Jungle book seemed to be more fascinating to me rather than those Grandma's fairy tales. This developed my curiosity to explore all the National Parks, Biosphere Reserves and Sanctuaries of our own state Odisha.” SIMLIPAL NATIONAL PARK ”without a pinch of hesitation, down the memory lane I would remember this as my most happening wildlife expedition.A lot of lessons,learning and experience we got from this trip. With all kind of pressure of semester exams  on our head our group somehow managed to pull off a proper planned trip to Simlipal National Park.

 

According to our research and list of must go places we finalized a 3D 2N trip.We left our home at around 2.30pm in the afternoon unfortunately not an early winter morning start. Prior to our trip dates we got our homework’s done on everything that you must know before going on a Wildlife Expedition. We got our hotel rooms booked, meals booked for the the D-Day (Jungle trip) and the most important among the rest was a proper experienced National Park Guide, who will be familiar with routes and the proper sighting places for wild animal encounters (taking a guide is a must in any kind of jungle trip).We were fortunate enough to have Mr. Pradeep Sahu, beside us who was more of a guardian than a mere guide. With the numerous number of incident he narrates about various wild animals encounters and deadly attacks you can easily guess his experience of 25 years in this profession

Our first destination on the go was Khirachora Gopinath Temple, Remuna, and Balasore. It’s hardly 10-12 km away from the National Highway and well connected with all sort of transport facilities. We reached here at around 8pm in the evening and failed to have a Darshan of Shri Gopinath Dev.

But once you are here, you must not forget to have Prasad in the form of whooping rabdi and milk pedas. I can bet you that you may not have ever tasted such delicious rabdi and pedas in your whole lifetime. It costs around 30 for each cup of rabdi and 5 for one peda. We reached Baripada at around 9:30pm in the night. It was cold and dry weather outside. We checked in to our hotel rooms and had a briefing session from our guide about the whole day plan and dos and donts inside the jungle. We ordered our dinner from Mohapatra Hotel(The famous one in Baripada)which consisted of Khasi Mutton curry and Desi Chicken kasa. Their way of packing meat and gravy of curry separately was one of a kind I have had ever came across in our country. On the completion dinner we got down onto some serious discussion(irony)and tried to sleep at the earliest but I think excitement was on top of us and we hardly managed a 4hrs of sleep.

Our guide suggested us to start early in the morning in order to avoid rush at the entry point and increase our chances for better animal sighting. We left our hotel at around 6am in the morning, fetched some essentials like water bottle, biscuits, medicines and chocolates. Being Odias we never forget to have or carry a heavy breakfast. We got some Indian junk food from Sai Ganesh Sweet Stall. At the

Entry point you need to provide ID proofs for generation of permits related to your visiting plan and don’t forget to avail student concession with your College ID cards. You are provided with paper bags to carry on inside the jungle and you need to leave your plastic bags beyond this point. This is from where the jungle starts and you have to be prepared with zero telephonic networks for the whole day. They provide you with maps of the jungle and a bag to collect all your litters A guide, Winter garments and a SUV (4X4 preferable) is a must for going inside Similipal National Park.

With our entry formalities completed within 30 minutes, we marched on to our first checkpoint. On reaching there we got to know that already 12 vehicles have entered the Jungle and the number was expected to increase up to 95(due to Christmas). They check your vehicle for any kind of prohibited items and the permit details that has a mention of names of travelers and their belongings like camera, video cam, drone and etc (separate permission are to be obtained for all these).

After crossing the first checkpoint you arrive at a beautiful scenic bridge over a river where the main road diverges into two paths-One for Lulung Picnic Spot and the Other for Jungle. The bridge was the spot where we got to click a lot of photographs (Of Course for Social Media) and had our breakfast.

We then left for our first spot inside the jungle The Joranda Waterfall on its way we found our second check gate Bhajam where all of us had to once again get down from the vehicle for a thorough checking. It was 9am in the morning but the winter chills was on charge, the sun rays seemed more soothing than any other day in our life

On reaching Joranda Waterfall we easily found the frost of the morning dew was on the grass due to the negative temperature during night hours. The waterfall was giant and mesmeric and this is what made me fall in love with this atmosphere and its aura. As perfectly described in the Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling Jungle has a lot of secrets to present infront of us and we must be patient enough to enjoy and respect those secrets.The Joranda waterfall seemed as if someone is doing the Jalavishek of Shivling infront of us. You can easily spot Deers,Nilagais coming down to the waterfall to meet their thirst.

The Joranda waterfall is the 19th largest waterfall in India with a height of 490 feet. Beside this beautiful waterfall there lies a forest rest house meant for tourists made with temporary structures and along its boundary deep pits of 20 feet depth are dug for prevention of wild animals getting inside the compound.

We then moved on to have our lunch for the day as it was around l o clock and in the middle of the jungle lies various villages and these villagers have set small kind of hotels for tourists. Our guide already had ordered our meal over there and we went to try some desi cuisine of tribal people.

This was our small hotel for meeting our hunger in the middle of forest They cooked everything on mitu chulah with the help of firewood, perhaps this was the reason the meal was so much tasteful We had dest chicken and mutton thali which was around 150 each reasonable enough amidst a jungle.

You won’t believe me it was so cold outside that even a packaged drinking water kept outside felt like a chilled bottle out from the fridge.

With lunch done and drowsy eyes we moved onto our next destination-The Barehipani Waterfall.On our way to the waterfall we discovered our own view point of the majestic Barehipani waterfall.

Going down to this point was not allowed so we did a quick photograph session and went on ahead to the proper view point of Barehipani.

Barehipani Waterfall is the 3rd highest waterfall in India with a height of 1309 feet. It is a 3 tier waterfall and one need to trek down to around 2-3 kms to reach its base (not advised to do so).Barehipani Waterfall also has permanent tourist accomodation with 4-5 rooms with 2 persons occupancy and some kind of wooden machans too.

We were just relaxing after a heavy lunch, enjoying the natures symphony with bird chirping, monkeys shouting, water gushing down the hill and the settling of sun down in the west our guide introduced to Haria Dada, one of the oldest guard of this locality.He offered us some kind of green tea made of herbs and tea found inside the jungle and we offered him some kind of monetary help for his hospitality service that we found suitable.

In this photo you will find Haria Dada with kettle in his hands, his grandson (don't assume it to be child labor)and our very own Pradeep Babu(guide).If  needed ping me I’ll provide his contact details.

 

We left for our last destination of the day though we didn’t got a chance of animal sighting throughout the day but who knew something best was waiting for all of us. We went to Chahala Rest House, this was build during the Maharajas time, where Maharaja used to visit this place after a tiring day at  jungle to brush up their animal hunting skills. The Maharaja used  to stay inside the cottage, helpers and servants used to wait outside the cottage In order to protect them from Elephants the whole area is guarded with the help of Eucalyptus Plantations.

We left Chahala at around 6pm in the evening (after the Maoist attack way back in 2009 the timings were changed) and were probably the last vehicle to take a exit from there. On our way back to the Entry point it was pitch black everywhere except our vehicles headlights guiding us home. We closed our window glass but somehow wind managed to get inside the vehicle and making all of us shiver in cold. The night was full of stars and probably some type of constellations were also visible The best part of our journey happened in night where a Spotted deer was grazing grass across the road and on seeing our vehicle took a long stride in front of us and vanished in to the woods. Probably it was so fast that we were unable to take any kind of photo. Moving a few kilometers ahead we met with a mouse deer which looked like a deer but was actually a mouse Come across a group of bison’s crossing the road with such kind of animal sightings during the night we bid adieu to simlipal national park and were out of the entry point at around 9pm in the night. We went on to have our dinner at Neel Kamal Dhaba where chicken pakodas are a must try.

On our last day of trip we decided to visit the Devkund waterfall,Udala and Kalo Dam,Baripada. Devkund Waterfall is a major tourist attraction as well as a populated picnic spot among residents of Odisha,West Bengal and Jharkhand.You can easily find faeces of elephant on the way to waterfall as elephants come over to this place during night.

 Kalo dam is a miniature irrigation based dam majorly used for agricultural purposes.

The whole trip offered us a bunch of new experience for all of us. We went on to planning this trip to spot and sight some Royal Bengal Tigers but dreams sometimes remain unfulfilled. We discovered a lot of indigenous cuisine, beverages, local languages(Santhali), culture and heritage of the forest dwellers. With the dream yet to be fulfilled I will definitely visit this place once again in the upcoming days. You will find a lot of fascinating stories regarding the jungle and its inhabitants. The best time to visit this place is during the month of October or the month of May. During monsoon the national park is kept close for the visitors. It is believed to be the home for 26 Bengal tigers but it is well said by someone that you may not see them but they have seen you. Do support our local tourism and its stakeholders.