These days few tourist spots are secluded enough. Sea beaches are particularly vulnerable to an overwhelming influx of tourists. A vacation hardly gets any relaxing when one has to jostle through the crowd at every instance. Chandipur-on-sea, however remains sufficiently pristine, as my family as well as some friends discovered during Durga Puja 2010.
We planned in advance for the trip. I booked rooms for three families at the OTDC Panthivas in Chandipur, which, incidentally is the best place to stay in Chandipur, and the only one with a clear view of the open sea. The sprawling lawns provide a soothing experience. The restaurant serves simple North Indian food, along with some ubiquitous South Indian dishes like dosa and idli. Fish items are limited to only the standard Bengali/Oriya menu. Sea-food is mostly confined to prawns and crabs.
A good thing about Chandipur is the relative inaccessibilty of the place! The nearest railhead is Balasore, which is a fair distance, about 15-17 kms from Chandipur. No public transport is available to the place. One has to hire a private car or auto-rickshaw to reach Chandipur. We took two cars on hire to reach the hotel. The town itself is miniscule compared to many beach towns. Even hotels are a handful, more so near the beach. This makes the place secluded, just the quality lacking in most sea beaches.
The beach itself is not ideal for bathing. One food-seller near the beach cheekily remarked, even if someone wants to drown himself here, he possibly cannot succeed. The shallow waters stretch for at least 3kms; we walked towards the sea for about a kilo-meter during ebb tide, without the water getting knee-deep. The beauty of this place lies in its rustic setting. At a distance of about 1-2kms from the beach-front of the Panthanivas, we could see large trawlers wading out into the sea where the waters appeared to be little deeper. Enquiring with the locals, we learnt it was the confluence of the Buribalam river. In the evening, we ventured on a leisurely stroll towards Buribalam. It must have taken around 40 minutes, when we could finally reach the place. The sea was indeed deeper here. Some fishing boats were going out into the high seas. In the evening another interesting spectacle awaited us. There is a sizable population of cranes in Chandipur. As we sat on the lawns, we could see some of the palm trees in premises being alighted by the cranes. These birds apparently had their nests on the trees and were returning home.
The next day was spent almost entirely on the beach. The flow tide starts at around 11am and lasts till 2pm. It was a treat to watch the waters rising waist high as we walked into the sea. The air itself smelt a bit salty, although the downside was the sun beating down on us. We had a lunch of sea-food that day; crabs and prawns were ordered and gulped down.
The following day was reserved for local sightseeing. There isn't much too see around the place, so the two cars that we hired also took us to Balasore and neighbouring areas. We started with revisiting the Buribalam river, this time down a dusty road. Within 10 minutes, we had reached a small but busy fishing port. Some of the trawlers were being moored, while others were sailing out. A trawler owner offered us a ride of about an hour into the seas, at a rate(probably negotiable) of Rs. 500. We had already embarked on a conducted tour, so the plan had to be kept on hold till the next day. We took his cellphone no. and started off towards Balasore.
Our first stop was a replica of Jagannath temple at a place called Nilgiri on the outskirts of Balasore. We walked around the mildly hilly terrain for a while, then decided to head off for the main journey to Panchalingeshwar hills. The journey must have taken nearly 2 hours moving through traffic snarls in the city and highway. Finally we made it to the foothills of the hillock which housed a Shiva deity. Not all of us are of the religious type, but the ambience was enjoyable enough. The cars were parked in parking area, and we started off to the top of the hill. The road was mildly steep to point after which there were staircase leading upwards. We enjoyed the scenic view in the valley below as we climbed up the hill. A stream runs parallel to the road up to a point. When we had nearly reached the top, I was quite exhausted, so I decided to catch my breath a bit. I got down to the stream, and and washed my face with water and drank a bit. It was very cool and refreshing. The shrine itself is of Lord Shiva, and rather nondescript. There are no priests haggling the tourists unlike most pilgrimages in this country.
