Nearest Towns: Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Rourkela, Sambhalpur
Distances: Chandikhole 95Kms, Ghatagaon 150kms, Keonjhar 210kms from Bhubaneswar
Getting there: From Bhubaneswar via Cuttack highway NH5. Take a turn left into Panikoli under the flyover to reach the jajpur main road. State highway 215 from here would lead to Ghatagaon, Keonjhar falls straight ahead of the same.
Trip Length: 5 Hrs one way
Best Time to Visit: September to February
Worst Time to Visit: Peak Summer
Permission: None Required
Things to carry: A local map of the roads and places, bottles of water, plenty of filling snacks, extra memory cards.
Things to keep in mind before traveling:
• Since your vehicle would have to endure some good stress, make sure it is properly serviced.
Make sure you are carrying your toolkit and a torch.• You can’t rely on your mobile phone for help (no network in most places). So keep someone informed about your whereabouts and move in a group with not much distance between.
• Keep a cool head, keep buffer in your travel time, plan in advance for the places to visit and make a milkman route for the same.
We had no luxuries of knowing this before we started, because it was all planned at the last moment.
Rating: 3.5/5
Fact File:
Mahavinayak temple is a major centre of pilgrimage and one of the oldest Ganesha temples in Orissa. In Orissa there are five different Kshetras or religious centers celebrated for these Pancha Devata(Five God) viz: Vinayaka or Ganesh Kshetra at Mahavinayak hills in the district of Jajpur, Vishnu or Sankha (the attributes in the hands of Lord Vishnu) Kshetra at Puri, Shiva or Ekamra Kshetra Bhubaneswar, Durga or Viraja Kshetra at Jajpur or Yajanapur. Mahavinayak enshrines the five god heads in one Lingam. The speciality of Mahavinayak temple is that the Pancha Devata: Shiva, Vishnu, Durga, Sun and Ganapati, are worshipped as a single deity in a single sanctum sanctorum. In no other Hindu temples such tradition of worship is present. It is situated 40 Km north to Cuttack besides NH5 and 4 Km away from the NH towards west via Sukinda Parad
ip expressway in Chandikhole. *Source: WikipediaMaa Tarini Temple, Ghatagaon is one of the most sacred places of Orissa. One legend with a delightful association with the rathyatra concerns King Purushottam Dev(15th Century). (More details at www.maatarini.com). The temple is highly revered and the goddess there is believed be highly powerful. Coconuts are the offering here. In fact, such is the faith in the goddess that if anyone in the state waves a coconut wrapped in a red cloth on a highway the next bus would surely stop to pick it up and take it to the temple. Even if the bus is on a different route, the driver ensures that the coconuts are dropped in the collection box on the way or hand it over to another bus headed for Ghatagaon. The drivers say and from their experience, the people who have failed in this met with several difficulties on their journeys. During festival seasons, as many as 100,000 coconuts reach the temple everyday. This flawless coconut courier service based on the faith has made Maa Tarini an extremely popular deity in Orissa. It has even figured in the news in BBC Asia.
Keonjhar district is a green land of panoramic beauties and a store house of mineral wealth. It offers a variety of attractions to the tourists which includes religious shrines, fresco painting, waterfalls and above all the natural sceneries. The terraced villages buzzing with the sweet melodies of the birds take the visitors to a dream land. The simplicity of the tribal folk mixed with the gaiety
of their festivals can keep the visitors amused. Places to visit here are:-Sitabinji: It is situated on river Sita. The spot has gained prominence as a place having ancient fresco paintings on a rock shelter called Ravan Chhaya which is like a half opened umbrella. The paintings depict a royal procession. It is 30 km from keonjhar (23 km on the Jajpur-Keonjhar road upto Katrabeda and 7 km from there)
Badaghagara: It is about 9 Km from Keonjhar on NH6 towards Sambhalpur. It is yet another small (200ft high) but exciting waterfall.
Sanghagara: It is 6 Km from Keonjhar on NH-6 towards Sambhalpur. It is a small (100ft. high) and a beautiful waterfall.
Keonjhargarh: It is the district headquarters and is famous for Vishnu temple. On the outskirts are the shrines of Sidha Jagannath, Sidhakali and Panchabati amidst picturesque settings.
Deogaon (Kosaleswar): On the river Kusei near Anandapur., the temple of Kosaleswar built in Circa 900 AD is a famous centre of pilgrimage. Once upon a time it was a flourishing seat of Budhism.
Gonasika: Situated at a distance of 45 Km from Keonjhar, Gonasika hill is the source of the river Baitarani.
Murgamahdev: A beautiful temple dedicated to Lord Shiva, is situated on picturesque Thakruani hil. It is situated in Champua subdivision and is 65 Km away from Keonjhar.
The Journey:
Day 1:
Bitten by the travel bug, the weekend of 10th Oct we planned a short trip to Ratnagiri, a series of hills with remains of Buddhist monasteries from the 10th centuries. This was planned by a friend of mine who had recently gained a lot of enthusiasm considering the perfect weather and the number of long weekends that were headed up for us. Mind it, long weekend for us means a consecutive day to a Sunday even though we’re all in IT. Due to the inhuman project requirements, Saturdays are also working for us….sad but true.
Anyways, we made a rough plan, about 110Kms one way, 85 of which on a straight highway NH5, total travel time was estimated to be 2 hrs one way. As we reached office as the common point for meeting up, some more colleagues added up to in the caravan on the spot. The count was now 7 and with 4 bikes it seemed like a perfect daylong trip. A brief about the team members,
Prahlad- The planner for the trip, a flamboyant SAP consultant from Bangalore who has found better REASONS for his stay in a place like Bhubaneswar as well *wink wink*
Sudhir- A fraud Telugu (has very few distinguished Telugu qualities) who is more than happy to be on any trip, condition being booze and fag should readily be available.
Sandip- An easy going guy from Mumbai who would joke with a straight face and you would not even realize when he is taking you for a long ride :).
Suneel- The bachelor for the week, since his wife was back home, he was more than eager to relive his college days.
Vivek- The most quiet of the species in the office. You would always catch him with his eyes dug into the computer screen and hands on keyboard fiddling around with ABAP codes.
Suresh- A first timer to our group usually stays to himself, another quiet fellow.
And
Yours truly- Well I can go about myself for pages altogether, but I’d leave the job to you to figure me out.
Due to some inherent tendencies of delays by few people (I hope they’re reading this :))…we finally started at 11.45am (about 90 mins post the scheduled time). By now the sun was up high glaring down upon us bad. Our first destination was a place named as Chandikhole (92kms from Bhubaneswar on NH5). The ride till Chandikhole was defined by an awesome highway, and an amazingly smooth ride. Reaching the town crossing (Chandikhole Chaka), 30-35Kms into the road on the right turn was Ratnagiri and 5-7 kms into the left were much revered temples of Chandi and Maha Vinayaka.
We took left to visit the temples first which were closer. Unfortunately, by the time we reached the Chandi temple (1300hrs), it was closed and was expected to open only by 4pm. Even Gods deserve a power nap in the afternoon :)) hence we headed further for the Maha Vinayaka temple dreading if it might be closed as well. It was about another 3-4 Kms further ahead, and the entrance was categorically marked with statues of lion over an elephant on both its sides which is commonplace in Orissa. After a small flight of steps was the temple, which to our dismay was also closed but thankfully only for sometime. To make the most of the time we had, we started for the Devi temple on the hilltop the steps for which started from the rear of the temple. The high and steep steps made most of the junta panting for breath, all thanks to their sedentary lifestyles. I in the meanwhile got some good opportunity to try my hands on some macro photography sighting variety of spiders and butterflies on the way up. It was a beautiful view of the town from the hilltop. That’s where we offered our prayers and rested for a while.
By the time we reached back, the Maha Vinayaka temple was already open. It was a small but beautiful temple with three entrances to it. Within there was the much known and revered lingam with the five god heads. With a narrow passage to the idol, and many devotees thronging the place, it was difficult to get a snap of the same, so I chose to keep the cam inside the bag, get inside and take the blessings at least.
By this time everyone’s stomachs were twisting and turning from inside since we had a very very small snack at the start and the hunger was accentuated by the hill climbing up drill we just underwent. We spotted a hotel “Hotel Midtown” right at the Chandikhole crossing. Thankfully it was still open and serving, since most of the places shut down in afternoon usually after 2.30. The food was ordered and the round table discussions started about the rest of the trip. Considering that the next day was also off, we were contemplating extending our travel, but to where and how was the question.
Keonjhar came out as the picked destination after some quick phone calls to our local colleagues at office. However we were warned of the extremely bad roads and the trucks plying on the same if we happen to get late.
At that moment, Ratnagiri was dropped as the destination since it was already 4pm and we had to cover another 120 odd kms out of which most part of the road was in a bad shape with no lights. Our inherent delays followed us everywhere, this time because we missed a turn from the highway by 20kms and had to come all the way back. We were supposed to take a left from the highway at Panikholi. We still had over 90 kms to reach Keonjhar and by now it was getting dark. Single road with multiple SPEEDBREAKERS (they were meant to break more than just speeds) and potholes marked our ride till we realized we had missed a turn once again, thankfully only by 4kms this time. Once we got the turn, we made sure that we keep asking people for directions not to go off track again. The road now had no lights except coming from the vehicles, and it was almost 6.30. Our next miles
tone was to reach Ghatagaon, Maa Tarini Temple which was about 45kms from here. Sudden huge potholes on the road kept us on an alert all through the ride. The last phase of 20-25kms towards Ghatagaon was an awesome road through a dense jungle, wherein if you shut off your headlights, you would not be able to see your own hands even. Scary but splendid it was. It was getting a bit cold as well which was hurting the already aching backs from those huge speed bumps. We finally reached Maa Tarini Temple at 8pm. I would say that we were very lucky to have reached there just in time before the temple closes. The front gate was already latched, but a local suggested trying the side door which might be open, and it was. We were the last group of visitors to enter after which they shut that door. The temple was beautiful from inside with a circular boundary. In the centre was the idol of Maa Tarini. The idol with two big eyes, with a mark in centre for nose, completely painted in red emanated power and divinity. I so much wanted to have a shot of the scene there but unfortunately taking pics was not allowed inside. Stepping out after the short puja and the yumm prasad we were wondering how much more of roads we had to cover till we finally got a bed to rest our butts on.We had absolutely no idea that the worst was still to come. The next 45-50Kms were only potholes with roads showing up sometimes in between. To worsen the situation, we had a caravan of trucks (unfortunately the truck movement had started) on the road. Dust was all around, all over, and inside our systems as well. We were looking like a
s if just came out from a dust mine by the time we reached Keonjhar.It was about 10 by the time we reached. Now we desperately needed some rest, a warm bath and cozy beds. Looking around we came across “Hotel Labanaya” towards our right on the main road itself. On checking out the inside, we could not rate it worthy to spend a night, not value for money by the amount they were charging. Looking out further, on the way we came across another hotel “Hotel Shreekrishna”. It had decent rooms, cheap, and the best part, had hot water…we went no further and simply checked in there. We ordered food. There in the hotel we were eating papads, egg bhurji, munching on the baadam (groundnut is called badam here), and discussing how crazy we are and what a crazy journey this has been so far. It was 1.30 when everyone hit the sack and I did doubt if anyone would be ready to start anything before 10 in the morning.
Day 2:
A pleasant countryside morning it was and Suneel (the enthusiastic one) came banging each door, pulling each one’s sheets, punching…trying to wake up the sleeping logs, only to give a start. But all efforts in vain, we eventually started at about 11.
Taking directions from the hotel guys and the places to see we headed for the 1st in our list “Sanaghagra” and “Badaghagra” falls. Just about 3-4 kms from our place we spotted a “Panthnivas” on the right. It could have been a very good stay for us in case we knew about it in advance. Nonetheless we moved on.
It was surprising that very few people were able to give us the correct directions for the two places and we went off road a couple of times before we were able to reach the smaller of the two “Sanaghagra” falls. The place had been decently maintained. One had to walk for about 500mtrs from the parking area to reach the falls. It was a series of small but beautiful waterfalls. Unfortunately it did not look very inviting for a dip so most of us kept to the sides getting wet and playing around.
On the way back to our bikes, there was a villager selling blocks of wood claiming to be sandal at 40 bucks each. I was skeptical about the authenticity of the same since a block of sandalwood of that size costs around 800 bucks back in Cauvery, Bangalore. In fact the doubt was strengthened when he agreed to give it for 15 bucks a piece. Only to realize at the end of the journey that we had been duped :), it was just a block of wood dipped in scented water, did not expect this from a villager.
Post “sanghagra” we headed for “badaghagra”. Trying to figure out the way, we realized that it was a narrow stony road uphill which lead to the Ghagra river reservoir and the falls. We could see no one on the way and nowhere near and around as well. Such was the situation that at one point we divided into two groups at a V junction and planned come back after exactly 10 mins, since there was no network in any one’s mobile (Something Vodafone should look at. they did not follow me here). Incidentally both the ways went to different sides of the water fall. We reached the base of the waterfall where there was some solar power stat
ion which looked as if it was an abandoned building. While the other group reached the reservoir. Shouts and yells brought both the groups together at the huge reservoir. It was a beautiful sight with only water at one end of the horizon and lush green jungle on the other end.Considering it was 2pm already and we were way behind our schedule we headed for the other places on our list. Still clueless as to what to visit, how to visit, where to go, we took the advice of some local people as to what could be completed within the small amount of time that we had. A unanimous answer was Gonasika, and the origin of river baithrani. Asking directions was easy, but getting the right direction was a hell of a task. From the main road near Sanghagra, the distance was estimated to be about 25-30kms.
Once off the highway towards Sambhalpur, it was a dreamlike stretch with a narrow but smooth single road with tall trees on both sides. It was a winding road with steep ups and downs…more of climbs since we were on our way towards the hill top.
Even though the ride was smooth but the load of pillion and the steep climb made our mean machines to groan in agony. And that’s when it happened, one of them broke down. Chain went loose. We were like, in middle of nowhere, no idea how far we were from civilization, how much time it would take to reach there and million such thoughts started brewing in our heads. That’s when a god sent angel came (a local) who though was going the other way, obliged us by taking us to the village mechanic. The mechanic’s shop was so inconspicuous, that we could have not possibly figured it out on our own. The bike was fixed and we were ready to start again all thanks to that angel.
In this village it was a temple ahead of which was the river origin. Prayers were offered at the temple, Prasad taken and off we were towards the hilltop. Road now was the narrowest, and there was a point where we had to finally park our bikes to walk and climb the rest of the distance. After walking fo
r a while, there was another series of steps painted green by the moss covering them and small streams of water gushing by. At the end of the steps was a very small temple. Inside was an idol of a goddess and a rock looking like head of a cow at her feet. On close observation we saw the stream of water actually pouring out of the nostrils of that cow head shaped rock. This, this was the origin of the baitarini river. Such an interesting thing it is, that most of the rivers start from small springs or streams like this and grow huge before flowing into the sea. It was about 4.30 and slightly getting dark, so with more prayers, more offerings and some snaps we wrapped up the stay there.Next task was to reach back to our hotel. Ride downhill was much easier and smoother since we knew the roads well now. Our only aim was to be able 2 hit the state highway before the trucks and dumpers did. But as luck would have had it, on the way back Sunil’s bike gave in again. This time it was a flat tyre. Since we were moving in sets of two bikes, he had one company. Since there was no network, there was no possibility of messaging to us as we had moved ahead.
Interestingly Vivek volunteered to get some help, waved his thumb, got a lift to nowhere (mind it he does not understand hindi, forget Oriya). The situation now, one bike reached the hotel, one stopped en route ahead since a call connected to them from a local PCO, two bikes at the puncture shop, and a lost guy with no network.
It was a painful ordeal of patience and wait for about an hour before everyone was able to get in touch with each other. Maybe the prayers came for our help. Else otherwise it could have easily been a big search operation since it was already pretty dark.
Everyone took a breather getting back together at the hotel and that’s when the ragging session of the lost soul began. The fun got interrupted by the tea and plates full of hot aloo pakoras which in no time were gobbled up. These were the first elements of food that got into our system other than biscuits and water. Refueled we were back on the road by 7. By now it was already late and we had to face the ordeal of the following the trucks with the whirlwind of dust behind them.
This time we were not lucky to be at the Ma Tarini temple on time, way late by half hour. By now we knew that there was no chance we could reach before 12, but the need of the hour was food, which we desperately longed for. The hope of getting a good dhabha on the highway fuelled us to cover the next 50kms of the ride. The small eating joints looked too tempting on the way, but we held back to reach the highway, even though we were not sure of what we would possibly get there.
And then came the highway, and a series of small and big dhabhas. Had no more patience, simply barged into one, ordered a humongous meal and gulped Masala coke while we waited for the feast to arrive. Not a great meal, but then who cares when you’re hungry. Gluttony had taken over the taste buds. Now that everyone was full getting up from those chairs now seemed to take like an eternity. It was 12.30 by now, and we had another 100kms to reach Bhubaneswar. But now it was a smooth 6 lane national highway ahead of us, with barely any traffic. Stomachs full to hearts desire we were ready to zoom back to our comfortable homes.
Zipping at comfortable speeds of 80-90, in no time we were back in Bhubaneswar sitting at the Rasulgarh circle for everyone to catch up. There we were, all of us sitting and laughing at the moments from the trip. Finally at 2.30 in the night we bid each other byes as we parted ways for our homes.
Lying on my bed, after such an eventful trip, I was wondering how ill cope with the uneventful days in office ahead. That’s when I stretched, shrugged the thought out of my head, turned on my side and slipped into sweet slumber. Goodnight!
Places of Stay in Keonjhar:
Panthanivas Keonjhar, At/Po. Judia, Keonjhar - 758 002,
Tel. 06766 - 253603, Mob. 9238211629
Hotel Shreekrishna, NH6 Near Madhapur
09437826311, (06766)256999, 250111
Other hotels in the area are
Hotel Ajanta 06766-253372, Hotel Plaza 06766-255246, Labanya Lodge 06766-255507, Keonjhar Lodge 06766-255794 , Gayatree guest house 06766-255668, Hotel Ankita, Shreekshetra Hotel
More pics from the trip can be found at Picasa Album
--Nalin Agarwal
