It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that
matters in the end.
Ursula K.
Le Guin
It’s been a year when I started one of the most adventurous
trips in my life with two other fellas, Prateek Kumar and Arshad Khan.
Now that
I sit in the comfort and cosiness of my room in these Delhi winters, I remember
the struggles and hardships we had to face on that trip.
Here is a glimpse:
At 5 AM in the morning of 2 January 2015, Prateek and I
reached Dhenkanal in a ‘so-called’ luxury bus from Kolkata. Tukun da, the
enthusiastic and child-like autowala and our only support in that alien town,
was waiting in the dark under a scanty tea shop while braving the incessant
rains.
It was time head back to IIMC Dhenkanal hostel from where we
started our trip which took us to 4 different states in just 14 days. It was
indeed a great welcome to the year 2015.
Zero Day- Dhenkanal-18 December
The plan for this trip was never actually made. Only thing
we knew was that we were going to travel as much as we could and spend as less
as we could. Initially, it was just me and Prateek, but Arshad too joined in
later.
Day one- Bhubaneswar- 19 December
Travelled in a typical Dhenkanal style bus, covered with
myriad of bright colors and filled with so many people that nobody could move a
finger, we reached Bhubaneswar in a few hours. Booked a large room in our favourite
hotel, the Taj Palace, and straight away went out for dinner.
Watched the late night show of film PK and walked all the
way back to hotel. By the way, there were more than half a dozen of us at that
time as everyone who was supposed to leave for their respective hometowns was
staying in Bhubaneswar that night.
A party at night and some crazy dancing followed. Everyone,
except the three of us, left early in the morning and we started making plans
for our next destination.
Day 2- Balugaon- 20 December
After taking some more rest, we went to the only mall in the
city and had a sumptuous meal. After that, we went to the station, bought
tickets for Balugaon and boarded the train which took us to Chilika.
Balugaon is a very small town situated near Chilika, the
largest salt-water lake in India. As we were on a money-saving mission, we
booked a small in room in ‘Sai lodge’ and ate our dinner at a local hotel cum
dhaba.
The taste of water in Sai lodge was probably saltier than
the Chilika Lake itself. So, we decided not to drink that water or clean our
bodies with it. Guess what, no bathing for next two days. Yay!
Day 3- Chilika Lake- 21 December
Early morning we left for the lake and discovered that it
would cost us a fortune to book a private boat for ourselves. So we started
looking for some like-minded people. We found a group of 4 college students
about 20 KM from that location and convinced them to join us (power of
persuasion).
Almost everyone was happy after he hired a boat because we
all had to pay much less money and Arshad had a girl to flirt with. The boat
ride in Chilika is something all the travel and adventure enthusiasts should
try at least once in their lives. It was mesmerising, breath-taking and every
other tough word you can think about.
After a six hour long boat ride, we the vagabonds, checked
out of ‘salt-water sai lodge’ and took a train for Puri.
Day 4-Puri- 22 December
After lake, it was time for the beach. 22 December was spent
in peace at Puri beach and watching the sunset. However, the night before this
calm day was full of chaos.
After we packed our bags and left for Puri from Balugaon
railway station, we met these railway employees in our ‘chair car’ who promised
to help us in finding a cheap hotel. When they finally took us to a hotel at 11
in the night, we decided to refuse the offer because of certain apprehensions
and ended up getting scolded by them.
After all this, we had to find ourselves a cheap place to
spend the night and a drunken receptionist came of some guest house came to our
rescue. We were able to strike a deal!
Anyways, back to the beach. While returning to the guest
house in the evening, we met a guy at a tea shop. As we asked for some help and
suggestions, he told us to visit Raigara and defined it as the ‘tribal hub of
Odisha’.
Yes, we left for Raigara the same evening.
Day 5- Raigara- 23 December
16 hour overnight journey stuffed in the bus seat in an
embryonic posture took us to the ‘tribal hub of Odisha’. Excitedly, the first
thing we did after getting down from the bus was to ask for places to visit.
The reply was ‘why the hell would you come to Raigara’!!
We knew we had made a blunder but still we held on to our
fading hope. Found a maharaja size room and slept for hours. In the evening, we
visited the only so-called attraction of the town; mini hawra bridge!
The place was so depressing that it sucked the entire
excitement of our ‘unplanned trip’. It was hard to stay at that place so we
decided to leave the same evening. And we travelled all the way back to
Bhubaneswar.
Day 6- Bhubaneswar- 24 December
Ever travelled in the general coach of Indian railways?
Well, we did!
First, we managed to squeeze ourselves to find a place among
people squatting outside the toilet. After our deodorants also failed to help,
we went inside and grabbed the luggage space where we spent the rest of the
night.
The trauma of last two terrible night journeys and a horrible
stay in Raigara had put us in a situation where we could not even think of
experimenting further.
In Bhubaneswar, we visited the famous Dhauli and came back
to our hotel in the evening. A weird comedy film in the night was just the
right thing to light up our mood again.
Day 7- Bhubaneswar- Christmas Day!!!
A cup of tea in the morning to kick start and we set out to
walk around on a sunny day. We went to the church and sat inside for more than
three hours discussing about origin of religion and god with so much fervour
that the father had to ask us to keep shut.
After the church, as there was nothing else to do and we
were not in a mood to travel a lot, we went to the Ram temple located on the
same street. There was nobody inside except some volunteers who were counting
the donation money. They asked us to join and we conformed.
Then we crashed a birthday party and went to a gurudwara.
Arshad pitched the idea of going to Dhanbad for a couple of days and stay at
his place. So we took the evening to train to Howrah.
Day 8-Dhanbad- 26 December
Yet another overnight train journey ensued, taking us from
Bhubaneshwar to Howrah in West Bengal. The yellow ambassador cars lined up
outside the railway station at 5 in the morning produced a magnificent spectacle
for someone like me who was visiting the place for the first time. Shivering in
bone chilling December winters, we had a cup of tea and bought tickets for the very
next train to Dhanbad. After a 4-5 hour journey in a comfortable chair car, we
reached the place.
The luxury of home cooked food awaited us. We shamelessly
devoured the food served to us and then went to sleep. Arshad took us to the
only ‘cool hangout place’ in the area- maithan dam in the evening.
Day 9- Bodh Gaya- 27 December
One of the most beautiful experiences on this trip was to
visit the place where Buddha achieved enlightenment. It was blissful to sit in
front of the Bodhi tree with closed eyes, feeling the serenity of the
surroundings and being one with it.
Travelling to Bodh Gaya from Dhanbad and coming back from
there took the whole day. The next day we were supposed to leave for Kolkata so
we straight away went to sleep after having another delicious meal.
Day 10- From Dhanbad to Howrah!!- 28 December
This was the second worst day after Raigara. Arshad dropped
us at Asansol from where we had to take a bus which would take us to Howras in
just few hours. However, things did not turn out to be so simple.
First, we went to the train station from bus stand because
we thought travelling in a train would be more convenient and cheap. We bought
the tickets and waited for the train for about an hour. When it arrived at
last, the TT told us that we could not sit in that train with the tickets we
had bought.
We thought going back to the bus stand and taking a bus
would be a better idea but we found out that all the tickets were already sold
out after we reached there. Frustrated and confused, we went back to the train
station.
Finally, another train arrived and the same happened. TT
told us that we would have to buy new tickets and we had just 5 minutes to rush
to the counter, buy a new ticket and be in the train before it departed from
the station. And we did it!
We had left from Dhanbad at 10 in the morning and reached
Howrah at around 10 in the night. It usually takes not more than 6 hours to
cover the same distance!
Day 11 to 14- Kolkata- 29 December to 1 January
Kolkata was the last stopover of our trip before we went
back to Dhenkanal. Here, the first three days were spent with Arnab (dada) and
Ankit (BT) who took us to the city’s amazing restaurants, bars, bars and bars.
It’s a nice city with a slow paced lifestyle which still
nurtures and appreciates those small yet beautiful moments you spend with each
other. You can see people sitting on the chai shop, on the banks of Princep
ghat or roaming on the busy streets. This is also the place where you can see a
street artist painting the portrait of jesus in the middle of a road with
colourful chalks. It is indeed a beautiful place to be at.
On 31 December night, Prateek and I went to see the New Year
celebrations on Kolkata streets which actually turned out to be huge
disappointment. Thousands of people were just running and shouting on the
streets. So we came back to our hotel room and welcomed 2015 in a rather humble
manner!
The next day we wasted our time visiting clichéd tourist
places like National Museum and saw Anurag Kashyap’s thriller ‘Ugly’. After
that we went to the bus stand where dada was waiting for us.
Our 14 days long
‘voyage’ was coming to an end. There was a feeling of exhilaration that we
actually did something like this and also relaxation that it had finally ended.
No matter how many blunders we made in those 14 days, they
would always be remembered.
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