Announcement

MG · 12-04-2009, 12:05 PM

Topic Approved

The teaser picture looks good.

**rachitkohli** · 12-04-2009, 12:09 PM

Beautiful is the word... Waiting..!

**satyenpoojary** · 12-04-2009, 12:15 PM

Waaahaaaaow!

Pardon me for my ignorance but where is this place?

**inder.cool** · 12-04-2009, 12:31 PM

So, started touring too on the bullet eh..

Nice trailor buddy, hope to see the whole movie soon ..

**kirosh_03** · 12-04-2009, 12:39 PM

Wow! The place looks inviting.

**Shivanshu** · 12-04-2009, 12:45 PM

Nice teaser brother.... waiting for the trip log

**yatishankar** · 12-04-2009, 01:29 PM

wowwww........Bring it on Sunil......waiting for the pics and the equally fantastic log... lets bring back the last memories of our riding together....how is ur new beast behaving these days?

**diffuser911** · 12-04-2009, 02:10 PM

Originally posted by MG_Biker1806 View Post

Topic Approved

The teaser picture looks good.

Thanks MG

Originally posted by rachitkohli View Post

Beautiful is the word... Waiting..!

Thanks

Originally posted by satyenpoojary View Post

Waaahaaaaow!

Pardon me for my ignorance but where is this place?

Its in Orissa!

Originally posted by inder.cool View Post

So, started touring too on the bullet eh..

Nice trailor buddy, hope to see the whole movie soon ..

I'm coming up with it in an hour

.

Originally posted by kirosh_03 View Post

Wow! The place looks inviting.

It definitely is...just one day and I felt what I had missed for so long...peace.

Originally posted by Shivanshu View Post

Nice teaser brother.... waiting for the trip log

Here it comes...

Originally posted by yatishankar View Post

wowwww........Bring it on Sunil......waiting for the pics and the equally fantastic log... lets bring back the last memories of our riding together....how is ur new beast behaving these days?

Thanks Yati da...I am posting up mine and Soumya's cam pics. Arnab is absconding with pics from your cam.

**diffuser911** · 12-04-2009, 02:54 PM

(All pics from my SE K790i. Yet to get pics from Yati da's SLR and Soumya's H-50)

After a spate of solo trips, plus the truly unfortunate theft of my bike, my touring keeda had fallen silent for a while. The trauma of losing my best friend was not over, but subdued to a small extent with my new acquisition: Royal Enfield Electra 5S. With that, I was ready to roll again with the BULLZzz.

The location was decided to be an overnight destination, since the trip was supposed to be the farewell trip for Yati da. With the size of the group depleting at a faster rate than the (relatively) colder months of Bhubaneshwar, we seriously needed a trip to reignite the passion. And see if we can infuse enough interest in other folks to leave the comforts of their home. The two day trip had to involve less riding and more of a bum-like lethargic life. The radars started scanning of the few untouched destinations around the city and locked targets on Tikarpada, a serene retreat in the middle of Satkosia gorge on the river Mahanadi. This was a location that our friend Pinak used to ask us to go but we couldn’t due to mismatched schedules. Now when we were ready to make it happen, he is no longer in the city.

The preparations part was carried out on the weekdays with frantic calls to the DFO, Satkosia for booking the accommodation and getting the permits. One whole day was wasted listening to the fax tone of the DFO’s number. We connected the next day and asked them to take payment at their office in Angul, since there was no time to go through the official way of processing the application. That being done, we were the least prepared to go on with the trip. All we knew was: be at the CSPur petrol bunk at six in the morning.

The two tourers

After the not-so-unusual delays in timing, we all assembled at the pump. Soumya came sans his Pulsar 200, which was having starting problems. After a warm-up chat, we left for the city limits, Soumya riding pillion with Deepak on his R15. Arnab set the pace with his feel-like-god Avenger 200 and next when I saw him was at Rasulgarh at the petrol station. So did Yati da, whose striking yellow Karizma helped me find him in the crowded pump. I was chugging along on my 350-cc locomotive, enjoying the musical thump on the empty roads. The next stop was a Pahal, where we started our morning with the soft-like-sponge sweets. Arnab preferred to think different and went for a dahi vada-aloo dum. We moved on at a leisurely pace and crossed Cuttack, battling with school kids on cycles to get a patch of road. The roads opened up as we left the city and halted for a tea at a diversion on the NH. This marked a transition from the 4-laned NH5 to the truck-infested 2-laned NH42. We stopped once to chuck down some dahi vada-aloo dum down our throats before hitting the road again. The smooth ride was interrupted once in a while with a rowdy cage driver hurtling himself in our path, but we were in too good a mood to be disturbed by such frivolities. The two road racers decided to hit the triple digits on the speedo and raced ahead while I rode along Yati da at a sedate pace. We entered Dhenkanal and I remembered Soumya’s college from the last big ride I was on. The lovely landscape had started after we had neared the city and continued as we headed on the slick roads. Angul, around 60 km, didn’t feel that far on roads so good.

The roads inside Angul, to say the least, were horrible by huge proportions. And so were the traffic-cutting skills of the commuters. It was worse than the last time we passed this town. We managed to scamper along to a traffic signal, from where we needed to head to the DFO’s office for collecting the permits. Arnab seems to have disappeared down the road, feeling like God, leaving behind lesser mortals like usJ. We completed the formalities for obtaining the permit while Arnab waited for us at the turn which we needed to take to reach Satkosia. We halted there for a few moments, and notice a few hanging jaws among the onlookers. Noting a distance of 48 km from the turn, we took the turn towards our destination and headed into hilly areas. Crossing a couple of villages, we took a descending turn to the right and knew from the changing scenery that we were closer to the river gorge. We submitted the papers at the entry gate, which proudly proclaimed the area ahead as Satkosia Tiger Sanctuary.

The roads from here were mostly good, surrounded by trees and farms, often crossing a hamlet and an occasional water-crossing. The forest division had started, as pointed out by the signposts to take it slow on the roads. The weather had turned cool and each of us was cruising at his own speed. The road had quite a few chicanes and the riders were having a good time negotiating them will skill. As the roads opened up, we even managed to witness smoke rising from a hillside. The last part of the patch, after we reached the range office, was a dusty one. We continued on that until we got the first view of the river. Wow suddenly lost its meaning in beautiful landscape that I caught in these two eyes. I and Arnab stopped for a moment, taking some time for the beauty to sink in. We reach a bifurcation in the road and followed a car going in the uphill part. The road was stony and steep, and not too forgiving to the bikes, yet we took on it with ease. Only when we descended this patch did we know that we had taken the tougher way; the other road that we skipped joined had this one. The road had completely disappeared now and what we saw ahead was a forest trail with patches of soil and sand intermixed with fallen vegetation from both sides. Within an interval of a few minutes, all of us had reached the parking spot which looked down at the sandy beach and tents where we were to spend our next 24 hours. Out came the mobile phones; the no-network coverage bothered some, relieved some.

The first view

Camp brick-brac

Mesmerized

The dining tent and others

Clouds playing over the gorge

Unloading luggage and securing the bikes with chains, we headed down the crude stairs leading to the riverside. The place was managed by the village folks who welcomed us whole-heartedly and signaled us to two tents nearest to the camp’s makeshift-dining room. Another group was there, having come in cars from Angul. Waiting just enough to unpack the required stuff, we headed towards the shallow waters of the Mahanadi. While the river looked clear and beautiful at a distance, it was quite muddy once we walked in, with a gooey moss-patched bottom. Who give a hoot to that with the jaw-dropping scenery around us? The clouds were playing hide-and-seek over the gorge, forming interesting shadows on the hills around. While we headed for the deeper waters, Yati da played it safe and stay in knee-deep areas. The water was warm where we stood, so the four of us moved farther from the riverside. With two swimmers, the other two were not too afraid and made it to neck deep area. Boy, how cold the water was there! The undercurrent was much colder compared to the surface, brushing our limbs and finding its way down the gorge. The antics started there, the swimmers tried there hand (and legs) at swimming and rest of us shouting. Soon we discovered that the gorge was echoing our hollers and soon we started to shout the air out of our lungs. Yati da had brought back his new acquisition, a Canon 500D DSLR and was clicking away the action in water. Finally came holding the breath competition, where my lungs gave in first and Deepak emerged as the winner. We saw a few guys carrying a huge fish with them, alighting from a rowboat. The can’t-get-enough syndrome had taken away any pangs of hunger we had felt when we had arrived at the nature camp. Yati da urged us to get out and dry ourselves before lunch was served. It was a wonder how can he stay out of water after coming so close to it! Picking up a ton of sand on our wet feet on our way back to the tents, we were already dry when we reached. Changing into something comfortable, we reached the dining tent and enjoyed a simple, but tasty buffet menu. The other visiting group, which we had befriended, offered us a considerable chunk of the catch from the river, crisp fried. Thanking them, we enjoyed the meal in the shade of the tent.

The V

The hills behind the tents

Now that lunch was over; someone asked the big question: what do we do now? The boating trip down the river could not be undertaken as the other visitors had taken it for a joyride. While I ran to fetch the tourism brochure from the tent, Arnab took ownership of Yati da’s cam and went to the riverside for capturing the landscape. We asked the staff about the various destinations shown in the brochure and found that none were nearby. So we had the complete evening in front of us to do – nothing. The gupp session started on the sand, where we all took places in a circle. After sometime, the DFO himself showed up at the camp, causing disquiet among the staff present, which started arranging some stuff lying around. We were notified by new uniformed members of the staff that we needed to shift to the tents at the far end of the camp, so we gathered our stuff and changed bases. While the DFO was surveying the area, we decided to do a quick check on the bikes and went up to the forest trail. Some people were leaving, some arriving. After our friends from earlier today left in their car, we couldn’t help commenting on the spirit of these guys, in their forties, taking out time to enjoy their life even at this age. The bikes were locked up in a daisy wheel fashion, even though the staff said they were pretty safe even if we left them unlocked. We descended back to the new accommodations and took positions in the chairs, watching life go by slowly while engaged in chatter. Yati da seemed to be at a little discomfort, but didn’t mention anything to us. Amongst all the voices stood out something which you can’t find on many places you go to: a sedative serene. Watching the sun go down beyond the hills...the stars appearing in the sky and forming a white, dusty appearance in the sky...catching a pair of bright eyes staring at us from the forested hills...following a firefly with our eyes. All these and countless other sounds, chirps and squeaks too. The staff kept refreshing us with a lovely tea and delightful snacks. I was sitting with a newly bought torch and kept pointing it to each sound that fell in the sonic range of us humans.

Looking outside

Wish I could stay in this hut

Hills beyond the campsite fence

Darkness falling in slowly

Soon it was dinner time, which we had already delayed as much as we possibly could. The talks shifted to the dinner tent, where we were served the buffet meal. After everybody was filled up to their heart’s content, we walked back to the tent. New occupants had taken up the tents near the camp entrance. All of us were excited about the panoramic sunrise we were to witness the next morning. We resolved to wakeup early to catch the sun rising in the magical gorge. Sitting down for a little while near the tents, Soumya captured some more of the starry night lit by kerosene lamps, dangling in front of each tent. This day had been more than we expected on all fronts. We rode like crazies in the first half and lazed like bums in the second. What lay the next day? We’ll sleep over the thought to find that out!

To be continued...

MG · 12-04-2009, 03:02 PM

Just by going through the pictures the place looks very interesting. Will go through the log later but the pictures have come up pretty well considering they have clicked using a mobile phone.

**tourer_kashif** · 12-04-2009, 03:29 PM

Nice trip guys.

**kirosh_03** · 12-04-2009, 04:18 PM

The way you pen down your experience is amazing. Day 1 was very well written. Bring on the rest.

**Sunny** · 12-04-2009, 04:41 PM

Great Stuff! The place looks lovely!

**ken cool** · 12-04-2009, 04:53 PM

Wow! This place looks gorge-ous. I never imagined that the Mahanadi could look like this. I have just been on the Mahanadi in a train! Nice beaches here... wonderful.

Announcement

Satkosia Gorge - Enveloped by Nature

Satkosia Gorge - Enveloped by Nature

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment