2nd Jan, 2012 was truly an eventful day. Having reached Baripada on 1st Jan 2013 which is one of the towns in Northern Orissa I frantically searched for a convoy which may be making a sojourn into Simlipal forest the following day. My initial plan was to piggyback onto one such convoys, so as to save the expense of a solo trip. However after checking it out at the hotel and its tour operator I failed to find one, hence decided to go all by myself by chucking out a hefty sum.
So, after handing out the entire trip expense of Rs 2550 to operator on night of 1st Jan, 2013 it was a wait for next morning. We (me and the driver) set out at 7 in the morning after packing our quota of eadables. After registering our trip at forest entry gate at Pithabhata (around 20 km from Baripada) we set out on a trip to land of Sal trees.
Sal or Shorea Robusta is a tree endemic to Indian peninsula. A majestic tree with a straight trunk which can grow to a height 30-35 metre with a girth upto 2-2.5 m. The tree is a feast to eyes. Its straight trunks with chequered red bark and encircled by its dark green foliage and the sheer abundance of it in Simlipal takes us to an era when a big chunk of peninsular India would have been covered by sal forests. There was a time just a few thousand years back when the entire Indian peninsula, south of gangetic plains were an abode to dense forests teeming with mind boggling array of flora and fauna. The last remnants of such an era is visible in Simlipal. As our vehicle meandered through these forest, with acres and acres of Sal trees, I started to get a feeling that whole world is but a maze of dense Sal forest. Though it was not monsoon time, but the air in the densest regions of forest was putrid with smell of rotting animal and vegetation mass. For one's information Simlipal is the largest forest area in India and also a tiger reserve. Meandering through forest tract we visited 2 of the highest waterfalls in eastern ghats Joranda and Baherpani.
Finally we reached Chahala, a manmade salt lick site for animals of the forest. And animals surely did come in groups to have their quota of salt.We spotted Langurs, Chitals and a lone tusker. We left the place after that. However we now had a company, a forester of the STR(Simlipal Tiger Reserve) who wanted a ride out of the forest. We had a lot to talk as he enhanced my knowledge of the forest and some of the recent happenings there. He narrated an incidence of a tusker who had developed a liking for salt rich food leftovers thrown away by visiting tourists. He used to visit cliff edges in search of tingling salty taste of human leftovers. During one such attempt to get a tangy feeling one of the rocks on cliff edge buckled under the sheer weight of gentle giant. The elephant slipped off and had its body shredded into multiple pieces by clif edges. The foresters knew of it only after a week or so when the intense putrid smell of rotting carcass filled the air. They had to meander all the way down into cliff to recover precious tusks of it so that it doesn't fall into wrong hands.
So our journey ended around 6 in the evening and we bade good bye to an eventful day.
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