Water, water everywhere...

Pitch dark-chilly and eerie night..and you are surrounded by water..you cant hear anything else except the sound of the paddle in the water. There was no sound of waves too. The lake was surprisingly seemed still.

It was as if the surrounding silence was weighing down upon us. The kids seemed to have sensed something different and were surprisingly quiet. After a while, we could not even discern which side is the shore. And to add all to this, it started drizzling lightly. Good that all were dressed in warm clothes and were ready for the cold.

That’s how our trip to Chilika started.

15 minutes before

We had reached Satapada around 7 O’clock. Had tea and packed hot pakoda to have on the way to the guesthouse. We took the row boat at night. There was a power failure in Satapada when we commenced our journey – the reason for dark night. We expected a modern motor boat with generator for light and power, to Ferry us to the Guest house which was in an island in the middle of Chilika. We were in for a surprise when we saw that it was a normal fisherman’s boat, with a feeble motor attached, for navigation. But then, not every day you get to experience Ram Gopal Varma’s movie kind of scenes in real life. We embarked on the boat and set to the island where the guest house is, in the dark, even though I had doubts as to how the boat men will navigate to the destination in the dark. The short sail started and we enjoyed the hot pakoda on the boat using the light from our mobiles.

We reached the island after being on the still waters for the longest half an hour(or was it an hour – I am not sure). The rooms were in a gated boundary and were not of a great quality. There was a deer roaming in the garden, which came in a sweet surprise. The guest house was very low staffed and they changed the  bed-sheets in the rooms , only after we reached. We understood that there was no electricity to the island and the lights were powered by Solar energy. And then we were in for a second surprise! There was no one to cook dinner and if we need food, it meant return trip to Satapada in the chill of the night in the boat and buy food from there. We had taken with us the ingredients required to cook food, expecting that we will give it to the cook and have a simple dinner. Since cook was not available, we decided to cook ourselves on makeshift stove made with 3 bricks and firewood. We borrowed the vessels from kitchen before they closed it for the day. It was a terrific and enjoyable experience, cooking roti and Dalma on fire wood. The food infused with the smoke from wood made it even more tastier and we had delicious dinner. The kids had milk which we boiled in the same make shift stove. 

We doused the fire with water, so that the deer would not get burnt feet, if it accidentally steps on it. Then we retired for the night.

Next day :

Woke up at around 7ish and discovered that water was freezing cold. My fingers became numb when I washed up after brushing my teeth. Went out to the bank of the lake after having tea and savored in the morning scenery - calm lake, with birds chirping and foggy mist.

Came back and started on the boat to Kali Jai. En route, if we are lucky, we expected to see the dolphins.

We understood from the boat men that food could be arranged on the boat. I thought they would have bought the food earlier which they intended to serve us with . Breakfast was cold idli, vada and potato chops, which they had purchased from Satapada in the morning, before picking us up.

It was quite a ride – it was warm and sunny accompanied by cool breeze. For lunch, we were in for a surprise. One of the boat guys, made a make shift choolah(stove) with an old oil tin and firewood, kept on top of algae from the lake, on one side of the boat and started cooking. The heat from the fire in the boat was very soothing for the cold. He made Rice, dal and Gobi aloo baingan Kasa(Cauli flower, brinjal and Potato in tomoto and ginger gravy). He had 2 utensils and a Kadai(Wok) and a ladle. He managed to cook yummy food with only these.

The boat stopped at a place where the dolphins were expected. We were blessed with a few sightings of Dolphins – a few of them jumped a couple of metres away from our boat. It was more of a glimpse.We enjoyed the sight and did not bother to capture them in photograph (we would have failed even if we had tried).

We also managed to see the migrated birds from Siberia and clicked a few pictures.

We reached Kali Jai around 1.00 P.M. I had expected to see a temple on a hill top. I was in for a surprise, to see a ill managed and dirty temple where it was disgusting to go barefoot - for the ground(concrete floor) was so dirty and sticky. Still we managed to walk in that and took some photo graphs.

 Came back to the boat, had lunch and then started off the return journey.

It started raining, when we were half an hour away from the guest house. We managed to get back to that guest house without getting too much drenched, picked our bags and left to Satapada again in the boat, when we were blessed with another sighting of dolphins in the rain.

We started from Satapada to Bhubaneshwar – tired but well satisfied with the trip.