As you have seen in my last blog that we took an overnight bus from Bhubaneshwar to Daringbadi and were supposed to return that day only. Daringbadi is a small hill station about 250km from Bhubaneshwar. It is said to be the Kashmir of Orissa, which is a gross exaggeration. Nevertheless it is a beautiful place. The night was extremely cold and traveling in a bus was quite an ordeal. But the scene from the window of bus early morning next day, witnessing the sunrise was worth the hardship. My camera was not skilled enough to capture the mesmerising beauty of the sunrise.
Anyway after reaching the bus stand, we chanced upon a friendly auto bhaiya (Tarun 8921152552) who agreed to take us to all the sightseeing for Rs 1250. Though we tried to bargain, he didn’t budge. Our bargaining skills were too bad, I suppose. He then took us to a nearby hotel who agreed to let us get freshened up for Rs 800 . That included staying there for 3 hours in the morning and 1 hour in the evening. That was fine with us because we anyway were going to spend the day sightseeing and didn’t have much luggage with us. We checked in to the hotel. Since we didn’t have any ID proof, we just gave them our work ID card as proof. Around 10.30 am, after having a light breakfast, we left for sightseeing. We visited the Doluri river, which was almost barren with barely any water and the Pine Forest. We also visited Coffee Plantation (we didn’t have to pay any entry fee since the auto bhaiya took us a little further and stopped at a place where we could see the coffee berries and the trees clearly for free). Next on the list was Midubanda waterfall, suicide point, silent valley. Each and every one of the places were beautiful. The place was pretty quiet with not many tourists. Afterall, visiting all these places we returned to Daringbadi for lunch. On the way, the auto bhaiya took us for a drink that was made of fermented date extract. It tasted like mild beer.
Our lunch was a simple affair of Veg meal and chicken meal. Later we learned that we should have tried Mutton. Bad luck. After lunch, we set off again to complete the rest of our sightseeing. It was a race against time since we had to return that day only by the same overnight bus we had come in.
We visited the Emu bird sanctuary, lover’s point, Hill top View park and sunset point. It was the first time we were seeing Emu. Seeing those birds up close was a great experience. The lover’s point was just that. A low flowing waterfall accompanied with a beautiful rocky banks one can sit in. Couples and friends were scattered all over teh place spending quality time. The sunset point though was the highlight of the day. The view was breathtaking. Standing there, looking at one of the best sunset views, one will surely feel slightly insignificant in the lap of mother nature. You will feel like sitting there all day. We stayed there way past sunset and didn’t want to return.
We left Daringbadi that night at about 8pm. We reached Bhubaneshwar at around 5am and reached A’s flat by 5.40am. We took rest and got freshened up quickly for the day’s journey. We had prebooked a car who would take us to Chilika lake for RS.2600 excluding toll and entry fee. We started from our place at about 9.30am. The mini road trip was very entertaining. Music was blaring from the speakers and we were singing along with it. Frankly we had a ball. After reaching there, we had breakfast quickly and reached the boat booking counter. Booking a boat costs Rs3000 which would take us to all the spots in Chilika. Each boat can carry 10people. We got acquainted with two other groups and decided to book a boat together. Since there were total 11people adults, it cost us around 272per head. The boat took us to a Shiv temple, Nalban bird sanctuary, kalijai temple, chedhiagua. The whole trip took about 5hours. More than the temples, I loved lazing on the boat and looking at the vast stretch of water in front of me. The dying sun reflected on the water of the lake made for a beautiful painting. The lake was not much clean though thanks to overtourism. Still we enjoyed the boat ride a lot.
Sadly the day came to an end and we returned to Bhubaneshwar. We got down at Patia to buy some gifts to take back to our families. Next day morning, I rushed to a nearby shop to buy Orissa special Chenna Poda. We had our train at 10.58am. The trip came to an end leaving us hungry for more. It took me a couple of days to get out of the memories and the tiredness because we had a whirlwind trip. My first trip with my girlfriends only left me yearning for more and left me remembering the good times I shared not only with N and A, but also with the people I met on this trip. Special thanks to Arunima and Vaishalidi for making us feel so welcome in your home.
Splendid experiences 