Since we have done our 1st trip on 2 wheels to DURGAPUR – BIRBHUM – ASANSOL – JHARKHAND, it has become a passion for us to drive on 2 wheels for long trips. So, this time our destination is BIRBHUM or BIRBHUMI (the land of Bir). This place is also known as The Land of Red Soil. The riders for this trip are Rajdeep (my brother in law), Atreyi (my wife) and off course myself J.
History:
At the dawn of the history, part of the district as now constituted appears to have been included in the tract of the country known as "RARH" and part in the tract called "VAJJABHUMI ". The traditions of the Jainas state that Mahavira, their last great Tirthankara, wandered through these two tracts in the 5th Century, B.C.; and the description of them would seem to show that the eastern part of the district, with its alluvial soil, well watered by rivers, formed part of RARH, while the wilder and more rugged country to the west was aptly known as VAJJABHUMI, i.e., the country of Thunderbolt.
Machines:
· Hero Honda CBZ Extreme 150 CC (Black) – 2008 Model – Arup’s
· Bajaj Pulsar 150 CC UG2 (Black) – 2006 Model – Rajdeep’s
This time I have collected as many information as I can which includes History, People and their Life, Culture, Places of Interest and off course the total Route Map that we will follow. One of my office colleague ‘Joydip Mukhopadhyay’ provided me with so much information on the district. First time in life I made the whole trip plan. The district is really huge and so many things to see. So, it is really critical to plan the route as we have only 3 days on our hand (Jan 23rd – 26th ,2012) and I am sure we would probably not able to cover all the places. But anyways we will try our best to visit as many places as we can.
This time we conveyed about our trip pretty earlier to our parents so that there would not be any kind of tension or misunderstanding before we leave. So, it was really a smooth start for our trip. We took blessings from our parents and headed towards my dream road NH2. As now a days we are well familiar with all the highways around Kolkata, so reached SHAKTIGARH pretty fast, within 30 minutes. As usual we visited our very well known dhaba and had Aloo Paratha and masala Tea. We also packed some food as we can not complete the same there. Now its time to conquer the road and reach BOLPUR as soon as possible.
This time we follow the road to BOLPUR via GUSKARA. It was a picturesque journey through villages and on both the side of the road we can see only paddy fields. We took several snaps on our way.
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| Myself on way to Guskara |
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| Entered in the Land of Red Soil |
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| Myself & Rajdeep |
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| Extreme ... Enjoying beauty of Nature |
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| Panoramic View on Guskara - Bolpur Road |
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| 3 Musketeers |
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| Road to Bolpur |
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| Waiting to Kick off on Bridge over River Ajoy |
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| River Ajoy |
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| Road Towards Bolpur from Illambazar |
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| Road near Illambazar |
As time passed enjoying the natural beauty of the villages of WEST BENGAL, we forget to check that we are getting late for our destination. So, I started getting several calls from the lodge enquiring when can we reach the lodge. Around 2 pm we reached our lodge at BOLPUR. Just before reaching the lodge I found that my front break is not working and shocked to find that the right side shock absorber seal is broken because of the offroading we did on our way. I did not blame my extreme as this is the first time in last 4.5 yrs I am changing the oil seal. So, we went to a local mechanic and it took time till 5 PM to fix the oil seal for both the shock absorber (as I could not take risk).
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| Shock Absorber Oil Seal Fixing on progress |
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| Shock Absorber Oil Seal Fixing on progress |
Now we are too late to visit any places as we can see that its time for sunset. But this time we are not going to compromise on anything. We went back to our lodge and had the extra food that we have taken from SHAKTIGARH dhaba. Though it was not at all enough for 3 of us, but we can compromise on anything when it comes to trips J. So, we checked with locals and everyone got stunned to see that we will be visiting remote places when the clock is striking at 5:45 PM. Without thinking about anything we headed towards LABPUR. On our way we came across with a local old man who was seeking lift as he has to travel about 45 kms to reach his home. Rajdeep took him on his bike and he guided us a lot to reach LABPUR.
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| Rajdeep Driving with the Old Man as pillion |
We got mesmerized by the beauty of this temple with Terracotta works everywhere.
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| Entry @ Fullora Temple at Labpur |
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| Entry to Fullora Temple at Labpur |
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| Labpur Fullora Temple |
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| Fullora Temple at Labpur |
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| Godess Fullora |
We were there for about an hour taking snaps of whatever we can capture and left from LABPUR at 8 PM towards BOLPUR. Our next target is to visit KANKALITALA temple on our way. But with any clue our journey turned into an adventure where the 2 mean machines were riding through the village roads and nothing was there on our visibility except darkness. On our way we lost our path and reached KIRNAHAR. Locals there shown us different path to reach BOLPUR. But we must return through the same route to cover KANKALITALA. So, once again we go back to the road from which we came to KIRNAHAR. However, as it was too dark, so we missed one crossing twice, from where we are supposed to take left turn. Finally we managed to take the right road. Suddenly we found that something is glittering at a long distance looks like a parade of Elephant. We immediately stopped there and found that the herd is coming towards us. My next plan is to take a U turn if it is really a parade of elephant. The more close the group of animals came to us we found that it is actually a herd of Buffalo. Actually their eyes were shinning when our head light fell on their eyes and nothing was visible as they all are black Buffalos J. As the herd of Buffalo passed by, we continue on our way to KANKALITALA where we met with a herd of Cow on the same fashion. Finally we reached KANKALITALA at 8:50 PM and visited the temple. We also had a chat with the Pujari there and came to know about its history. We took some snaps.
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| Kankalitala Temple |
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| Kankalitala Temple |
It was too cold so we had some tea and started for BOLPUR. Finally we reached BOLPUR at 9:40 PM. We found that most of the restaurants are closed. Finally we found a restaurant open and had a good dinner there and went to our lodge. It was really a challenging as well as adventurous ride on our 1st day.
You can find all video's of this trip by doing a google search with 'birbhum on 2 wheels'. However, I am providing the links for your convinence:
Please Click on Day 2 for the next day journey ..............
For all the trips I made till date on Motorcycle / Bike / 2 Wheeler, please visit the following link:
1 comment:
Nice Post!!
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