It was a trip to remember for a lifetime. We knew that it will be very dangerous as few of our batchmates had already visited the place the previous weekend. We made the plans after having a long discussion with them.
We started in the wee hours of the morning of 25th January. Our gang of five-Anbu, Zahid, Anish, Jacob and myself were all geared up. Its difficult to find people like us waking up so early for anything except during exams(when we don't sleep actually). After clicking our starting photo (courtesy Nitin G), we started our bikes and the journey begun. 200 kms to go.....
First stop was at Cuttack. It was 5:30 AM and the chill made us take some tea by the roadside stall. We finished our tea and once again started the journey. As the sun started to come out, the beauty of the surrounding started to come out. We had decided that we will enjoy the journey as well and not just the destination. So we stopped at various intervening locations and soaked ourselves in the beauty of places.
Second major stop was at Angul. It was 9:30 AM and the destination was still 50 kms away. We took breakfast and entered into most beautiful part of the journey. Green mountains and rock river with dense forests were all there to welcome us. We just hoped no animal greeted us on this 50km road .....By the time we were close to 30 km from Tikarpada, we saw a bus and thought that to be a tourist bus. We had not booked our rooms and so thought that if the bus reaches Tikarpad before us we could be in trouble.With this thought in our minds, we put more acceleration. But it was lot of stoppages because of the other two bikers-Anbu n Jacob. We (Zahid and me) advised them to sell their bikes and get some cycles which would suit their kind of speed to a T.
Though we reached Tikarpada at 11:30 AM leaving that bus way behind(for your information that was not a tourist bus. It was just a normal ferrying kind). As soon we reached Tikarpada, the search for the guard of Guest House was on. We found him easily and the booked our room. It was just a few minutes and we all were ready to explore the place. First thing was to see Mahanadi and the Crocodiles. A boat was booked for two hours(Rs. 800/-) and we were off to see the natural beauty of the place. We saw lot of crocodiles and it appeared as if there were just trying to tan themselves. We were close around 20m away from them. We took pictures and shoot some videos. We were stunned to hear that the depth of the river is round 70m in this place. One thing was really not clear to me. It is said that blue water has more depth as compared to green water, and here though the water was green, the depth was mindboggling. Anyway the boat journey was fantastic and we cought (sorry bought) a fish for our dinner.
It was 4 O'clock and we were yet to take our lunch. The guide for our nightout in the midst of the jungle was still to be convinced. He was afraid to take us on two wheelers as it is quite riskier. Finally he obliged and told us to be ready before sunset. It is not possible to travel inside the jungle in night. We arranged for our food (pre cooked ones) and packed the dinner (fish and roti). We were now ready to explore the real jungle.
Time was 5:30PM. The sun was getting closer to the horizon. We could not afford to waste a single minute now. 7km to reach the "machaan". This was the most dangerous 7km we had ever taken in our life. Zahid was ahead with the guide in his bike, followed by me and Jacob in one bike and Anbu n Anish in another. The jungle was getting densier and deadlier by each approaching step. If this was not enough, Jacob's bike fell in the mid-way. Both of us were down. My sixth sense was constantly updating me with the enormity of the situation. I saw Zahid yelling in sign language at us to get up and move fast. Anish came fast and took control of the bike. Then onwards we reached the machaan in no time. We quickly got inside the safe four walled machaan and locked the main door. All the four walls had iron grills. The next minutes were really like analysing the decision we took to come in two wheeler. Actually the guide told us about the sighting of tiger and elephant the previous day on the way to this machaan. It really sent shivers down our spine. But now we were feeling how will we get out of the jungle in the morning. Our two dare-devil bosses, Mr Sanbu and Mr Sacob (name changed) told us that this is fun. Mr Sanbu had the famous words which forms the title of this bolg,"just chill and this is thrill". But the irony was that the same two gentleman slept within an hour of reaching the machaan. There were chilled out...agreed but how they were taking the thrill. I think they decided to take the thrill in their dreams. Jacob decided to take the thrill by making some shrill noise also. Once we got an opportunity to see some animal, the snoring of Jacob made it sure that we will be denied that also. We tried to stop his snore for sometime but he came out with famous quote"you can't do this to me".
The night was getting darker and colder with each passing minute. We were all huddled together and started playing cards. The guide was also very happy with us as he found a rather unusual kind of tourists who seemed more interested in playing cards than catching sight of some wild animals. He failed to read our pulses
....All the while Jacob seemed to enjoy his sleep. Night passed and the day broke in. We had taken some catnaps. But we got up finally in the morning, both jacob and the guide were missing. They had gone inside the jungle. Donno the reason for their entering the forest but they were the only two guys who had taken the dinner last night..
It was 7.30AM and time to start the reverse journey. But this time around the 7km didn't seem that deadlier. The night stay inside the jungle had infact emboldened us. We rejoiced on completing this journey as if we had conquered the jungle....only we know how
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By 8.45AM we had left the guest house and were on our way back to pavillion. We had a stop at Angul for breakfast and thereafter it was smooth and ardous journey. Smooth because the roads were good and ardous because none of us had taken such along journey on bike...400km on bike!! Three cheers for the successful effort
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We reached hostel at 2.30 PM and our conditions were really bad. Shilpa wanted to show us our true condition so she had taken some snaps of our faces.
The journey was long and my blog has also been a rather long one. I have tried to capture all the moments which we will treasure for a lifetime and thats the reason for this long blog. See you in my next blog which will be about next trip. Till the good bye!
