Mesmerizing monsoon and Mandarmani

From the hubbub of the city, we decided to go away to a destination, which was calm, serene, undisturbed and yet an uncompromising beauty. 171 kms from the Kolkata lies this beach named Mandarmani. Far, still a pretty close escape for the weekend.

With roads so smooth and quiet, it’s actually a good idea to shift from rail to road for the journey. It was monsoon and an absolute delight to the eyes. The rain had been kind to us throughout and so we could make it to the beach in about 3 and a half hours.

We reached the hotel and were so thrilled to see its location. It was just on the beach. We went up to the room to keep our things and freshen up. We couldn’t even reach the room and could already see the sea from the stairs. The hotel rooms were clean and had beautiful decor. We could enjoy the sea just through our balconies. And the room rent was a nominal Rs.2500 per night on double occupancy basis.

This is how the sea looked from our room. We enjoyed the sumptuous lunch by the sea in the small hut in the premises. This is a place where all of our sense organs were busy experiencing the best of everything one can think of. We had the world of goodness it seemed, starting with the smell of the food, the taste of it, the cool breeze, the sound of the waves and the majestic sea itself.

We had to climb down to surrender to the sea but the scene from atop was no less. It was evening already and we were dying to feel the sea. Unlike other beach destinations, Mandarmani has less people around thus cleaner beaches and clearer water.

Next day, early morning we hired a motor van which would ride us from one end of the beach to the other. The stretch is of around 23 kms. The hotel staff ‘Raju’ helped us to negotiate for the whole motor van to a really low cost of Rs. 500 where they actually charge around Rs.700 . Just take a bottle of your favourite drink and sip it throughout the ride and don’t worry about the tan, it’s good sometimes. Clicked pictures all the way to the crab land where we saw uncountable number of red crabs. Had coconut water from the shacks around and enjoyed the deserted beach of soft sand.

The virgin beach had places which were never visited by the tourists it seemed. The beach there looked newer but abandoned. Huge boats were kept upside down as they were freshly painted. The water this side was clean as crystal.

We returned to our hotel. The dead coral and rocks which we climbed up to the hotel became our favourite tea place for the evenings.

We fell in love with the place and the only experience left was the high tide where the sea would come to you. The high tides at Mandarmani was not monstrous and scary like that of Digha and Puri. But yes safety is always the prime priority. The sea looked beautiful in all its guise.