hour sleep eventfully waken by those kids whose frequency of shouting has increased as the day started.
We got a wonderful view of Chilka Lake which we have planned to come in couple of day. Now we have 200 people in our bogie instead of 76 as we were traveling form small villages/town to Bhubaneswar. We requested our fellow passenger friends to intimate us 15 min before Bhubaneswar arrives as we need to unload our bike in 5 min.
As the bogies were crowded we could manage to cross only 3 compartments before train reached Bhubaneswar. We literally jumped of the train and ran towards the brake van. We reached brake van to find that it not even opened. We pushed our parcel ticket in front of the officer and requested him to unload the bike. He leisurely summoned few coolies there as asked them to unload. We are so nervous that we were thinking of some ways of unloading the bike before it leaves the station. One of the coolies was struggling to open the brake van door we realized that it was so heavily loaded the door was jammed.
Somehow one of them pushed inside the brake van and pushing the goods that is blocking the door. After managing to open the door we saw that there were many huge parcels above our bike. Shit!! How are they going to move them and unload the bike!!! We were screaming to unload somehow.
4 -5 coolies came from nowhere and they managed to unload the bike after much struggle interestingly all were in less than 5- 6 minutes. Incredible India.
We managed to get our vehicle outside the railways station and headed straight to fuel pump then for hunting hotels. After spending a decent hour we settled in one of the hotel near railways itself.
After refreshing for a while we decided to hit the roads around 11:00 in the morning. Sun was blazing hot and with our maps and cameras we were riding towards lalitgiri,
The travels to 3 Buddhist sites started of very well as we were traveling in NH 5 towards kolkata. The roads were good we were able to cover a good amount of distance (60) in NH 5. We had to take a little diversion from the NH 5 at Chandikhol toward the Buddhist sites.
Chandikhol was decent big enough town we decided to take some break, we had some wonderful lassi served with coconuts , raisins, Almonds,Badam and dates. It was so refreshing that we pounced on it. After 2-3 glasses we decided to settle. We headed towards lalitgiri, then we decided to see ratangiri and uday giri.
After traveling for say 25 kms we started asking direction from every possible person. All of a sudden all signs vanished and were struggling to identify where we were. Struggling with local language we managed to get some direction. After passing hundreds of lorry which has been stopped for checking we decided to ask for direction in a small shop. We were so happy to know that he was speaking Hindi. We asked direction for ratangiri or laltigiri. His first words were “Ratan giri jaana hai to aap idhar kahan aa gaye”.
Already exhausted mind couldn’t take that. We asked him could you please say us the exact direction and landmarks to reach ratangiri. After spending 10 min he gave lot of directions. We took as much as we could. we were about to leave he said there is easy way of going there instead of traveling 25 kms. He said just go with this guy he will take you till the village from the village you can go towards the river. There are small boats available which will drop you at the other side of the river where ratangiri village starts.
We were not sure what we should do , take the long route though bike or take a shorter route which we weren’t heard of. Those village guys convinced us to go along with them. After driving though temporary bridges made of logs, roads of hay we finally reached the river. We said thanks to the guys who was humble enough to show us direction till the river. The local guys at the river were surprised to see us and were enquiring from where we were coming, after much explanation with words and action we conveyed what we wanted to.
They helped us to cross the small river and left us on other side of the river along with our bike and just took 10 Rs as whole, They showed us direction to the sites but warned us to behave properly as there were some incidents of villagers attacking tourist.
Again after asking numerous people for direction we reached Ratangiri. The excavated site was such wonderful thing definetly worth the effort we spent. While returning we made sure we are going to take the right road to reach the Highway.
Finding udaygiri and lalitgiri was not such a big effort. Couples of guys were so helpful that after showing us the way they wanted our Hyderabad address After managing lot of click of bhudda and Buddhist sited we decided to head back to Bhubaneswar. Till evening we were not feeling hungry thanks to blazing sun which made us just thirsty not hungry. As sun went down we started felling hungry . After checking few dhaba’s on the highway we realised that it’s really a hard time to find anything to eat.
We thought we will try our luck in chandikhol as it was big town. We thought we will grap couple of samosa’s before heading to Bhubaneswar. We just managed to take couple of colas and decided to reach Bhubaneswar for dinner.
Our initially plans was to cover couple of temple in Bhubaneswar on the same day. We were little late to reach Bhubaneswar as we spent more time in Buddhist site or rather in our interesting journey to find the sites.
Just few kilometers before Bhubaneswar a guy in his bike just raised his helmet and asked us “Kaise raha, sab ghoom liya” ? at first I was little surprised to know who that guy was though I half heartedly responded him. From my reaction he knew we didn’t recognize him he said you asked me way while going in morning. Wearing a smile still driving in 60’s we said bye to him. We reached Bhubaneswar in decent time around 7.00 we quickly visited lingaraj temple and reached our hotel. After leisure shower wish we had spa, we had a prolonged dinner. I was happy to eat more than my capacity as Panner tikka masala was amazing.
After a good dinner after catching glimpses of T20 match , we hit our beds.
Day 3:
We started of the day early , We were heading towards puri, and We visited Dhauli on the way. After seeing few of Asoka’s rock edicts we traveled towards Hirapur a small village were 64 yoginis temple was there. As it was day we didn’t have problems in finding people for directions.
After hirapur we went to pipili Which is famous for appliqué works. We visited appliqué works village and did a small shopping. We were happy that we bargained a good amount and the shop keep was happy that he has sold things for higher amount.
Once we crossed the village we decided to have breakfast we found a good dhaba. The food was so delicious that we had enough for breakfast and lunch included. The masala dosas were of different flavor than that of south as it had chat masala. The misti and pakodis were the highlight.
We were ready to hit the roads again, we thought of going to konark via puri as we thought that is the only possible road. We just thought we will enquire if they were any shot cut to reach konark. Wow !! the dhaba guys showed a shot cut we were able to save 40 kms!!! Isn’t that great.
After passing through multiple speed breakers and umpteen villages we were close to konark. The sun was already hot , as we were heading towards the shore the humidity was raising high. We were still feeling thirst inspite of emptying 5 liters of water already. We reached konark in mid day with sun exactly in zenith.
We were wondering what we can do to avoid sweating like pig. Holding our cameras was difficult as sweat was dripping from our hands. Pity that we couldn’t take much of picture of sun temple. Not because it was hot but it was heavily crowed. Welcome to India!!! There were atleast 1000 people standing everywhere in monuments in bright red,orange,yellow colors sure to get attention even in long shot photo.
We were looking for “Asli Indian drink” nimbu paani, as couldn’t get we settled for couple of tender coconuts. We started driving toward puri which was at a distance of 40 kms from konark.
On the way we stopped at Chandrapur beach in mid day, isn’t that great, nope we got few good subjects to take pictures. The sailing boat was looking wonderful from a very clean beach. May be I am used to marina and beasent nagar beach in Chennai that the reason I felt chandrapur beach was so clean.
Drive to puri from konark was wonderful , We didn’t feel much of heat as we passed though reserve forest in a pretty good road. We were wondering if we will have glimpse of deer as numerous board were saying “Do not harm deer’s”
We entered puri in a sultry day around 2.00, Road to jaganath temple was huge may be they built it for the car festival. Camera’s cell phone and other electronics were not allowed inside the temple. So we left 50,000 worth of goods for 5 rs ticket with a chapel vendor. Trust is all you need even if it is stranger while you are traveling.
After checking out the magnificent temple we headed to satpada as usual skipping out afternoon lunch. We were planning to stay in satpada in OTDC (Orissa tourism and development) hotel.
As saptapda is famous for dolphin watching and ferry drive we expected the place to be decent big enough. We were all set to end the day in satpada. After driving 60 kms of not so good road we reached satapada around 4:05 pm. Now what !! where is the town/village oh there is nothing much than an OTDC hotel we didn’t know what to do.
As we stopped there was a ferry getting ready to leave. We jumped from our bike and were asking them were the ferry is heading. We just wanted to check if the ferry can leave us in other end of chilka lake. We weren’t that lucky but we thought we were half lucky as ferry was going to half the distance.
We had only 5 min to decide what we wanted to do as that was the last ferry scheduled to depart at 4:10. Should we stay in satpada this night and cross the lake tomorrow or take the ferry now and travel few more km before the night. After enquiring with few people we thought it best to take ferry where ever it goes.
After loading our bike along with numerous vehicles we started to ask fellow passenger where this ferry goes. Surprises in small group because they didn’t expect somebody to just board a ferry not knowing where to go.
We called OTDC,Satpada and got few other OTDC hotels in other end of the lake. We did a soft reservation in OTDC barkul. I thought I had almost all the places in google map I have got, I was wrong. The place where ferry is going to drop us Google maps still doesn’t have the small village which lies in corner of chilka lake. We asked few of the local guys how to reach Barkul which we assumed to a big town.
Usually I take big pride in my direction sense, as I wasn’t sure where these guys are going to drop us from ferry I was totally lost. I was not sure if we should head south and then west, Or just travel south. Once we get down from ferry. Again we asked some local guys how to go to barkul, They would immediately ask oh.“bodkul” Crazy I don’t know why Bengali and Orissa doesn’t have the same pronunciation in English. Why the hell they would call vivek and bibek or replace a and r with o and d.
An unplanned un imaginable drive of 65 kms took us around 3 hours. How could we do that yes either the village road were too small or just mud roads. I wonder how people live there. Even if there were mere 5 -6 houses you can find an Airtel/Vodafone poster what an telecom development.
Tired and exhausted souls somehow managed to reach somewhere near the National highway. Expecting to see a bigger NH was never been so delightful . Though NH-5 was under construction we were so happy that we reached a place at least we can see on map.
Instead of heading towards barkul, we stopped on ramba where one more OTDC hotel is available Thanks to my direction sense again. Amidst broken roads, small houses lays a huge resort of OTDC. Once we entered the OTDC campus we felt relived, Finally a place to rest.
We found a very helpful manager, We request for an AC room which we needed desperately. Then comes additional wish , “Humko lake facing rooms milega” , for our surprise they said yes.
After refreshing we feasted on the dinner for an hour. Definitely the firangs around us would have thought we guys have been starving for days.
Day 4:
This day was one of better days we had. We got up pretty early after a very sound sleep. We requested for a motor boat around 7 AM. We took a private boat so that we can spend as much as time we want in islands we like.
Few minutes past seven Bijay our boat drive can with a can of diesel, we headed for towards boat he remained us to us pick couple of water bottles as salt water would make us thirsty. After trying coupling of times and chocking bijay was able to start our boat.
Chilka lake is one of the largest brackish lake, we went to various island for close to 3 hours. The best part of the boating was watching Irrawaddy dolphins. We were lucky that we saw many of this endangered species playing happily.
After trying to capture glimpses of the dolphins with cameras in various modes we decided to enjoy the scene in our naked eye. After wonderful dolphin watching we reached our hotel back.
OTDC was courteous enough to us ,they gave us free breakfast. After couple of wonderful aloo paratha’s we were ready to drive back to Bhubaneswar. We were planning to cover a distance of 120 kms in 2 to 3 hours. The NH 5 was really good we are able to reach Bhubaneswar much earlier than we expected.
Visit of Khandagir on the way didn’t workout. We couldn’t admire the caves in blazing hot sun. Again thanks to oriya ascent we couldn’t understand how to pronounce khandagiri. May be we should always speak bangla and oriya eating something so that we can say as khondogiri.
Immediately after reaching Bhubaneswar we headed straight to railway station as we anticipated some problem in parceling our bike. After much struggle with government babu’s we were able to parcel our bike in two and half hours. Much relaxed we rested for some time in our hotel and then headed for some tempels. We definitely want to complete our desire to have vada aloo dum, we headed towards master canteen checked every possible way of getting that. We settled for puchka as we couldn’t find vada aloo dum.
While on return we used all possible words we knew in conveying that we wanted to go to railways stations with the auto guy. My god I don’t we couldnt understand what he said, We could just hear sounds like bodo bodo . We knew he was taking us some other place as he was driving in different direction. After 10 min he left us in railway station but not the side we wanted. We decided its better we spend 6 rs in platform tickets rather than asking direction again. We crossed railways tracks to reach other end of the railways stations. Oh ya its the same railways stations we wanted lucky Bhubaneswar has only one railways station. We ended the day with panner tikka masala and roti and rested in our bed.
Day 5 :
Early in the morning after ensuring our bike is already loaded in brake van we took our seats. Train was more or less empty except for few regular takers. The whole train was empty by the time it reached balegoan. We were getting bored as no comedy characters were on train except us.
Once the train stopped in srikakulam , lot of people jumped into as we realized that it was end of ugadi and lot of people would be traveling back to Hyderabad. Our bogie was full of one marriage gang who occupied 27 seats. Initially 4 guys came and said 2 , 3 , 5, 6, and 8 “kooda manathae”. We could understand that they are sorting and location their seats. Hardly I could imagine hearing the same set of word from same set of people for at least 50 times before train reached Vizag.
We even thought of requesting TTR to give us couple of seats in any compartment which is far from this gang. We expected that they would settle early as there were kids with them. Even at 9.30 PM they were repeating 2 , 3 , 5, 6, and 8 “kooda manathae” . oh my god somebody please help them understand the count of 27. The whole gang settled as TTR made fun of them.
Day 6:
We were woken up early in the morning around 4:00 by our marriage gang. Every body in the gang were ready including kids. Good but why us!!!. Train managed to reach secunderabad after long 24 hours unfortunaly we have put our bike in railways parcel which we would not be able to take until their office opening time 9.30.
Instead of waiting in railway station we headed home and then picked our vehicle. We ended our trip by having lunch in “Anjapar “ one of few restaurants we have left in city. After full Chennai meals we went to office with great difficulties
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