When it comes to visiting the In Law’s most husbands are always petrified but over the years I have started looking at the positive side of it. First of all I am lucky enough that my wife is from a state which has a real vast natural resources and equally large tourist attractions. Jharkhand is a landmark when come to tourist spots and since this is relatively a new state most of them are not that very well know and very less frequented by travellers. Road trips are my favourite and when an opportunity comes to go for a really long drive I am always in.
Last puja vacation I had a surprise visit to Ranchi and seeing my arrival my father in law planned for a road trip from Ranchi to Chaibasa. Chaibasa is also where my grandmother in law resides thus the opportunity to see her also was a perk in itself.
Ranchi to Chaibasa ROute Map
We planned to leave early and by 8 AM we were ready to depart, in our disposal we had our old and trusted Alto and the team consisted of myself, my wife, daughter, father in law and brother in law.
Roads are really well paved in most of the portion thus the ride was pretty smooth, being Durga Puja time there were the occasional slowing of the car due to the encroachment of the pandals on to the road. These were actually fun as I have seen the lavish Durga Puja Pandals of Kolkata and these small pandals seems to be the real deal since the entire village would be sitting around it waiting for the various celebration revolving around Durga Puja.
It takes around 4 – 5 hours’ drive from Ranchi to Chaibasa depending on the traffic condition but we were in no hurry and decided to enjoy the greenery and scenery as it came.
In between around 10 AM we decided to stop for some tea in a small road side shop. Again being Durga Puja they had prepared various sweet savouries. A Jharkhand specialty is Dhuska which is either served with potato curry or sometimes meat curry. Along with that there were the Malpua and Motichur Ladoo. Seeing my camera they might have thought I am from the press thus had escalated the level of service to a fine dining level. I was even given a personal tour of the attached kitchen in the backyard.
I personally enjoy all these as this is the real deal when it comes to road trip, one need to enjoy the environment and the situation as and when it comes.
After a quick breakfast we proceed to our final destination Chaibasa. Till now we were mostly in plateau region thus more or less there were long stretches flat road with some occasional bumps but now it was time to climb down to the plains.
Hirni Falls
The scenery had slowly turned from green cultivated lands to light forest region. It is then that my father in law informed me about Hirni Falls which is on the way and one needs to divert around 1 Km. to reach the falls. The traveller that I am could never say no thus happily agreed to go and visit the waterfall.
Jharkhand is famous for its waterfalls and I have not seen all of them thus adding one more to my list is always a good idea. One needs to take a left turn from well-marked road which leads to the waterfalls. There is a good paid parking arrangement and the parking assistant also happily shows you the way to the waterfall.
The best part of Hirni Falls is that unlike most of the other waterfalls in Jharkhand you do not have to climb a 1000 stairs or trek a kilometre on jagged rock to reach it. It can be easily accessed by foot and there are well marked concrete pathways leading to the base of the waterfall and other small pools which naturally develop around the falls.
You can easily spend an hour out there, there are lots of butterflies all around so if you are into nature photography you surely won’t be disappointed.
Being autumn season the surroundings were full of Kash flower (Saccharum spontaneum) thus looked beautiful against the backdrop of Hirni Falls.
Driving towards Chaibasa
This was a much needed break thus was real refreshing. With no more stops planned it was straight to Chaibasa next. The next stretch of the road is the most scenic as the plateau was ending and we were descending to the plains. You get to see a beautiful view of the plains below.
This stretch of the road is filled with Custard Apple and one can easily pluck them, my daughter was very excited to see this and wanted to try a few but this was not the best season to have a ripe one thus we could not taste straight from the natures basket.
Once you have reached the plains it took around forty five minutes more to reach our final destination of Chaibasa. This was a short road trip but with plenty of new experiences. Will soon be back with other exiting blogs from the tribal town of Chaibasa.
