Safari Dicor VTT-TMT 2-yr Grand Ownership Travelogue [Interior Chhattisgarh/Orissa-Tribals,Falls&Forest]
It was on October 15, 2007 when the Tata Safari 2.2 VTT LX was bought, within a day of its release, and it thus became the first VTT on Team-bhp.
This 2.2 has had a flawless performance, confidence in it has grown by leaps and bounds -- The way it safely brought us back each and every time from some of the most hostile lands. And contrary to all the premonitions from the false prophets of doom, the 2.2 VTT has and still continues to keep the cynics at bay!!
In all this 2 years, the VTT has seen some fantastic journeys, from the very next day North Bengal Forest and Hill tour, to the unknown interior Orissa jungles [Kuldiha & Satkosia], to the rural badlands and wastelands of Purulia and West Midnapur districts of West Bengal, to the 1-year ownership fantastic travel to Kinnaur, Spiti and Lahaul and going to some places were few tourists venture to, and then the amazing overnight journey across the absolute desolate NH6 towards one of most remote and part Maoist affected forest of Orissa [Sunabeda] and the unbriddled joy of finding a hidden waterfall with blue waters and a white sandy beach in the middle of the forest, and lastly till this tour to the Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary in Jharkhand for some 2 days of zero population and absolute tranquility and then also the 1.5-year ownership was celebrated with the Grand Extreme-Exclusive North Sikkim to the Mandarmoni sea Beach Tour.
0-year - [October 16, 2007] http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...-sunabeda.html http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...ti-lahaul.html http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...ni-tajpur.html Naysayers Nemesis - Safari Dicor VTT-TMT
Now we [wife, me and son] wanted to celebrate this 2nd year completion with a Ladakh tour, but the financial situation took a worse turn, more so for a freelancer, and the cost involved on a such tour made it impossible. Of course, the explosion of travel stories on Ladakh on tbhp had made me get over the missed feeling!
As such my search started, since no booking can be done beforehand due to the nature of my job, we found out that all known places were booked to brim due to the Puja and Diwali holidays.
As I searched for some interesting unknown place, one news item suddenly caught my mind - around half a lakh foreign tourists visit a place near Ankadeli, a tribal village beyond Jeypore, Orissa, - more so as a tri-state place where the borders of Orissa, Chhattigarh, and Andhra Pradesh meet.
And more we came to know about this tribal land and its people and desolate roads and caves, the more we were fascinated. Here is a place where we Indians dont know about and yet when I ask for a hotel room, I find out that all hotel rooms in the good hotel are booked all Thursdays till mid 2010 by foreigners. Why? As we encountered that Thursday, we were fascinated by the people, whom we call the most primitive tribe other than the Jarwas till now and yet one can but be enchanted by their simple life, market scenes, and their way of living.
Now any place such as this evokes a immediate concern - Maoist presence and soon I find that there are more than enough out there. All the nearby police stations have been blasted as recent as July. So reasoned like, if a foreigner could come up and visit out here, so could we. With that also grouped the Chitrakote falls, India's Niagara, which is magnificient to watch during the monsoons but since late rainfall happened this year, it was still in magnificent flow.
All in all we had a fantastic journey, not a glamourous one like a Ladakh or a Goa tour would be, but a journey to kind of discovery, of tribals, or roads very tourists go to, and to see the waterfall also known as the Niagara of India!