The title is actually partially true. This time my target was not only to visit the terracotta temples of Bishnupur but to taste some non-veg items offered by Banalata Resort of Joypur also. Joypur is one of my favorite travel destination. It is not very far, not very crowded and it has Sal forest. What more to ask from a place? Now added bonus is the non-veg dishes of Banalata resort. I will show you what are on offer there later.
Sourav has bought a new bike. So he has upgraded himself from my pillion to co rider. To celebrate the occasion we were planning for a short weekend trip to somewhere. Pallab had agreed to join us too. After considering a few places from sea to hills, we fixed upon Joypur forest as it is nearby, the road are good and rather inexpensive place. As the date neared, very severe cyclone Bulbul was formed in Bay of Bengal. We were anxious about the weather but we're sure that what ever the weather, we will carry on as per plan.
So on 11th morning I started from my home to join others enroute. Weather had cleared in the previous day. At Ranihati I met Pallab. We had a tea and then headed towards Salap where Sourav was waiting for us with Jagadishda. There we had tea again and finally started our tour. We were four persons on three bikes. I had bought a tailbag for long routes, so to test it's efficiency I loaded all three bags in it. It actually became a kind of backrest for me. It felt like I was sitting on a sofa.
Our plan was to take the Dankuni, Arambagh, Kotulpur, Joypur route. We were riding as planned. But this route was not very enjoyable to ride. Traffic was high, road was not so wide, road condition was not too good too. So we were progressing slowly. We did take some tea breaks. At Arambagh we stopped for breakfast. It was very congested in that time. After Arambagh traffic became a little less. At around 12:30 we reached Joypur.
Whenever I come to Joypur, my first priority is to stay at forest Watch Tower. View from it's top is beautiful! So I went straight to forest Dept office to enquire about availability. But just as previous time it was already booked. But still the forest ranger tried to provide us at least one room but he was unsuccessful. As a alternative, Banalata Resort was out of the equation. It's rate was too high for our purpose. We found a hotel in Google named Banabitan Lodge. So we set direction in maps and started our bikes.
When Google told that we had reached out destination, we found a huge building. Nobody was there. No name was written on it too. Anyway to try our luck, we entered the building and asked for somebody. Two people came outside. I asked if room were available and they readily said yes. Rooms were small, very ill maintained. But still it was ok for us. We took two rooms for 500 each. Then we went to Banalata resort for lunch.
Day by day this resort itself is becoming a tourist destination. The various types of activities that it operates in it's campus will provide a city dweller a slice of village life within the comfort of luxury. It is cultivating various vegetables, flowers etc, rearing various kind of live stock, farming fish in it's pond, has a bullock cart for tourists, has a unit for making wooden furniture etc. My interest was to taste the various types of meat that it offers in it's menu. So me, Pallab and Sourav decided to try duck and turkey where as Jagadishda didn't want to experiment and wanted to stick with chicken. We left some others meats for the night.
After satisfying our taste buds we started to tour the whole facility. One by one we visited quail, duck, swan, gunie fowl, kadaknath chicken, turkey, emu. We found a lone horse munching grass under a tree. A huge shed was there for cows. A huge amount of labour were engaged in various kind of work. The number may seem some time unnecessary. But it is a source of income for the local people, specially the women. Then we returned to hotel.
We planned to take some rest and after that we will go inside the jungle. But we slept so deeply that we wake up only after 7pm!! We went to Banalata to pack our dinner and return. This time two other type of meat, mutton and emu. After finishing the tasty mutton biriyani with emu kosha, our stomach felt like a mini zoo. Chicken, mutton, emu, turkey, duck all were roaming inside it. Only quail was missing. Anyway we called it a day and went to sleep. We decided to start early in the next day.
Only we four were there in the night. Even the caretaker went to his home, which was nearby. In the morning it took some time to get ready. Around 9am we checked out of the hotel. First we visited Samudrabandh. It is a perfect place to find Pheasant tailed jacana. And yes, after spending some time we found some. But they were missing the charismatic long tail feathers. A few green bee eaters were diving in air to catch insects. We even saw a common kestrel hovering overhead. Afterwards we headed to Banalata again to have morning tea.
Then we planned to visit the WWII airstrip which the locals called, chathal. Enroute there was a teashop which I have visited everytime I went to Jaypur. The owner was Badalda. He was a lonely person staying and running a teashop inside elephant territory. Even elephant had attacked his place a few times. He was a very interesting person with his unusual attair and baul songs. I have visited the place even 4-5 months ago and meet with Badalda. But this time my heart saddened as I saw the place had become a ruin. Badalda was not there. Don't know if he lives or not.
Airstrip was as great as always. Pallab, Sourav, Jagadishda had seen this the first time. So they enjoyed a lot. I was socking in the sight of sal forest which gives me energy to go on in daily life. After a short photo session we started roaming aimlessly inside the forest. Previous day I already confirmed about the absence of elephant in this forest right now. So no worries were there. Then we tried a new route to reach the main road and lost inside the jungle. Took a help of a local person. He took us through forest, village, under railway, on various types of road and as I was thinking that we went too far from Jaypur, we popped out beside the watch tower. We all were very much amused.
From there we started for the terracotta temples of Bishnupur. It was not possible to cover all of them with half a day's time but at least few of them can be covered. First we set direction for Rasmancha Mandir. Then one by one we visited Gumgarh, Shyamray Temple, Jorhbangla Temple, another unnamed Temple nearby and Madanmohan Temple. In the afternoon light the temples had really came to life. The intricate terracotta work on the temple walls were very impressive.
It was almost 2:30pm and we hadn't yet decided which route to take. After a few discussion we finalised kharagpur route. It was almost 60 km longer than the Arambagh route but as road conditions were better, riding would not be very hard. We planned to cross kharagpur before sunset but finally we did it at around 5:30 pm. After that it was only a matter of time before we reached home one by one.
Foot note: If you are going with family, do not stay at Banabitan lodge. It is okey for boys who are looking for cheap hotel only. instead stay at Banalata resort or a new resort that is there Moulisha resort.
Comments
Post a Comment