Satapada (Chilika Lake)

This turned out to be a less of a destination based trip, and more of a road trip. And yeah this time I had a company - Couchsurfer Saurabh. My views might be biased here, as I was travelling immediately after the day I got done with my week long exam schedule.

With less than three hours of sleep, it’s only the enthusiasm to travel to a new place that can pull me out of my bed. We started off early to avoid the peak hour traffic and, it was a wise decision. We got to see the fields not through the window of polluted gases but through the early sun rays, or, may be again, it might just be the sheer joy of not going to the library and cursing my bad memory the whole day.

As luck would have it, we were taking the Chandanpur route and decided to take a halt at Raghurajpur. Saurabh had not been to the place before and I absolutely had to show this place to him. It was a quick visit, for about an hour. Saurabh seemed mesmerized by the beauty and sheer serenity in the air.

(Experience of my first visit to Raghurajpur - 

http://azillionwalks.blogspot.in/2013/08/exploring-orissa-1-raghurajpur-heritage.html)

The little Krishnas of Raghurajpur

Ganesh Puja Preparations

We stuck to our plans made before the commencement of our journey in spite of heavy rains, we reached Satapada. We paid for the boat ride with the maximum number of viewpoints - as suggested by Saurabh. It did seem pretty costly to me, but this was the standard price - could have easily gone to my home (over 400 kms away) and come back in that money. Moreover, I could not have missed out on this experience.

Now, the advice here is to go with a bigger group of friends, because it’s not the per-head cost but the boat ride cost.

The weather was better than what I could have asked for. It seemed like the moment - “just before it rains”, had been paused. However, I did miss that sweet scent which comes to life when mother earth embraces the first raindrops - I was surrounded by only water. Although the river Dolphins pretty much compensated for it!

Picture courtesy - Google

There was an island where a guy jumped into our boat and started showing with his artistic hands the method of finding a pearl in the oysters. He would break the oysters to find either nothing or a pearl. He claimed they were natural pearls, and what we get in Hyderabad are cultured ones. Now the story was good till here, but he went on to convince us that there were also precious stones like emerald and ruby found the same way in oysters - sound echoing in my head - ‘Busted’!

Picture Courtesy - Google

After around 4 hours of boat ride, we reached an island where Chilika Lake meets the Bay of Bengal. The place was full of red crabs, and the only business on the island seemed to be of sea food. People flaunted their catch; I went on to see what they really had in store. When one of them started hard selling, I told him with a smile - ‘I’m a vegetarian!’ (Which in fact is true).

The determination to make a sale was commendable; a man accompanying this shopkeeper started persuading me to turn into a non vegetarian immediately. All I could really think of at that moment was ‘PETA’. They took pride in their stock still being alive, and I could not help pitying the little creatures.

Again from Google

We had tea, some snacks and headed back.

Travelling indeed is eternal bliss

During the boat ride, our helmsman told us how they are being exploited. The operator charges 1800 from the customers but all the helmsmen get is Rs. 135 and when there’s no customer, Rs. 30 is all they get. He might have been lying to get an extra tip but we still went on to do that coz if he was not, then he did deserve a lot more than what he was already getting.

Although I do agree that Tipping is not the solution, but like it’s ingrained in us, I chose the easier path that gave instant satisfaction to our desire to help others in our quest of making peace with life. Because, more often than not, we help others to help ourselves. We derive happiness out of helping someone in whatever small way we can. This happiness is what I call peace.

On our way back we went to Puri lighthouse; enjoyed the bird’s eye view of the city; discussed my B-Plan at length, and my other dreams. In short, all the things that occur to you when you’re not studying aimlessly, they come to you when you’re at peace; at peace with yourself and the world around.

The top of lighthouse

City View from up there

We headed back, determined not to take anymore halts as it was already pretty late. I could not help criticizing the bad roads with no street lights. We managed to reach my college alive. I Gave Saurabh a quick tour of my college. He appreciated the green, the crowd - actually he appreciated everything. This helped me like my college a little more than I already do.