Rediscovering the Heritage Hooghly

Total trip distance 249km

This time the destination was heritage places of rural bengal. The destination was Hooghly and Burdwan, which has the most oldest temples,church,mosque and so many ancient architectures scattered around these two districts of West Bengal.

Riders are-

Arijit in Pulsar 150

Avtar in Karizma R

Bikram in Pulsar 220F

Ramneek in Pulsar 135LS (Pradeep pillion to Ramneek)

Tarun in Ninja 250R

Ujjal in Pulsar 180

Destinations-

1.Chandannagar Strand

2.Bandel

3.Imambara

4.Itachuna Rajbari

5.Pandua

6.Ambika Kalna

Meeting point was Dakshineswar crossing @ 6:30am. Me & Arijit reached there at around 6:15. So after meeting and some leg pullings of each other we had some tea and went onto ride till Chandanagar for our breakfast.

We took the PWD road then continued onto Durgapur expressway for 1km and from there we took the SH-6 and again rode for another 20-25mins. We reached @ Chandanagar few mins past 7am.

Chandannagar Strand

My eyes got stunned after seeing the sunshine reflecting onto the Ganges and looks like some glittering jewels. We parked our rides just beside the food stall and ordered Naan Puri-Sabji-Dal...

Then we see off Ramneek, Avtar and Pradeep and four of us (Arijit, Tarun, Bikram and myself) started on our journey.

Next destination was Bandel church,

Bandel church

We reached Bandel church. We roam inside the church and went to the top where people holds the pray to beloved Mother Mary and still so many candels were there. When we entered the prayer hall, our heart was soothing with the peace inside it. during these I noticed a strange thing that in some of the boxes (which are usually used to announce something inside the church) a hindi song is playing.. OMG :O

We clicked few photos and went to see the Imambara which was just few kms away from the church.

Imambara 

This is another heritage which is ignored from time to time and so many valuable culturual history we lost with it.. but against all these odds this piece of history still shines and people still visit this place

You just need to keep silence and just open your eyes, the rest will be done by the walls, big clock, the prayer hall, the solar clock, the fountain which were once a part of the history.. they ll say about their history.. sometimes you might find yourself nostalgic.. we bid adieu to it with another promise to visit it again in near future...

As the day progresses, the scorching heat was increasing and it was really essential for us to keep ourselves hydrated.. we took a break for 5 mins and had some waters and then again we hit the road to meet another archiological beauty.


Our next ride was till Itachuna which was few kms away from Bandel. We took the GT road and from Khanyan more we took the left turn and continue aprx 3km to reach the Itachuna Rajbari. This was another frustating experience for us. As we reached there around 12pm and the gateman was telling us that it is open till 11am and again at 4pm. We requested him so much but seeing us desparate he justed locked the gate!!  how irony..

We planned to take the GT road on our way return so while doing that we can visit it again in the late afternoon. We then headed for our next destination to Pandua..


Pandua 

Pandua has a major historical architecture called the Minar which was built by some King and was used for the war.

It was also being ignored by time again.. we sat there beside the minar for few mins and took some photos and chatted with a person who was sitting next to us.

We heard so many stories about the Minar from him and how it was used etc etc... again we felt why such a beautiful piece of architecture is neglected and no proper maintanance is going around. We rode again keeping the question in our mind and the next stop as per plan was to Ambika Kalna.

We took some route help from the locals and then we took the right turn from GT Road and after riding almost 26 km we reached Kalna. It is another heritage of bengal which is also overlooked by so many peoples...

Ambika Kalna

After reaching Kalna the clock was showing almost 2pm. We have our lunch as quickly possible. After filling our tummies with rice,dal, aalo bhaja and chicken we started to see the places..

Ambika Kalna is famous for its Shiv temples and we  took some help from the local people to get there. This was another worth visit after entering the Kings palace. The garden is maintained by some people there and one of them helped us to tell something about this palace.

Next to the palace was the 108 shiv temples. People used to worship the God and devotees come for prayer there during the early morning and evening. We took some photos of these temples and palace.

It was showing almost 3:45pm and as we had another place still left (Itachuna Rajbari) to visit so quickly we took the direction help and started onto our ride.

We returned on the same way and continued onto GT road for few kms where we spotted a hotel and we thought lets have a few mins of snacks break...

Then we decided that it ll take too long for us to reach our places if we take the GT road. The condition of GT road not as good as NH-2. So we searched for places from where we can take the NH-2 which is more comfortable road to drive on. We found that we can take the NH-2 if we continue the same road which passes by the Rajbari. So we found a little joy in that like 'Ok now we only have to drive those few odd km on GT road and from then on its smooth as silk'...

Itachuna Rajbari

We reached Rajbari and it was almost getting dark. This time the guard came right away to greet us..
There were few people occupying the rooms available there.. we look at the palace and mesmerizes about the beauty n history in it...

Atlast the time came for our return journey and we started en route to our home leaving behind all the history and tradition in its place and promised to us that this is just the starting of our ride towards our heritage bengal..

At 7:45pm we reached Dakshineswar from where we started our journey for the day. Finally I reached home at 8:15 pm and still cherishing the sweet memories of the day


Trip log by Tarun
http://xkmph.com/discuss/index.php?topic=4100.0

Bandel - The basilica of the Holy-Rosary

The town of Bandel stands about 70 kms north of Kolkata, en route to Bardhaman. It was stablished in the mid 15th century by the Portugese as a trade & military settlement, after erstwhile Mughal Emperor Akbar gave them permission to use the place as a port and base. The word "Bandel" actually is derived from the Bengali word "Bander", meaning port.

Bandel, on the banks of the Hooghly, is best known for its magnificent church. Steeped in heritage and culture, the Bandel Church is a testament to the engineering skills of the Portuguese. People from almost all religious communities visit the church to admire its beauty, if not to worship. The chandeliers, coloured-glass windows and the statues in the compound draw even non-believers to the church.

The Portuguese church, which is now the great sight of modern Bandel. This, the oldest Christian place of worship in Bengal, if not in India, was founded in 1599, the year in which Queen Elizabethsanctioned the establishment of the East India Company. It was burnt in the sack of Hooghly by the Moors in 1632, but the keystone with the date 1599 was preserved and built into the gate of the new church erected by John Comes de Soto in 1661. It is dedicated to Nossa Senhora di Rosario and contains a monastery once occupied by Augustinian friars, the last of whom died in 1869… Some 380 bigghahsof land, out of the 777 granted rent-free by Shah Jehan, are still enjoyed… Every November the church is thronged with pilgrims during the Novena of Notre Dame de Bon Voyage

An arched gateway forms the main entrance of the church. A statue of Mary, with baby Jesus, on a boat is installed atop the gate.

Take the stairs to the top balcony, where devotees light candles in front of “Our Lady of the Happy Voyage”. 

Almost a century after Vasco da Gama reached the west coast of India, the Portuguese started making inroads into Bengal. By 1599, they had settled in and around the present-day Hooghly district and built the church that after being modified several times is now known as the Bandel Church. According to some historians, the church and monastery had been built in 1660 by Gomez de Soto with the keystone of the old church.


Legend has it that in 1660, a Portuguese ship whose sail was torn in a storm drifted into the river and ended up in Bandel. During the storm, the ship’s captain had pledged to offer the main mast of the ship to the first church he sighted. The captain kept his word and the mast can still be seen in the compound of the Bandel Church.

The balcony provides a spectacular view of the Jubilee Bridge across the Hooghly. The bridge, which was built in 1887 to mark the golden jubilee of Queen Victoria’s reign, is one of the oldest operational rail bridges in the world.

The main altar houses the statue of Our Lady of Holy Rosary. The other two altars contain statues of Jesus and St John Bosco.

The complex contains statues of several saints, apart from a graveyard and the mast.

christmas

One need not take a quite so treacherous route to Bandel now. Trains are available from both Howrah and Sealdah stations to Bandel round the clock. The church is a short, bumpy rickshaw ride away from the station.