Life is small for adventures, they say. And the mundane and rather hectic life so far had provided little opportunity for adventures. But then came up a crazy idea and it didn’t take us long before we were on our way – to Sankarpur and Digha, the most popular beaches of West Bengal. Going to a beach is no adventure of course, but it definitely qualifies as one when you decide to go there cycling – Sankarpur is a cool 115 kms from the IIT Khargapur campus. Some called us crazy while others prayed for our well-being, but the 8 of us set out within one day of coming up with the plan.
We got up campus early in the morning and by the time all of us got ready and left the campus it was 5 AM. Google Maps helped with the route, which was drawn on paper. We had expected to move at around 10-12 km/hr. But following the milestones, I found out that we were covering up each kilometre in around 3 minutes – that is 20 km/hr. But since we were not cycling non-stop, we were not going to make it in 6 hours flat. We took stops for water, tea, glucose etc and once for lunch.
The journey can be divided into 5 major parts:
- Kharagpur-Narayangarh (20 km) – on NH 60 , across the serene villages and fields and a rather mild traffic.
- Narayangarh-Belda (25 km) – NH 60 continues but it is more wider now and it was a real pleasure to pass through it. We covered this stretch pretty fast without feeling much about it.
- Belda-Egra (30 km) - Here we left the NH and passed through some forests and some busy small towns in between. The day was getting hotter, so we had to take a good number of stops here. The road is still quite though. We had our lunch at a fairly good restaurant just before Egra town. The owner was too overwhelmed with 8 IITians cycling upto his place all the way from Kharagpur. He took nice care of us and also helped us with the routes ahead to Sankarpur and Digha.
- Egra-Ramnagar (30 km) – This part of the journey was the most tiresome of the lot. A major part of the road is in very bad shape and we had to absorb shocks all through. It was afternoon by now and the sun didn’t help our cause either.
- Ramnagar-Sankarpur (5 km) – This was the final leg of the journey. We were tired but just kept going on until we reached the beach at 4 PM – The feeling was awesome.
We went to the beach straightaway, with our cycles right into the sea and spent the rest if the evening there. After the dinner we had a good night’s sleep at a hotel very near the beach and then we rammed our cycles right into the water once again in the morning. After spending around two hours in water we found a fishermen’s boat. On our request, they took us deep into the sea.
Around noon, we left for Digha, which is another 12 kms from Shankarpur. While the rest were too tired and spent their time having lunch, I went to the Digha beach as well and chilled myself off. Digha i far more crowded and understandably quite dirty. Contrastingly, Sankarpur was absolutely quiet and clean. As if we had the whole stretch of sand and the sea just for ourselves. We did make the most of it… of course having cycles helped as we could cover the full stretch of the Sankarpur beach, sometimes riding inside the water itself!
All in all, it was an experience for a lifetime. Now we can recount this experience when we come back in one of those Alumni Meets, just like a bunch of alumni of 1984 batch did this time!
Pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/sumitk.iitkgp/SankarpurDighaCycleTrip
