An evening at Tampara Lake

It’s been few days now since my visit to my hometown, Berhampur ( The silk city of Odisha, India. Here’s the wiki link :https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berhampur) . One afternoon after lunch uncle said,” Let’s go somewhere.”
To which I replied,” Umm, why all of a sudden you wanna go.” Later after a 15min discussion and then deciding our destination, I collected two reasons behind the sudden plan.

1. Few days ago I was upset with my Aunt for not taking me along to Bhairavi temple( this one : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddha_Bhairavi ). So this was her way of making it up to me. 😀
2. Uncle started learning to drive the car recently and he is as excited to drive as the little kid next door who never stops pedaling his cycle around.

So we started at around 16:30,which was supposed to be 15:30. There were four ladies and two kids, you can see the reason behind the lag. Oh! don’t blame me, I changed my orange netted top only because mom thought white one will look good.
It was a Tata Indigo Car, a five-seater one (including driver seat). And kids didn’t agree to stay behind, also it would be no fun without the real posers now, would it? So I had to take one on my lap. This girl is my cousin. I didn’t exactly let her sit on my lap, I just gave her a little space (very little I say). Now again don’t blame me for being of more than average build :-p So we adjusted ourselves and started our journey. After a bleary ride of almost 50 min under the late afternoon sun and after taking two wrong turns, we finally reached our spot. Tampara Lake, one of the largest lake in South Odisha near Chatrapur along the National Highway. Before taking the turn off the highway, we got down at a local shop as the smallest cousin was already hungry and she wanted chips. So while they were gone for the chips, me and the other cousin started our photoshoot.
This is me:

(Me – never satisfied with my click *sigh*)

This is us with the chips :p

We took the turn off the highway as instructed by the signboard and then the small distance from the highway to the lake was covered with bald trees, dusty road and the broken concrete road is as good as not being there but none the less it gave a feeling of going into the wild. As we reached, the wind was quite welcoming.  We quickly finished our chips and went in. We walked on the bridge which took us little ahead into the water and then the sudden slope descended on to the floating floor. The slope was scary but it was worth it. We descended, and the floating floor was making us dance. The surrounding was breathtaking lined with different trees and plantations. I asked myself “How mesmerizing can the universe get?” I captured these and they say it all.

some more clicks with my people :

The floating floor:

The man behind the wheels and the lady behind the apology trip 😀

After spending quality time letting the surrounding sink in! We set off to return.There were facilities for boat rides and water scooter too but we didn’t have enough time to explore it all as uncle wanted to leave before dark.
Then waiting for us was the sunset! I just fell in love with the day even more. Everytime I see a sunset, I literally draw it in my mind trying to capture the beautiful sun changing its color from bright yellow, to a little red in its boundary then adding a tinge of orange,  and then it turning into this fiery red ball. I wished to paint it with a brush and capture it but though I didn’t still I captured this :

After capturing the sunset we stopped at a tea stall and had this little cup of refreshment :

 

On our way back we visited Sai Baba Temple in Mandiapalli. The temple is quite famous and is located in a serene area. I couldn’t click any photo there, since it was already 18:30 and my phone camera is no good without enough light. It was Arti time ( Evening pooja), so we stayed for the Arti. It was just blissful! I am neither an atheist nor a theist, I hang in between, saying so I can bet there’s nothing like sitting peacefully in a Temple which isn’t crowded. The vibes are just what you need!

And in the end while coming back we found this fellow lurking on the railing near the temple shoe-stand:

 

In all it was a day worth remembering and penning it down has helped me create an even more lasting memory.

(Note : All photos are taken with my Xiaomi Redmi Note phone)