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 Last updated on Fri May 21 11:58:05 IST 2010. |
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Getting there
Ispat Express starts at 6:35am from Howrah, and when it dumped us at Jhargram at around 9:50 am we were glad to be able to get rid of the montony of standing in the unreserved compartment of the train. We were supposed to take a bus bound for some place, that I forget the name of. Not that it matters much, because the bus had apparently left the place around 8am. We are now at Jhargram, Medinipur. We are to go to Bandoan, Purulia, at a distance of about 85km. Asking around for the bus stand, we learned that this commodity comes in two varieties at Jhargram: old bustand and new busstand. The old one consists of a dusty road adorned with a statue of Netaji (which we mistook for Chittaranjan for some time) and many small shops mushrooming indiscriminately on both sides. The new bus stand looks more impressive, has a big shed for the passangers, a wide area for the buses, and a time schedule painted on a wall, which announded that the next bus to Bandoan would leave at 10:50am. We utilised the one hour interim to finish a simple lunch at an eating place nearby. The buses ply pretty punctually along this route. The road condition is not bad. It was easy to find seats. So ignoring the ocassional jolts, the 2hour 30min long bus journey did full justice to the Rs 33 fare. Village after village flew past the window. I did not see many schools, but did see many "private coaching centers", some of them bearing polished names like "Sisrikkhu". It was pretty boring after some time, so I fell asleep. Already the bus was pretty corwded...there were S(n)aotal women performing incredible acrobatic feats to remain vertical while standing inside the jolting bus with sleeping children in arms... Any man more chivalrous than myself would have courteously offered his seat to these ladies in distress. But I just prosaically fell asleep. The careful reader of this journal has no doubt noticed that there is no picture in this page so far. I did not dare to put any, lest you realise that the journney was less romantic than I am trying to portray it as. But don't worry, pictures are coming up... We alighted at Bandoan at 1:20pm, barely 5minutes after the scheduled time. Bandoan is near the southern end of Purulia. Judging from the appearance of the bus stop, it is a busy little township, complete with a little ramshackle video hall promising to divulge the the thrilling secret of some Bollywood romance to anyone willing to pay Rs 20 (approx) at the counter. We are now just 8km away from our destination. There is a nice road without much traffic that would take us to Bhalopahar. It was temptingly walkable, but we prefered to wait for a trekker, which in its turn waited for farther passangers.
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| Our trekker waiting at Bandoan: from inside a sweet shop. |
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| A less unromantic view of the trekker. |
