A Day visit to Chilika

Puri is the commonest tourist place for bengalees-you as a bengalee can't stop to feel the attraction of Puri - atleast once a year you have to come down to the place. This time also, we can't escape from that attraction. We reached Puri on 10th August, 2007. On our 2nd day, we decided to visit Chilika; it is one of the biggest lake in Asia. It is around 55km from Puri. We take an Indica - it takes around 2hrs nearly. At 11.30 AM morning we arrive at our destination...the place called Satapada. It is really huge in size and the water was very calm and quiet. The weather was not good at all, it was raining. Well, we book a boat for 3 hours - the charge was huge - 700. We got into the boat and it started moving away from the land. Water and water -- 5 6 boats was roaming near to our boat. Many sea birds we found on the water. There were very small small green lands in the water. People was doing fishing related activities on those lands. After some distance covered - we found - some big fishes were jumping here and there - the boatman told us -- "See Dolphin" --- ohh -- we tried to capture those spotjump of dolphin in the water. Thanks to our luck-it is something rare view of dolphin; We were very happy. Then again our boats took little more speed towards Mohana - junction of Chilika and Bay of Bengal. On the way, we found a land -- which was mostly covered by red crabs on the sands..boatman told us -- this land is called RedCrab Island. Big small red crabs had occupied the land - we took many snaps from close. Then after some distance covered we reached on a beach -- we jumped into that beach and took some rest for a hour -- there we took crab fry and tea. We named the beach as "Khai Khai Beach" -- means "Eating Eating Beach" - we really loved the place. There ends our trip and then we back to Satapada again. We do have a great lunch there - tiger prawn, big sea crabs we took as item. The taste is ever forgottable. Our trip was really fantastic. We really enjoy the trip.

Exploring Rishyap

This was an excellent experience while reaching a virgin destination in North Bengal, Rishyap on 6th April, 2007. It was just like a heaven, a place from where you will find how small you are - in respect to nature. It seems a like a roof - from where i was able to see all the natural beauties surround me.

We were staying at a Hotel named Kanchan View - we booked it through The Wheels. The room was more than a hotel.. wooden floor & veranda with multicolored flowers and orchids. From veranda - we found a two large hills - one is - where Rishyap Habitants live and another was the hill -- where Pedong was situated ...the continuation of the hill was upto Gangtok - we heard. In the night - there was a heavy shower - uff -- chilled cold it was ... but we were enjoying the beauty in the Candle night upto 2.00 in night. Remember -- there is huge scarcity of current in Rishyap. Just one year back, they got electricity - but it is not available all the time. Morning - we roamed here and there and the whole day we passed in the ups and down in hills and by eating momos. The next day - we decided that we would go to Lava by trekking. We took one Porter - he is just 15 yrs old child. It was another exciting trip we covered -- the trek was for 2 hours to cover 6 kms. Finally we reached in Lava's Forest Rest House.

The beauty i will never forget in my life -- two nights in Rishyap is ever forgettable -- the sweetness will never die from my memory.

The best time to visit is: Feb - April End and Oct - Dec. The place is full of flowers and many himalayan birds.

Make a plan to go atleast once in Rishyap and send your feedback;

Also, dont forget to visit the link below- all the photos are taken by Nikon CoolPix S4 Camera

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/amitkrghosh/RishyapLavaLolegaon