Orissa-Dec 2012

December 2012-Orissa trek

Started the trek from the temple town of Puri moving away from inhabited areas and for 2 days walked on beautiful white sand beach with blue waters leading to the Chilka lagoon. It could have been a very heart warming experience but it was puntuated at very regular intervals by dead olive ridley turtles lying on the beach, they were all hit by fishing trawlers in the ocean. There were about 60 dead turtles on a 30 km stretch from Puri to the end of land at which point the Chilka meets the sea. It was heart rending to see those majestic animals lying inanimate, some so fresh that the blood was still trickling down. Sounds ghastly, looked ghastlier and must have been a million times so for the turtles who were hit and mangled in their home.

Chilka in a word is huge at a 1000 square kms. Was hoping to see a lot of migratory birds, but they apparently prefer to nest in an area called Nalaban which is sort of off limits for travel junkies like me. Did see the majestic white bellied sea eagle, the beautiful egrets, terns, sand pipers and Ibis'. Also saw small white fishes flying through water almost like in life of pie, except here it was just one fish at a time. Saw the heads and fins of Irrawady dolphins, that was pretty exciting.

For me the most mysterious part of the trek which am still to come to terms with was being able to see the sun rise and as well as set in water. Being on the eastern cost of the country I should have been able to see just the sun rise in the water and the sun set would be in the opposite direction in the land mass. It was a double treat but still quite startling, the only answer to this is the land curving into itself so that there is water even in the west.

And for the first time experienced the excitement of spending a night in the jungle, all the other times my night stays in jungle have been erriely quite. Stayed at the Draupathi temple at Bali Harchandi in the middle of a jungle which was full of foxes that made no pretense of keeping their existence quiet. There were lots of dogs and cats living in complete harmony with each other at the temple premises and during the day time there was no sign of any wild life but sun down and it was a different tune everyone was singing. The foxes howled and the Dogs responded and the concert went on through the night.

I visited the charming city of Cuttack and the width of Mahanadi was unbelievable till I saw Godavari by Rajmundry a few days later. Godavari is massive, it seems like she stopped balooning on the sides cause the construction company building the bridge decided they wouldnt extent the bridge beyond a KM.

Coming back to Mahanadi, she was so quite and calm its difficult to imagine her wreak havoc every monsoon.

Bubneshwar looked like a city that was racing to catchup with the metros and hence held far less charm to me.

Puri on the other hand is a delightful small town catering to the pilgrims of the temple. I spent an hour buying filigree worked silver jewellery (made of silver wire wound round and round into various pieces of jewellery). And spent another hour shopping for cotton sarees of lovely patterns from Cuttack and Sambalpur.

The street food on the Grand Street-'eat as much as you like and it would still cost less than Rs 50'. The Odiya sweets of Khaja (wheat flour rolled into strips, deep fried and dipped in sugar syrup), Chenna Jalebi (tasted like jamoon but looked like a vada), Pahala Rasgulla (apparently this is where the rasgulla originated), dum aloo dahi vada (vada soaked in buttermilk and served with potato gravy) and the ultimate of it all poori, samosa, idli, vada, bajji all served with crushed raw green chillies and a laddle each of potato gravy and peas gravy seemed like a mix of cuisines of south, west and north India.

Just about covered everything above except me washing my face in the salt water of Chilka (there wasnt any other water except drinking water that was sourced with difficulty by the fisherfolk digging in the earth) and the nights were really cold (snuggled in the sleeping bag to keep warm) and the days not so hot. Funny, how the currents in the ocean makes a difference to the region.