[Samba]

Diamond Harbour & Swaminarayan Temple near Joka

We had a Team Bhp meet at Diamond Harbour, Hotel Punyalakshmi.

Route while going- Dankuni - Science city, Baruipur Bypass - Aamtala - Diamond Harbour. 97km

Time taken- 3.5 hours.

Route while returning - Diamond Harbour- Aamtala - Behala - 2nd Hooghly Bridge - Dankuni. 73km

Time taken- 2.5 hours.

Road condition of both the routes are good but its a single lane highway with town traffic.

The resort is good and can be considered for a relaxed weekend getaway. Specially the location of this resort is just beside the river.

Sharing few pics from in & around the resort.




























On the return leg we visited the beautifully crafted Swaminarayan temple near Joka. Its open from Morning 7am to 12am , 3-30 pm to 8pm.

[ultimatechamp]

Originally Posted by Samba

Diamond Harbour & Swaminarayan Temple near Joka

We had a Team Bhp meet at Diamond Harbour, Hotel Punyalakshmi.

Route while going- Dankuni - Science city, Baruipur Bypass - Aamtala - Diamond Harbour. 97km

Time taken- 3.5 hours.

Route while returning - Diamond Harbour- Aamtala - Behala - 2nd Hooghly Bridge - Dankuni. 73km

Time taken- 2.5 hours.

Road condition of both the routes are good but its a single lane highway with town traffic.

The resort is good and can be considered for a relaxed weekend getaway. Specially the location of this resort is just beside the river.

Sharing few pics from in & around the resort.

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On the return leg we visited the beautifully crafted Swaminarayan temple near Joka. Its open from Morning 7am to 12am , 3-30 pm to 8pm.

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Thanks Samba for the fascinating write-up and excellent photography ! As usual your lovely images have stirred up a deep feeling inside me to visit both the places soon! I have been to Punnylakshmi twice before,but ages back.


Just asking two things : How is the service of Punnylakshmi now ? Is photography allowed in Swaminarayan temple ?



Thanks a lot

[shashanka]

Originally Posted by Samba

Diamond Harbour & Swaminarayan Temple near Joka We had a Team Bhp meet at [b]Diamond Harbour......

Lovely photologue capturing the full ambiance of the river as well as of the temple. We have done the Sand Heads to Kidderpur Docks pilotage several times when calling at Kolkata (used to be Calcutta then!) during my years out at sea. But this photologue gives a great view of the experience from the other side - the shore!

[rahul4640]

Originally Posted by Samba

Diamond Harbour & Swaminarayan Temple near Joka

Nice pictures of the river and the temple Samba. By the way, I have been to Diamond Harbour many times but did never see this temple, which really looks pretty impressive. Had this temple been constructed in last few years or that I was always totally ignorant about it?
Regards,
Rahul

[gadadhar]

West Bengal is amazing, I did a 3 day trip to Kolkata during Aug 1st week. I was amazed by the city, it definitely has a character. After seeing the traffic in Kolkata, I felt Bangalore is very disciplined

Below link has some street snaps, all are taken on a Samsung S8 and are not of great quality

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ebzkijkaBeTrU7yYA

[Samba]

Picked up a Duster AWD this month. The run-in period of the car was mentioned to be 1500 km in the owners manual. I find driving a car while running-in to be very boring. I have covered 600 km in the first 15 days and another 900 km was left to cross the 1500 km mark. So decided to go for two one day trips for 400-500 km each. That will do the job.

1st trip - Kolkata- Maithon- Kolkata on 16th September. 442km

2nd trip - Kolkata - Maithon- Panchet - Garpanchkot- Kolkata on 18th September. 491km

And am done with the run-in

Instead of sharing the details of the first trip, am giving the details of the 2nd trip as it covers Maithon as well.

Route- Dankuni- Burdwan - Durgapur -Asansol - Take right from Bengal/Jharkhand border for Maithon. Drive over the dam and enter Jharkhand. Take left, drive through Chirkunda & reach Panchet dam from the Jharkhand side and enter Bengal over the Panchet dam. Panchet Dam - Garpanchkot- Nituria - connect to Nh2 - Asansol - Durgapur - Burdwan - Dankuni.

Time taken & distance -
Dankuni to Maithon 2.5 to 3 hours, 215 km
Maithon - Panchet - 30-40 minutes, 25km
Panchet - Dankuni - 3.5 - 4 hours, 230 km

Places to stay at Maithon-

Maithon has many private properties, the recently renovated WBTDC lodge at Maithon looked neat and was located in a scenic location with view of the dam.

Places to Stay at Panchet/ Garpanchkot-

Panchet residency looked to be a nice property just at the foot hills, apart from that there were few good resorts like Eco tourism resort or a property from West Bengal forest Department at great location's too.

Pics from Maithon-







Pics from Panchet

[sayakc]

Hello Samba,

Congrats on your new car - one that you will be able to do justice - considering the amount of road tripping you do. With the discovery of new places in South Bengal and the Hills, I am sure you are lost for options for your new toy

Btw, in a different thread I posted about an impending closure of the Farakka Barrage. If you have any updates, do share.

Best,
Sayak

[Samfromindia]

Originally Posted by Samba

Diamond Harbour & Swaminarayan Temple near Joka

Probably one of the most iconic location in Diamond Harbor is WBTDC Hotel Sagarika and the area overlooking it.





I am surprised you are able to click pics in Swaminarayan temple as they collected all camera / mobile before entering temple last time i went.

Raichak is also a great place near Diamond Harbour to unwind for a day. Raichak On Ganges has 3 lovely properties with different themes:

• Ganga Kutir
• Ananya
• The Ffort Raichak

https://raichakonganges.com/

Had a great experience last time i went.

The Ffort Raichak

[GwD]

Too good! Your story with the lovely, lovely pictures made each place come alive. You are a keen driver and a photographer and a fantastic story-teller. Please do share your other stories with us all. Kudos to you.

[Miyata]

Absolutely beautiful. I spent few days in Kolkata this year and visited a few popular places - Tagore's home/museum; Vivekananda's home/museum; college street; the usual park street places; etc.

One observation : Sweet shops are to Kolkata what bars are to Bangalore! They are everywhere.

Few years back I made a 3-night trip to Sundarbans. Was a great experience. Will have to dig up some of the photos to share.

It looks likely there might be another trip to the city of joy coming up shortly. Will plan some trips based on the information in your posts.

thanks.

[Samba]

Bhadutola reserve forest - Jhitka- Lalgarh - Jhargram - Gurguripal Eco forest

Drive duration and distance - 374km. It was a day trip. 9 hours in total.

Route-

Kolkata - Kolaghat - Debra - Kharagpur roundabout - Medinipur- Bhadutola reserve forest - Pirakata - Jhitka - Lalgarh (170km)

Lalgarh - Binpur - Dahijuri - Jhargram (35 km)

Jhargram - Dherua - Gurguripal (30 km)

Gurguripal - Medinipur -Jinsar - connect to Bombay road (nh16) - Debra - Kolaghat - Kolkata ( 140 km)

Road condition- Bhadutola to Jhitka has got some rough patches.
Dherua to Gurguripal has some medium to big pot holes. Apart from these, road is good.

Hotels - No staying option at these places. Best option is to stay at Jhargram.

Things to look out for - Sal forests. The jungle is deep but explore the interiors at your own risk. (Risk = tribal's, not animals)
I visited these places because in the beginning of this year a tiger came to this jungle and it was happily staying over there and these jungle's were all over the news. But West Bengal forest department failed to give it enough protection and the local tribal's killed it.

These places were Mao infested. But now its safe to travel in the day time. Still avoid entering the remote places inside the forest and avoid travelling at night.
These advice's were given to us by the locals.

Couple of video clips inside Gurguripal Eco forest -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6C7xUMmVRs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QWolBtyvAI

Few pics from the trip-

At Lalgarh





Inside Gurguripal Ecopark.



Kids having food in a remote village inside the jungle.



Inside Gurgiripal Ecoforest

[SS-Traveller]

None of the West Bengal Tourism Development Corporation accommodations can be booked online between 1 March and 31st August 2019.

[Samba]

Sharing a trip report, where I was not a part of it!

My parents took our Etios with a driver for this day trip.

Where- Mukutmanipur

Route- Dankuni- Tarakeshwar - Arambagh - Joyrambati - Kamarpukur - Joypur - Bishnupur- Taldangra - Mukutmanipur- Bankura - Durgapur - Burdwan - Dankuni
(On a regular route Joyrambati, Kamarpukur can be skipped, my parents visited there as they wanted to visit those places.)

Plus according to my parents the route via Durgapur is the preferred route. Though its longer by distance, still it takes lesser time.

Distance- 466 km

Time- 7 am to 8 pm

Road condition- Good to excellent except a 5-10 km bad stretch after Bishnupur.

Key point- At this time Bankura and Purulia is red with Palash.

Sharing the pics clicked by my parents-

[Samba]

My first tryst with snowfall in West Bengal!

Where? Darjeeling!

I have written a separate travelogue for this trip but wanted to share few basic details over here. Many may miss out on the travelogue but this thread gets updated time to time.

For the trip details please check out this travelogue.
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/trave...-snowfall.html (A road-trip to Darjeeling & some unexpected snowfall!)

Route- Kolkata - Burdwan - Take Sh7.
Few kilometer before hitting the Panagarh- Moregram highway, take right via Panchgram. This route is longer by 10 km but a dreadful stretch of 2km on Panagarh- Moregram highway can be avoided. Though Suv's wont have a problem but sedans and hatchbacks might get an underbelly hit.

From Moregram, its 4 lane road all the way to Farakka. Farakka is under maintenance. Road is single lane and traffic is one way. So police allows 30 mins traffic from each end. It's better to keep some extra time in hand considering a delay at Farakka. After Farakka, road till Raigaunge is in great shape. From Raigauge take right for Botolbari road. The road is narrow with town traffic. So it may take up-to 2 hours to reach Islampur from Botolbari in peak hours. Still this is a better option than going through the dreaded Dalkhola. From Islampur to Siliguri road is great.

We took left just after Bagdogra and the road went through army campus and connected us to Rohini road via Matigara. Till Darjeeling road is great.

Note- One can opt for Malda Bypass too, though its officially not open yet. At few places, i heard the road is not complete and requires a bit of skillful driving. We skipped taking the Malda bypass as GPS showed us clear road through Malda while going and returning both.

It took us 14.30 hours to reach Darjeeling from Kolkata with sedate driving and more than 2 hours of break. We started at 6pm and reached hotel by 8-30am. While going, its best to start in the evening.

On the return leg, we started at 11-30 am from Darjeeling and reached Kolkata by 5-30 am.

While coming down, one can chose the steeper Pankhabari road to enjoy the drive through tea gardens.

Parking at Darjeeling- Parking at Darjeeling is a major problem. If you plan to drive your own car, do book a hotel with parking.

Road condition around Darjeeling is in good shape except the road to Rock garden which is broken at places.

This is the first time, i witnessed snow in Darjeeling, Ghoom and Tiger-hill.

Sharing few pics.

[shashanka]

Originally Posted by Samba

My first tryst with snowfall in West Bengal! Where? Darjeeling! .......I have written a separate travelogue for this trip but wanted to share few basic details over here. Many may miss out on the travelogue

Great photologue, Samba! And congratulations on your new acquisition, the Duster AWD. Can you share your experience and your views on the car - it would help our neighbour in making up his mind. Yes, he has the Duster AWD on his radar!