[adc]

Originally Posted by akas_chauhan

Wow, awesome narration, pictures. I read all your travelogues and all are spellbound.

Those are wonderful words, and definitely hope you have recovered fully now.

Originally Posted by sam_boy

Hello Anirban,

I am out of words ... You brought tears in my eyes. Never ever thought my little place and the scenery around can be portrayed so well. Thanks a ton for the nice write up and helping people to know about my place and the surrounding. I can never write so well, but next time I go home ( God knows when :( ) I will try to put some more pictures in this thread.

Samarpan it was a great overwhelming experience to interact with your parents and your cousin brothers, we were so at ease in that house!

Here are some Kolab Dam pictures in between Koraput and Jeypore to make you more nostalgic! And do remember to put up pics out here when you have them. Canon 1000 is what you have now!!

In front of Samarpan's house, Jeypore


Kolab Dam surroundings with just the fully empty IB bungalow around, Koraput










We had made the trip to Onkudelli, Bonda tribe area, from Jagdalpur as in Thursdays rooms are booked beforehand by the foreign guests and after the tribe trip we go back to the Chitrakote Resort of Chhattisgarh toursim. Fantastic place just in the surrounding of the fall and with a balcony view. Just relaxed there for 2 days. Chitrakote falls, with the rains being late this time - was still in the most majestic flow.

contd..

[sen2009]

Common... wake up!
Five days since your last post.

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by sen2009

Common... wake up!
Five days since your last post.

adc would be more inclined to sort out his issues here now, and update this thread later. We ought to excuse him for some time.

[shishir_bn]

everyone please cross your fingers so that ADC gets his heart(2.2VTT) back and in original form.

[Ramsagar]

Superb pics & travelogue. How did you achieve printing WANDERERS.in on the side cladding. That is really good & very thought full .

[Harry1983]

Amazing Travelogue. My parents are from Orissa and they don't even know these places exist. You are an adventurer. BTW did you visit Chandipur near Balasore?

[rajeevn]

I wouldn't even waste adjectives saying this is a great travelogue, etc. I think saying this is "ADC stuff" says it all.

Thanks.

[adc]

Originally Posted by Ramsagar

Superb pics & travelogue. How did you achieve printing WANDERERS.in on the side cladding. That is really good & very thought full .

Hey felt good to hear that, had given out an explanation on page 2 itself and it was like this.

Originally Posted by adc

Thats thewanderers.in - nothing on that site as of now. Had put up on this post on how it came about

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...ml#post1519403

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

adc would be more inclined to sort out his issues here now, and update this thread later. We ought to excuse him for some time.

Originally Posted by shishir_bn

everyone please cross your fingers so that ADC gets his heart(2.2VTT) back and in original form.

Things are definitely going okay now, should be back with the VTT in a week's time around.

Originally Posted by sen2009

Common... wake up!

Sen, it was really good to get the call from you. Surely starting now - once there is a break it really takes effort to again start up but definitely have to finish it off now. Some amazing pics of Chitrakote falls, Chhattisgarh are left to come.

Originally Posted by Harry1983

Amazing Travelogue. My parents are from Orissa and they don't even know these places exist. You are an adventurer. BTW did you visit Chandipur near Balasore?

Absolutely, chandipur is amazing on a full moon night and as they say it is a beach drifter's paradise when the sea recedes more than 5 km every day, all kind of sea shells are on the beach.

Originally Posted by rajeevn

I wouldn't even waste adjectives saying this is a great travelogue, etc. I think saying this is "ADC stuff" says it all.

Thanks.

Wow! Thanks much!

[adc]

Going to the Chhattisgarh part now, after a wonderful discovery journey of tribes, varied locales, and places of Koraput district [Orissa].



Fantastic roads as soon as you enter Chhattisgarh [Raipur and down south of the state roads are fabulous - as heard when from a tourist taxi driver].


A small weekly colourful market on the way


A light rainfall, faint rainbow among the green fields, and soon it was pretty dark even on a morning - but we all were grinning - more rain and as such the Chitrakote waterfall will be in full flow!




While going to Tirathgarh, we cross the Kanger Valley National Park - a great less travelled forest, it is closed during the monsoon period - we knew about this so wasnt disappointed as the options are either we see the Chitrakote in full flow or visit Kanger Valley - we will going through this forest in winter time travel.

Kanger Valley NP closed during monsoon months

Kutumsar and Kailash Caves: Kutumsar and Kailash Caves are located in the dense forests of Kanger Valley National Park, near Tiratgarh Waterfalls. Kutumsar (Kotamsar) are pitch-dark underground caves, 35 m below ground level, with stalactites and stalagmites in fantastic formations. About 1370 m long, Kutumsar form the world"s second longest natural caves and have five chambers and several blind wells. Kailash Gufa (Cave), situated on a small hill, is dark and nearly 100 m long, with a narrow entrance. It was discovered in 1993. The stalactite and stalagmite formations here are a marvelous sight too. At the end of the cave is a stalagmite formation in the shape of a Shivlinga. The hollow walls of the cave make amazing musical sounds when struck by hand.

Tirathgarh waterfall

The Tirathgarh Waterfalls: Tirathgarh, 32 kms from Jagdalpur is famous for this waterfall that drops into Mugabahar river. On descending down the steps you can get a grand view of the falling sheets of water that falls from a height of 50 metres. There is also an old Shiv-Parvati temple at the site. You can go up the watchtower to enjoy the panoramic view of the waterfalls and surrounding forests.

Tirathgarh waterfall surroundings










As dusk came in we spend some time having hot tea and fries in the few local shops around that spot.

Beautiful sunset around Tirathgarh



And Safari VTT-TMT awash in sunset colours

[adc]

Another place absolute on the list is Danteshwari temple. After the temple visit, moved on further to have a chance to go down the Bailadila Mines. Once in a week they let visitors [almost no tourist goes there due to very desolate roads in between] to go down the mine shaft - but then it is on Sunday's only and so just came visiting the town and enjoying the road trip.

[/quote]Danteshwari Temple is temple dedicated to Goddess Danteshwari, and is one of the 52 Shakti Peethas, shrines of Shakti, the divine feminine, spread across India. The temple built in 14th century by the Chalukyas of the South, is situated in Dantewada, a town situated 80 km from Jagdalpur Tehsil, Chhattisgarh. Dantewada is named after the Goddess Danteshwari. Traditionally she is the Kuldevi (family goddess) of Bastar state[quote]

Lost some of images from the SD card and as such lost pictures of the temple and the local Bastar fair that goes on during the Dussehra festival days.

"Bailadila" range of hills derive its name from the shape of hills. As the hills of the range look like 'the hump of an ox' it's named so by the native inhabitants of this place.

The association of very rich and extensive iron ores with hematite quartzite in the Bailadila range has first been made known to the world between 1898-1900 by Mr. P.N.Bose who was the first to do geological mapping of this region. A systematic geological mapping was done later between 1932-38 through which 14 iron ore bearing hills have been chalked out from the range. In view of the urgency of assessment of the mineral potentialities of this region, a separate cirlce of GSI was formed in December, 1958, and in the same year IBM was assigned the job of detailed proving of some of these deposits.

NMDC stepped in the area in the later half of 1961 and since then it is actively engaged in extraction, development and exploration of many deposits of the ranges, namely Deposit-14,5,4 and also 11C & 13.

On to Danteshewari temple and then onwards to absolute desolate road to Bailadila - sometimes this road is unsafe. Local drivers opinion was sought and we moved forward to see the mines. - But then on a Sunday they let visitors [very few goes anyway] to go down the mine shafts - next time for sure.










Returned back now for the ultimate visual treat - Chitrakote waterfall in almost full flow - around monsoon time

Chitrakote Resort run by toursim department is the only and best place to stay, just away from the waterfalls with amazing views from each room.

Chitrakot Waterfall is supposed to be the Niagara Falls of India. It is the broadest water fall in India. During Monsoon one can see its might. The River Indravati falls from a height of 29 m (96 ft) to form this waterfall. It is located 48 km (30 mi) from Jagdalpur and is accessible by road only. There is a helipad but it is used by government only. A few small hotels and restaurants are located near the falls.

Indravati River comes out placidly before it plunges beyond the edge in full glory - what a sight!






And the river then moves down towards the south of Chhattisgarh


And as we spent the night gossiping with the caretaker of the resort, asked him one definite question - why is the other side so desolate - what lies in there? Can we go over that side.




VTT-TMT drenched and somewhat cleaned- but it never knew what it is going through the next day - in search of the other side of Chitrakote falls

[sudev]

Waiting with bated breath now to find out about "the other side"

[Captdey]

Anirban,

Another great Travelogue after long silence .
Any Naxalite problems in these areas ?

Cheers

[adc]

Originally Posted by sudev

Waiting with bated breath now to find out about "the other side"

"The other side" is peculiarly devoid of any settlements or anything - and one can see an a forest tower but learned that no one stays over that side. There is also an old Shiv Mandir and that was our target the next day.

But as seen with black clouds it rained quite a lot in the evening. We had planned to go through the whole forest on the other side in search of some wonderful trails, but then the VTT almost got falling into the rice fields below due to slippery muddy track. Had to abandon the journey and anyhow could go back to metal roads after much slipping and skidding.

Originally Posted by Captdey

Any Naxalite problems in these areas ?

Cheers

These are Naxal infested areas. For the Koraput area travel, the place where we went to see the Bonda tribes, - all police stations were blasted away as recently as 4 months before our travel. Just a few days back, around mid Jan 2010,Maoists had blasted the local panchayat office there at Macchkund and also there was problem on the Koraput-Rayagada route - the one we took to return.

Also there can be a problem beyond the Danteshwari temple road to Bailadila as said.

But then if we get these into head, it would be impossible to travel to these wonderful places. As I had reasoned before, if the foreigners could travel out there, we could do too.

And nowhere we were in trouble, though we could make out quite a few "outsiders" among the local population - I chatted up with them [since they can speak Hindi too] about unknown places nearby and they were most helpful.

That said Raipur-Jagdalpur route is very safe and so also the Vizag-Jagdalpur route.

[adc]

It rained huge the last night and the morning view of Chitrakote was as usual great.


We were now headed towards the other side, have to go back somewhat on the road to take the bridge over Indravati. We were soon into small villages and asking few people out there for the route. No two persons gave a same route and it was confusing. One person whom we thought like was making sense in kind of direction, followed his instructions, but soon the small pucca village road ended and stopped for a while out there.

Now the biggest mistake that one can do while on a unknown trail to judge from the driving seat, thats what I did this time. Normally I do get out and walk as much possible before taking a decision whether this trail is like 50% possible in a 2wd.

This particular trail looked like a laterite [morram] road and as such thought like will get traction since this in not a muddy slippery kind of thing. Many a memories are still fresh with muddy road stuck situations in forests and other travels and how luckily we could get out of such situations before.

As soon as we were on that embankment we began to slide big time and God knows how with our heart almost out of our month we prevented ourselves from going down to rice fields. There was no way back, it was sliding more - as usual - in back gear. The laterite road what I thought was actually kind of slate reddish mud, it super slippery.

With no way to go back, we had to move forward, crossed a stream or something, and all through it was a 20-mt of heart stopping, swinging from one edge to other side till we came across another small pucca road and then again to main village road.









So that other side still remained unexplored, - fantastic area it is , absolute forest, zero population - even local, and some great terrains.


Returning back to the resort, now it was time to get down to base of the fall and a boat ride to as close as possible, to feel the spray and listen to gigantic roar up close










Another great day and the night spent outside the resort room, visual treat at night time. Next day we prayed for some sunlight for the famous rainbow that happens across the waterfall.

[shishir_bn]

@ADC,Fantastic to see the TMT going through all those terrains after the fate it had suddenly seen. http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/long-t...ml#post1572449. It is really nice to see the TMT after a good heart surgery.