MESMERISING CHANDIPUR

After visiting Tajpur in August, again the travel bug bit me and I am daring to go out again from the din and bustle of city life to refuel myself and to explore the unknown.It was festive mood as the goddess Durga reached her maternal house and celebrations were everywhere.But me and my husband along with our daughter just were willing to visit somewhere in Ashatmai to Dashami.Suddenly we thought of Chandipur,the beautiful serene beach of Orissa.

Do you know where is Chandipur?Its also known as Chandipur on Sea.Its a small seaside resort in Balasore district,Odisa.Here you can spend hours sitting in the benches beside the beach and can watch the serene beautiful waters of the sea.Its situated in Bay of Bengal.So we planned a holiday from Ashtami to Dashami just 2n3d by our personal car.

     We usually prefer to start our journey very early in the morning to avoid the traffic hazards.So we started around 5am in the morning.There were festive mood all around the city but there were not that much traffic.So we took the Bombay road through Dunlop.We first stop to have our morning tea in a roadside stall.It was great to enjoy tea while travelling.And you know,the country side around Kolkata looked so beautiful in the dawn.The sun was coming out saying good morning to us.It was Ashtami morning,a new day,a new start of life.It was an unique experience.Driving though the endless smooth road in the midst of greeneries all around is so much enjoying,so much thrilling one couldn’t understand sitting at home.There were lush green paddy fields and Kaashphool wherever your eyes were gone.It was so beautiful that I wish I could have built a house in the midst of nature and stay for my whole life.

Anyways,we stopped at Azad Hind Dhaba,the famous eatery on Bombay Road where we had our breakfast.The food was awesome.We had Aloo paratha and aloor dam.After having a great food we again started towards our destination.When we reached Chandipur it was 1pm.From Kolkata it take hardly 7 to 7.5 hrs to reach Chandipur.So we had our room booked in Lucky Beach Resort which was very near to beach.Hardly 2 to 3secs by walk.We planned to have a bath in the waters.So we hurriedly settled down,freshed up and went to the beach.It was beautiful.We had a very cool bath.Our daughter enjoyed highly.She was just jumping and splashling the waters.We had a bath for 1 hour and then we returned to the hotel,had a beautiful tasty lunch and planned to visit Buribalam which was the place where the sea meets the river Budhabalanga.It was just half an hour drive from Chandipur.The scenic beauty was awesome.There were small and medium fishing boats standing by the side of the sea.and you could also see the beautiful casuarina grooves on one side of the beach.We spent for 1 hour there and then we returned to our hotel.The hotel was very good.The manager there was very friendly and polite to every tourists.There were a special camp fire arrangement from the hotel along with special boufet in the dinner.The hotel staff arranged the whole thing very beautifully.They invited all of us to participate in the in the dance around the camp fire.There were also music arrangement.So we enjoyed the night with all the other tourists for very long time.then we returned to our rooms late in the night.

The next morning we planned to go for the sightseeing for the whole day.First we visited Khirachura Gopinath Temple,one of the famous temple in Balasore District.Its the temple of Sri Krishna.Its situated in Remuna,a small town in Balasore district.The colour of the idol is pure black.There is a myth regarding this temple that Lord rama sculptured this idol with his arrow and his wife Sita used to worship at the time of Chitrakuta.It is a beautiful temple.Infact Orissa is called ‘the land of temples’.

After visiting Khirachura,we went to see the famous Emami Lord Jagannath Temple which is exactly the replica of Puri’s Jagannth Temple.Its also called the second Puri Sree Temple.Its really beautiful.The environment inside the temple is very religious.Unlike the original Jagannath Temple this one welcomes all the people of different caste and religion.Many foriegners also visit this place often.There was constant religious chat goin on which made the environment very much holy.apart from jagannath idol there is the Hanuman temple and kasha Biswanath Temple.You will also see the 16 wheels of the famous Konark Sun Temple.It is the mixture of Konark SunTemple and Puri Jagannath Temple.Its a must visit place in Balasore.

After spending there for 15-20mins,we headed towards Panchaligheswar which was another temple offcourse of 5lingas of Lord Shiva.Before that there was a place called Nilagiri where we stopped to visit Nilagiri Palace.It was also very beautiful and maintained properly.There is a history behind this Nilagiri Palace.In the early 20^th century a movement took place by the farmers of Orissa against the King of this region.But the farmers who rose their heads against the King were given very stringent punishment.But it was lucky that some of the freedom fighters of Orissa continued that movement and made it successful.Then we drove towards Panchaligeswar.The journey towards this temple is awesome.Full of scenic beauty but the temple is in the lap of Nilagiri hills and so you have to trek for 10mins and have to take 300 stairs to reach to the top where the temple is situated.We were really gasping when we reached to the top.The weather was very humid and hot and it was really tiring.But the scenic beauty at the top was awesome.There is a beautiful waterfall just beside the temple and there is full of greeneries all around.the 5 lingas are submereged in the water.You cannot see the lingas but can feel it if you put your hand inside the water.We took a lot of pictures and videos.

There was another beautiful place called Devkund,which is 3.5hrs journey from Panchaligeswar but unfortunately we couldn’t able to visit as it was closed after 2pm.We didn’t know about the closing time so we were bound to return to our hotel.But we spent a very good time visiting all the other places.It was just worthy though we missed one place.Our tour came to an end and the next day we were on our return journey with heavy heart.It was Dashami,the emmersion of Ma Durga as well as the end of our trip.Hope we will very soon plan our next trip.