Magical Simlipal

I had visited Simlipal forest once in my childhood. I have no memory of that except a photograph of me with my family on a jeep. I tried to go there many time later but not a single plan succeeded. So I decided to visit there on the last week of my training. Simlipal is now a Tiger Reserve so it should be closed from 15th June but I took a chance. 

On 20th July after my class we headed for Simlipal Tiger Reserve. Our plan was to take the road through Hata, Bahalda, Rairangpur, Bangriposhi and Baripada. We would spend the night at Baripada, then will go to Pithabera check post of Simlipal National Park on the next morning. This time we were 3 persons me, sourav and kausik. We started around 2pm from tatanagar then headed straight to Bahalda. There we crossed border and entered Odisha. Road became very bad. Narrow road filled with heavy traffic of cycle, motorcycles, public on foot and occasional heavy vehicles. To worsen the situation there were numerous rolling speed breakers. So it was not very enjoyable to ride bike. But Odisha was significantly greener than Jharkhand. And it was filled with small hills. There was no time when we could not find atleast one hill around us. 

Odisha govt has done very good plantation work in every vacant land. So it is filled with significantly more trees. We were progressing very slowly. The afternoon sun was behind us. Everything was looking more colourful in that beautiful light. Blue sky with clouds, green fields, red soil, black road, it was a sight to remember. We took a wrong turn at Rairangpur but quickly realised it and get back on the right track. Otherwise the route was simple. A few kilometres before Bangriposi suddenly we met with a welcome board to Simlipal forest. It was almost evening. We stopped there and enjoyed the gateway of the forest for sometime then continued onwards. The highway entered the forest and quickly we can feel a sudden drop in temperature and increase in moisture. After this long bike ride under bright sun this sudden cooler temperature felt very good. 

As the road entered forest, we found several sign boards “do not feed the monkeys”. Then we found the monkeys. Small groups of rhesus macaques were sitting on the road and road side. Then we found a few truck drivers who were feeding the macaques. Forest in this section was very dense. The forest road gradually gained altitude and we found ourselves on the side of a hill. As the sun was setting it lit up the sky in beautiful colours. At the foothills was Bangriposi. As we were having tea and snacks in a roadside stall it became completely dark. We still had around an hour of riding left. Kausik’s old splendor bike had very poor headlight. So we couldn’t pick up much speed. Atleast the road was good in this section, it was mostly highway. In a bit more than a hour we reached Baripada town finally. There one friend of Saurav was waiting for us. He guided us to a nearby hotel. We rested there for the night.

In the morning we three headed straight for Simlipal Tiger Reserve. We didn’t even have breakfast. As soon as we crossed Buribalam river the road became beautiful with newly constructed asphalt road, beautiful green trees and fields. Traffic was also very less. We were soaking in the scenery frequently stopping here and there. In due time we reached Pithabera checkpost. Finally we entered the forest. Right at the entrance the forest welcomed us with a beautiful pattern of light and shade on the red forest floor. Then we crossed the river. At a place we stopped to go to the river bank. There the river had a very wide river bed filled with large and small stones and a huge fallen tree. In the horizon was hills. Everything created a sight to remember. Two little kid were swimming in the small stream. They become inquisitive seeing us. After that we headed for Lulung. There at the border of buffer and core area of the forest we parked our bike and directed our attention to Lulung river. With the upward slanted rocks in the river bed, the river looked as beautiful as its name.

After spending some time there we came back to the checkpost and took the other road that lead to Sitakunda falls. As it was a Sunday everyone was heading towards the falls. So at the falls we found around 5-6 vehicles, a group was preparing lunch, many people we bathing in the falls. It was a chaos. The falls had two steps and even before reaching the lower part Sourav headed towards the upper part. So we two followed him. A little bit of climb through dense undergrowth and we reached the spot. It was beautiful but we didn’t have much time to enjoy. We had set 12 o clock as our return journey starting time. So we came back to the lower part. Too many people had broken the tranquility of the place. We didn’t like it. Also it was almost 12:00 so we head back.

For return journey we had planned to follow the highway upto Bahargoda then through Ghatsila we will reach Tatanagar. So after crossing the Buribalam river we took the highway. The sun was directly above our head. It was not much comfortable to ride. Enroute we had our lunch in a road side dhaba. Then after passing Bangriposi we found another road that takes us to tatanagar through Dumaria. We decided to take this route as we didn’t like much to ride on the highway in full sun. We didn’t know anything about this other route but we took the chance and went that way. We both were low on petrol and previously thought of filling up on the highway before Bahargoda but as we take diversion we totally forgot about petrol.

This route through Dumaria turned out to be very good. Everywhere it was mostly newly laid asphalt. The road had plenty of tree cover. We started to enjoy the ride again. But this road didn’t have any petrol pump for the first 50 kms approximately. We had to buy a litre of petrol from a roadside shop to topup our bikes a little bit until we found a proper petrol pump. Apart from petrol we didn’t have any problem in this route. Winding road through villages, jungles, hills was a delight to ride. Even before Musabani, road became wider with increased traffic as last half of the road is through populated area. We passed Musabani and Jadugoda in due time. As we left Jadugoda behind and was heading for Tatanagar, the sky turned beautiful as if to say goodbye to us to end these series of rides that we had for the last four weekends.