Topic Approved

@ diffuser : The teaser looks good..!! Kindly post some more pictures...would love to see them

The Other Road to Paradip

Date – Sunday, 15th February, 2009
Starting time – 6:30 A.M. Odometer reading – 148 KM

Riders:

• Pinak – Bajaj P150 Gen 2
• Sunil – HH CBZ*

After a mighty good Valentine’s Day, I knew that I won’t be getting time in the coming few weeks to cure my itch. No skin diseases here, just the itch to ride. Disturbing one and all, I started calling the BULLZzz at nine in the evening and went on till eleven. By then, only Pinak was in. I was already missing Pramir, the ever ready guy and one of the oldest members of the BULLZzz; he had got a permanent transfer to Pune recently. The destination had been in my mind for some time now: Paradip. During my college days, I was lucky to get one visit to the IRE Port in Berhampur. It was an awesome experience, and I was looking forward for another one at Paradip. I talked with Swagat from xBhp, who had made a trip to the place earlier and got a general feel of the route. Another friend since college, Sunny, had agreed to go, but knowing the sleeper that he is, I was doubtful. I hit the sack around midnight, though sleep had been driven off by wandering thoughts.

Waking up just fifteen minutes before the scheduled time, I managed to get ready soon and called Pinak to inform about the addition to the group. The new meeting point was fixed at DAV School in Sailashree Vihar. After calling about ten times on Sunny’s cell, I rushed to his house and shouted at his gates for some time, before giving up and going to the rendezvous point. Pinak joined me in a few minutes and we started off towards the Nandan Kanan road to Cuttack. However, with the heavy fog, it was almost impossible to carry on at a decent pace. Lugging at around 40 kmph, we found ourselves surrounded by dense fog, swerving to avoid bad patches of road. We reached the Kuakhai river bridge, where the sun was trying to peek through a cover of clouds and fog, and throwing a heavenly light all over the place. It would have given a thousand ideas to a good photographer; I just got two and snapped away. Incidentally, I had fueled up on the way and they seemed to have poured in some kind of super-fuel; my fuel meter had gone beyond the full mark, and stayed there for a long time!! After covering some good village roads, we touched the NH5 near Cuttack.


Starting point


The sun rising


Dried riverbed


Check out the fuel gauge


Capturing the reflection

There are three routes that can be used to reach Paradip, as I learned from Wikimapia last night. From what the Internet told me, the Cuttack-Paradip road seemed to be the shortest and the most scenic. Swagat and Praful had taken the Chandikhol route on their visit in 2007. Entering Cuttack, we took a break and I informed Pinak about the choice of routes. Going by my word, he concluded that we should take the shorter route. Moving off the NH and turning right, we saw a road infested with local buses and morning traffic. The roads were not pretty, but looked like a sub-urban pathway with its share of bumps and pits. I didn’t give a second thought, thinking that once we are out of the city, we would be greeted by more suitable roads. The notion was dashed to ground, when we stopped for a tea and asked the shop owner about the road conditions. But once we were out on the road, we decided not to turn back. The discussion over a glass of tea gave me and Pinak time to take out a few loads off our minds and share with each other the week that had flown past.

Back on the road, we were faced by tarmac as ugly as an acne-infested teen. The regular pits and gaps must have been placed very scientifically to make life difficult for riders like us. And maybe you could also see some pattern in the imperfections of the road, similar to the Nazca Lines, if you take a look from the space above. I don’t know about Pinak’s bike, but mine was muttering swears at me as I was a tad too fast hitting the damn bumps. We were having the (worst) time of the week, trying to navigate on the State Highway-12 to find places to ride on, preferring bumpy dust tracks over the patchy road where the toad was almost absent. At least the bumps were smoother to traverse and didn’t make my front forks go ‘khat’ every time I hit a camouflaged bump. Thank God dogs and buffaloes don’t cross these roads often!! At one place, we found a truck that had ran off the road and got down to take a few pics. Points in the road were still under construction, mostly raised roads over naalas, where sand and soil had built up, making the rear of my bike weave crazily. We were running almost parallel to an irrigation canal, where water was so blue that it reminded me of the water in Chilika Lake near the Bay of Bengal. We got down once or twice to take a look at the beauty, but got back on road soon. At one place, I stopped to attend to my cell and found it was Pinak ringing me up. I drove back some distance to find his bike parked beside the road. Coming to a standstill, I found him on the other side of the canal, having passed a crude foot-bridge. A deserted temple had caught his attention and he was off to snap pics. The behind of the canal had a river at some distance, which had turned off in another direction some distance from where the temple stood. After a shade of relief under some trees, we moved back on the road, as the progress had been slow on the back-breaking road.


One CBZ can overturn a truck...two R15s did that in another thread


Pinak's take on the truck


Closer still


Deserted temple


Pinak taking a walk along the canal


Reflections


Dhoom Dhoom Dhoom...

A fear that had bugged us all along the way was that either of the bikes might break down. Passing through the villages and bad roads, the fear got deeper. The few bazaars that we passed on the way were lacking facilities in case of a major breakdown, but thankfully that didn’t happen. The roads seemed to be getting worse when we hit a cemented track on our side of the road. Joy and piled-up frustration made me push the speed to sixties, seventies, and eighties too, Pinak closely following me. But the road ended abruptly after a few kilometers and appeared later in patches. One-sided traffic was another pain, with buses and dumpers passing by at close quarters. The road literally made me bite the dust, which was entering from below the chin of my helmet. Carrying on amidst of a cool breeze and the beauty of the surroundings, we crossed a township which had a few bike showrooms and service stations, which gave me some peace of mind. We found a strange boat-like thing, not big enough to be a boat, floating in the canal as we neared Paradip. After sometime, we crossed underneath a bridge which was lined up with trucks as far as eyes could see. We asked around the people there to get the bearings. The road we were on was correct; the one above us was the express highway that we had omitted to save time. LOL!! We carried on for another half an hour before landing on the highway, which was about to enter Paradip.


Strange float

The entrance to the city of Paradip evoked mixed feelings inside me. On one hand I could sense an industrial town miles ahead, having lived in one myself for year; add to that the smell of dead fish and a blind man can tell you the place is a sea-port. On the other hand, I saw a pink hotel, Paradip Inn, looking totally gay in the city. I was in a rush to wrap up things quickly because I didn’t dare to drive in the late evening on the NH. Putting blind faith on my intuition due to lack of planning, I followed the widest road that we had in front, and Pinak followed closely. The main road that led into Paradip was dense with traffic, so we had no problems. However, this led us into the industrial area of the city. Half of the road was littered with trucks standing, and the other half by trucks moving at a snail’s pace. Careful not to break any traffic rules, we tailgated them until the road became clear and we reached another bifurcation in the road. There, both roads were equally wide, so we went on straight instead of taking a turn. We entered what seemed to be a way to the mines and had to ask around which way to the beach at the next roundabout.

Taking a left on the road we were on, we followed a sign pointing to a guesthouse. The road here was just two lanes, with tress hanging on both sides and traffic pretty mild. It was a joy to ride on, after clogged streets we had been through. The left side had a pond-like thing that seemed to be a part of some small industry. We passed a petro-products depot on the right with humongous tanks. After taking some bumps carefully, we arrived upon another split in the road and thought the better to ask a couple of guards sitting nearby. From where I stood on my bike, one seemed to be eager to jump on Pinak’s bike. Seems we have to offer a lift to the fellow, and he will point out the beach ahead in return. A short drive brought us to the gates of the port trust, where trucks were entering. We carried on the road, thinking of entering the port later. After a while, the guard started pointing out dirt paths leading to the sea face. We soon located a paved road to the same and went up the path…Facing us was the mighty Bay of Bengal, with ships of all sizes plying back and forth the flat surface. Getting off the bike, we forgot all the problems we had faced on out way here and enjoyed the calm of the waves breaking on the shore. I got busy with my phone, while lazing on the rocks that had been laid to act as a breakwater, while Pinak went off on the beach to take a feel of the sea. After sitting around for sometime, we felt ‘bugged’ by a strange red bug found in abundance there and the sun high in the sky. We moved back to the road, with the guard tagging along Pinak. Just back on smooth road, I tried popping a wheelie and almost lost my balance. The guard got off a little further and I saw Pinak looking at his rear wheel. Fearing the worst, I rode back a little, but all was OK. Well, not for me at leastL. Turning my bike around, I managed to get off the road into pebbles and took a fall on my knee, luckily at almost a standstill. First thing I did was holding the clutch, and then killing the engine. After that, since no serious damage was done, we moved on to find something for our tummies, since we had skipped on breakfast. We landed up in a rural market complex and got to eat a humble thali containing rice, dal and veggies, and a most delicious fried fish that we had a second serving of. Feeling full, we went off the road to get a second look at the seafront, where the waves were breaking at the rocks and creating splashes. There were apartment complexes just a few meters away from the sea, which had been ravished by the super-cyclone a decade ago.


Bay of Bengal


Rocky breakwater


Sea side...


Pinak on the beach


Strange red bugs


The two bikes


Attempt to catch the wave


Waves splashing on the rocks


Dilapidated buildings

The road ahead passed through police quarters, where I found a curve and tried some leaning that I had been practicing recently. Not exactly like MotoGP racers, but kinda similar. Pinak caught up with me and asked me to inform in advance the next time I try something, so that he can click a pic. The road we had taken ended in a rocky formation dropping off into the sea, so we do a small off-road to reach a sandy beach, hardly a few feet wide. We took a small walk into the water to a rock standing solo on the beach and shared thoughts about the location, and how others could have come along and enjoyed. The immaculate beach reminded me of Satpada, where I had been recently. I wanted to explore more, but then, I didn’t want to return late in the evening, hence we returned back to the bikes and got back on road, stopping once to click a pic of me leaning at a curve. Next plan was to visit the port, so we headed to the gate we had seen earlier someway back. Alas, our hopes were dashed to the ground when we came to know from the gate officer that passes are required. And he pointed us to some other gate in the alien city where passes are issued. Hoping to catch the office by sheer luck, we moved on and reached the two-lane road where Pinak expressed a wish to record a video. There too, due to some problems in saving the file, the effort was wasted. We seemed to have missed the gate for getting passes to the port, so we rode on until we got back on the Express Highway.


Boozing place


Reminds me of Satpada


Near the beach


Closer to heaven


My cell almost went underwater for this!


Hermit baba


Looks sissy when I look at the pic now


Fishing boats, probably


More of a T than a X


Here's me...

The roads back were a mixed affair in terms of traffic, but always a spotless tarmac and a joy to ride on. Initially, there were occasional trucks heading in our direction in the same lane, and a big jam of trucks at a point outside Paradip. But as we moved on, the roads became more and more open, leaving us no choice but to squeeze the throttle. I touched an unbelievable figure of 100 kmph (on my bike, at least) thrice, topping out at a 110 kmph, though it took ages to touch the speed. Pinak pushed the bar further and touched 120 kmph, with still some throttle to go. The way back was mostly uneventful and we were riding in sight of each other. As we were nearing Chandikhol, we were faced by a couple of beautiful hills, only to be brought back to reality by a terrifying accident that had taken place on the road. A huge dumper had crashed into the divider at a split in the road, and a bike was caught between them!! I didn’t dare to take a closer look, but Pinak told me that a pair of ladies sandals was lying around. God bless the people on the bike. Pinak asked around and found that there was a temple at the top of a hill, whose road started at the accident spot. We ran down the road, which later ascended onto a snaky incline to the top of the hill. Offering our prayers, we took a moment to enjoy the beauty from up there before descending and getting back onto the highway. I did ask the name of the temple, but lost it on they way back. Nearing Chandikhol, we didn’t know that the NH5 was running under the Express Highway and crossed it, then tracked back a little to join it.


Hills on the way back


Crash!!!


Gruesome-twosome


Note the sandals


Digging out the truck, I guess


From the hill...the main road


...and the descent

From there, I felt at ease as Bhubaneswar was only 60 km away and we were still feeling the bright sun. Maintaining good speed, we stopped once for a drink of water, where Pinak also got to see a small wheelie that I performed on the empty highway patch. Nearing Choudwar, I had to brake abruptly in the tracks as an idiot was crossing at a leisurely pace. Behind me, a truck came to a screeching halt and I zoomed off; I could see in my rear-view mirror the idiot had still not moved. As soon we entered Cuttack, I got stuck in a traffic signal that Pinak had cleared. I zoomed at the green signal and missed him, until he called me up and informed that he was waiting somewhere in Cuttack. By then, I had crossed the city and waited for him to join near the bypass for BBSR. From there, we didn’t stop till we entered Bhubaneswar; once in front of Nandan Kanan and finally near Patia Sq.


The steeds back home

The journey had come to an end, but the experience was still incomplete, as we had missed half the city due to the unplanned nature of the trip, plus a late start. Maybe someday the rest of the BULLZzz might plan out another trip to Paradip and we would tag along, better prepared to enjoy the port city.

Ending time – 4:10 P.M. Odometer reading – 434 KM

Nice trip log there bro. Would love to see some pics. Even we are planning to do a kolkata-paradeep tour this month.

now give us some pic to watch.

Thanks and sorry...pics still waiting mod approval, so it may take a while.

You can post the pictures now. Those have been approved.

Thankxxx Aryan

Superb Trip log and equally interesting pics, Sunil!! There is one sea beach close to Paradeep town, last time we couldn't find it out.I thought this time around you guys might have found the way.May be next time we could plan a trip down there.Trip's Aim:"Beach Kahan hai"!!

And that accident is a ghastly sight man..I wonder how did that happen!!

@ Diffuser : Bro..nice set of pictures there..!!

Just one question though are you a punjabi...coz i could spot the 'khanda' symbol on your bike..

Thanks for the pictures bro. The pics of the last accident are really scary.

yup seriously strange.

sad there are no beaches in bangalore. boy i do miss them...
sh*t scary. nightmare of a rider.

btw... nice pics and log...

No, even we couldn't! Found it later on Wikimapia. But will cover it the next time.

Yeah, the accident does reveal the horrors of the road.

Man I missed this thread somehow!

Brought back some good memories! Nice pics theres....

PS: The accident pics especially the second one looks quite scary!