Road Trip to Orissa: Day 5

The penultimate day of our road trip and we had made a list of places close to Gopalpur that might be of interest. The choice for the morning was a drive out to Maa Taratarini Temple situated 30 kms from Gopalpur atop a hill beside the Rushikulya River. So we headed out and after driving for what seemed to be a while longer than we thought, as it was not really a highway but a narrow road through village after village, we came to a t-point with a large gate on the right. All the way we kept guessing which hill this temple would be on top of as we kept passing one hill after another. Anyway this was the way to the temple and we took it. Just short of the hill, there was a beautiful location to shoot the fabulous colours of the trees as they covered the hill side. From a near yellow tint to a dark green as one kept going up higher. Anyway my shot taken, we proceeded to ascend the hill to reach the summit where the temple was perched. At the base we first came upon a rope-way that one could use to go up and then the entrance of the 1000 steps that one could use to reach the doorstep of the temple. We opted for neither and went up on the steep road in our car.

The drive up was marvelous as one kept seeing the meandering river below and once we were up there, the temple wasn’t impressive at all, but it did have quite a religious following considering the number of people who were up there offering prayers. The temple itself seemed to be under construction and the huge population of monkeys was quite fascinating. Free food, I guess!

The temple visited there was nothing more to do but head back to Gopalpur, and that too at a leisurely speed. We had time on our hands and nothing to do really. On the way we stopped to see a potter at work making little ‘diyas’. Thereafter I came up with my theory of the speed breakers. There were countless speed breakers on this road and the only way to identify them was whenever I noticed white sand on the road, it meant there was a speed breaker there. I was telling my wife about my theory of how I believed that a little sand probably fell off the trucks as they went over the bumps and sure enough, in a short while we were right behind one such sand carrying truck as it went over a bump and as the back wheel came off the bump a little sand got dusted off just on the breaker which proved my theory right there.

So once we were back in Gopalpur, we settled for lunch on the beach. We decided to try out the mixed fried rice and chilli chicken. Well it was quite interesting to taste the unique preparation. If you think this is Chinese, it isn’t. They seem to use this red masala in any and everything. Anyway it was yum. We just sat there the rest of the afternoon and then took a leisurely stroll on the beach watching the fishing boats come in one after another as the evening approached. Finally there were no more boats out at sea except the 11 we had counted earlier that were moored a little way out.

In the evening, we indulged in some pakoras and beguni while we finished a little bit of the Smirnoff I had left in the back; all this on the beach as the day before. In fact we sat till later and only got back to the hotel past 10 pm. We then went about our business of packing and getting ready for the day ahead. Our long drive back to Kolkata, with two sight-seeing stops at Bhubaneshwar.

Road Trip to Orissa: Day 4

The next morning we checked out at 7 am and as we were getting into the car, the boy who had washed the car, informed me about a dead bird stuck in between the front grill and radiator of the car. So after 15 minutes of struggling, he did manage to get it out. It was a dead mynah and it’s then that we recalled how it must’ve got there. Somewhere between Balasore and Cuttack on the highway, a group of them had flown right in front of the car. We had thought at the time that we might have hit one of them, because while they all flew across at eye level, one of them had swooped really low below our line of sight. We had hoped that it might have flown by. Unfortunately, it just turned out to be another case of ‘bird hit on the tarmac’.

The plan for the day was Konark-Chilka-Gopalpur. So off we went, with a small pit-stop at the Ice Factory before we got on the scenic road to Konark. As we pulled out of Puri, it seemed a bit dreadful as we drove through some villages and narrow roads till we came to the main road that led to Konark. As we sped through the forest lined road which had warnings signs that cautioned drivers of deer & neelgai crossing the road, we didn’t see any. Only beautiful stretches of lush green forests. A couple of rivulets we crossed were just spectacular in beauty. We finally reached the point in the road which was along the beach signalling that we were now very close to Konark. Suddenly the road ended at a wonderful sight of the entire sea and glimmering white sands in front. We turned at a right angle towards the left and within a couple of minutes reached Konark. We parked the car and walked through a straight lane through a market place selling all sorts of memorabilia of Konark temple. Once we reached the archaeological site gates, it was an amazing sight to behold that legendary sun temple of Konark in the distance. The entire site is superbly maintained and absolutely geared to make this a must visit destination on any one’s visit of Orissa. The Temple Gates are a site in themselves, let alone the temple behind it. We went up the gates and I in true touristy fashion began clicking away. Then on my way down again I kept the photography session on. In fact I maintained the tempo all the way around the Temple, till we had exited.

I could write a whole story on the carvings on the walls, but will just leave that for some other time. Actually I can’t help but mention that in a land where sex is taboo, when all the while temples and historic sites such as this have depictions in intricate sculptures of all imaginable positions of sex that it is quite mind-blowing. I kind of realise why sex is such a taboo here. I guess all this kind of stuff, since time immemorial has led to India having the second largest population on the planet. Anyway I was just intrigued by the meticulous work that has gone into each of those sculptures.

Konark behind us, we asked for some directions and realised the best way to head to our next destination, Chilka, was to go through a place called Pipli and then get back on the National Highway at Khurda, which is exactly what we did. We kept driving till we came upon a little town where we saw a sign on the left saying Chilka 1 KM. So we turned left and it was about noon when we came out at this kind of pier where there was a little hay shack and all around in the water were boats and beyond that till the horizon, the massive Chilka Lake. We parked the car, hired a boat for an hour and headed out. Halfway through the boat man, told us that for a little more money, he’d take us out to where we could see more birds and probably dolphins too. We hadn’t wanted to do the entire tour which was like 12 hours or so and cost a bomb, but settled for a little more than we had set out to see on the boat. So after about an hour or more we were far away from land and in the midst of ducks who every time we came close seemed to flap there wings vehemently and run on the water. It was a sight to see them skim the water. After the ducks, our boatman pressed on determined to show us flamingos and dolphins. We were worried about getting back and getting on the road again, being unsure how long it would take us to get to Gopalpur. But the closer we got to the bigger birds; we threw caution to the wind and decided to get a closer look at these wonderful creatures.

As we were crossed a point where the water suddenly turned green, we spotted a couple of dolphins. Well to say we saw full dolphins, wouldn’t be correct, what we kept seeing were dol‘fins’ popping out of the water and diving straight back. That in itself was quite exciting. As approached the bigger birds all resting in the shallow waters, a couple of birds hovering above us put on quite a display. They kept hovering above the boat and then diving into the water beside us. It was as though they were all excited and wanted us to click pictures of their spectacular talent of diving into the water like “kamakazee”.

After getting our fill of viewing the birds, we headed back to where we had got on the boat. It was a long way off, so we both caught forty winks on the way back and were fresh again when we hit the road. The drive was quite scenic through some hills and winding roads. We reached Gopalpur by about 5 pm. It wasn’t exactly the way I remembered it, but I guess a decade and a half would change any place.

We found our hotel, which was a far cry from the one we had stayed at in Puri and not exactly what we had expected. Hotel Kalinga is definitely not recommended. But since we had a booking, we stayed. The best part was that when we got there, the people were in shock that we had come. The Non-A/C room we had booked had been given away and they put us up in an A/C room (of course asking us not to use the A/C) and tried to convince us to stay in that room for the next day too and they would charge us the A/C rates. Did we look like we were there to be ripped off? We refused and put our luggage in the room and headed out to the beach. Later we came back and though they tried to convince us to have dinner there, we decided to sit in our car and spend the evening on the sea-side. We popped a couple of beers (drinking even in our rooms was prohibited in the hotel we were at!) and got some snacks from one of the stalls nearby and listened to music in the car with the cool sea-breeze blowing in our faces. We gorged on fried prawns and fish, switched between FM channels all the way from Kolkata & Chennai. We were quite fascinated by the fact that we were catching these channels here.

After we were done, we took a stroll to the beach and sat there for the rest of the evening just enjoying the white surf breaking in the darkness as the tide came in. The sounds were also soothing every time the waves crashed and then receded. At about 9 pm we headed back to the hotel and sat up making plans of spending the next day sightseeing.