[Captdey]

It was not until first week of December this Vacation was Planned , as year end holidays were approaching and the Travel bug started to
ruffle us , we became desperate to find out the destination for a decent
vacation.

Luckliy my wife could get two best rooms in Garpanchkot - Nature observation centre which Runs by West Bengal Forest Observation
centre .

On a Chilly but clear 25th December morning We rolled out from our south Kolkata residence , I preffered to follow Belgharia Expressway than potholed Kona expressway to Reach Dankuni .

Apart from few early morning Picnic buses ,roads were empty , visibility was clear without any morning Fog , it was 0710 when we cleard Dankuni toll plaza.

Greeted by occasional Fog patches between Dankuni and Palsit , after Palsit visibility drastically improved , I had my Durgapur Expressway
scheduled downloading break at Ghar Dhaba , being too early for BPCL
staff , staff were in winter laziness , Tanked up from here , crossed
Palsit toll plaza, then stopped at one of Lancha ...... for naasta.

NH2 at Panagarh has been improved a lot since I was last there in August,
I cleared panagarh in a jiffy, Nh 2 - Exit at Chowringhee was at 1000 hrs,
Niyamatpur traffic was exceotionally low , Reached Resort by 1045 Hrs.

More to Follow :-

[Captdey]

as it was early arrival, we had to wait till 12'o clock till we got possession of our rooms , which had excellent view of the hill behind and the jungle , facilities and standard of rooms were very good with hot water , room heater etc.
after lunch we drove to Panchet dam and towards Dhanbad , being Christmas
day there were lot of crowd on the Road above the dam and also in the adjacent Nehru park .

[Captdey]

My scorp - Hiding in Panchkot Jungle.

[Captdey]

Next Day 26/dec.

Early morning sunrise from the resort balcony was a very good, then we went up to the hill through the narrow jungle route at the back of resort , we walked about 45 minutes and reached a make shift viewpoint near the hill top, from where we can see
the big span of Damodar river and panchet dam.

Some photographs were taken when we went uphill.

[Captdey]

After Breakfst , we went out for drive for old ruins of temples , it was 12 kms drive on a narrow but moderate built road towards gobagh , where the right goes towards
Purulia / Raghunathpur and left goes towards Asansol . we followed the road towards
left and then to a narrow village road and finally we reached the near the ruins of
old temples and garh, we found that some excavation work in progress here to
find out more remains of the history.

Some photos near the old ruin site.

[akas_chauhan]

Nice pictures. Looks like it's a pretty good place. What is this place famous for?

[Captdey]

Nothing much over there to see other than the remains of old fort , we drove
back to the main highway through narrow village road and then we decided to
move towards Rraghunathpur and finally to " Joychondi Pahar " , State highway
was velvet smooth , this road goes to Purulia and then to Ranchi , it took about
half n hour to reach a croosing just after Raghunathpur new bus stand , take the
road on left which goes towads adra, after driving about 10 minutes then exit
towards the hill , finaly we reached there , there was temple at top , we had to climb 450 steps to reach on hill top temple, on a winter afternoon view was spectacular
from top. this was the hill where Stayajit Ray shhot for his film "Hirak Rajar Deshe ".
there were lot of Rock climbing training was going on around the hill .

Here are some photographs :

[Captdey]

Some More Phots at Joychondi Pahar

[Sudipto-S-Team]

Capt Dey
Don't know how on earth I missed this thread. Looks like you stayed in the same building as we did - those four rooms had names of four butterflies. We stayed in the ground floor rooms.
Although winter is good, I think monsoon is the best time for GP Kot.
Sudipto