My Second Trip to Digha

Journey Date - 04 07 2015 – A Saturday

To get energized from the daily office-home-office life we set a trip to Digha. This was my second trip to Digha and this time it was with my colleagues. We booked Tamralipta Exp from Howrah to reach Digha, we wanted to enjoy the beautiful cloudy weather in the month of July but we were unlucky to get some hot and humid days during our trip.

Saturday crowd deboarded from the train 

In the morning we packed bread-butter toast with double egg omelettes or omelets for our breakfast (a preparation from beaten eggs), we could easily get these food items from the outside vendors in Howrah station complex preparing morning breakfasts, it was cheap, healthy and quick. This did save us from preparing fresh breakfast in the dawn. Cost was Rs 25 per breakfast.

Spacious and neat & clean Digha Rail Station

In the train you will also get lemon tea, normal milk tea, Bengal Grams (mixed with oil, onions, masala and cucumber), Ghugni (a preparation of Grams with gravy topped with onions, chilies, masala and a bit of tamarind sauce), masala puffed rice(Jhalmuri) and masala cucumber. My suggestion will be to not to take any of these as it may upset your stomach, though they are having mouthwatering taste yet they are unhygienically prepared. You will also get cold drink 600 ml pet bottles, chow and bread toast from IRCTC staffs but are not that tasty and illogically priced.

On arriving Digha we had to hurry for the reservation as we had planned to come back on Sunday, while doing this we learned that the new Tatkal system for reserving general seats starts at 11 am and closes down by 11:30 am. Another story is you cannot just make a first come first serve basis line, you have to get a serial number from the station master and in that order chance will be given. While doing bookings do not forget to attach a xeroxed copy of an identity proof with the reservation slip, it has to be of someone whose name is in that booking slip.  I do not know whether this is a system for all the trains / all the stations or particularly for Digha next day Tatkal bookings. Unlucky we were and we could not get confirmed tickets.

This time we saw that no van/rickshawas/cars/jeeps were allowed inside the station complex and this was a very good step by the authority, outside there were plenty of cars, motor driven vans and cycle vans. As we booked hotel Sea Hawk which was in Old Digha we had to book a mini jeep, the Mahindra Gio took Rs 15 per head.

The location of the hotel Sea Hawk is very near to Old Digha main sea beach, just crossing the area from where a road goes to the main beach area and where the bazar is located you will find the main road has taken a left turn and as you are turning left there is a road on the right which will lead you to the hotel.

Sea Hawk has a good parking space where lots of cars can be parked, a family hotel and an old property, the hotel has 3 offices in Kolkata through which bookings can be done and there is no online facility to book the hotel. 3 locations are Kalindi Housing bus stop, Russel Street and Old Court House Street / Dalhousie area in Kolkata. The booking procedure is very old fashioned in nature, only one personnel has been appointed in each of these 3 offices and they take the phone calls as well as do the bookings, this activity delays the booking procedure.

They will take the entire amount with taxes and this bill needs to be shown at the time of checking in. We booked a 7 seater dormitory Non AC which was priced at Rs 1950. By Digha’s and the hotel’s standards the room was highly overpriced. The hotel staffs are rude and they care a fig for the customers’ requests. While checking in we asked the name of the personnel who was looking after our check-in formalities and we were answered that service is more important and name is not.

The hotel has just 4 rooms (2 rooms on the second floor and 2 rooms on the 1^st floor)  which are actually sea facing and other rooms are not directly sea facing though the hotel claims it to be so and charges high rates from the patrons. The room was okay for accommodating 7 heads but the bed capacity is actually for 6 people, on asking their answer was that one needs to adjust on a sofa that is placed in the room. The room was badly lit with some CFL connections, small fans were there but please do not select the room in the warm seasons as it was tremendously stuffy. There were two bathrooms. The room had a small TV which is better if you don’t put it on as you will be highly irritated seeing its condition. There is a balcony with railings where you can give your clothes to dry, the room is not all taken care of and the chairs in the room were shabby looking, there was a table on which you can keep your belongings, bed linens were dirty and the cushioning of the bed was not okay. There is only one charging point and for two one needs to unplug the TV connection.  Only one window so you will have to huff and puff for air. The bathrooms are fitted with commode in one and Indian system lavatory system in the other, both the bathrooms have a basin and a shower and a tap, water will gush out of the taps but basins are not clean and so the water. There is a mirror in the room which is stained and a small wardrobe.

On the first day just after coming to the room we were hungry and we went to the restaurant to have our lunch, we ordered pulses, rice, rotis(chapatis), chicken bharta, mutton curry and chicken kasa. Each and every dish was substandard and I got awe struck seeing the food standard of the hotel and I also got wondered seeing that the hotel receives good number of requests for room food delivery, the hotel just robs patrons providing bad quality food as there are no nearby hotels for lunch and dinner. For lunch report to the restaurant before2: 30 pm as it closes down after that time. Post lunch we went to the sea beach to take the bath and we got a pleasant weather as the sky got suddenly overcast and it rained, taking bath while raining added a difference experience altogether. There is an open shower in the hotel and all who bath in the sea are supposed to take a bath for cleaning up after coming to hotel from beach.

The Sea Hawk hotel also claims that they have their own beach and this is a serious wrong information, actually the concretized beach road which starts from New Digha extends to and ends in an area which is just outside the perimeter of Sea Hawk hotel campus, there is a back gate of the hotel exiting through which will give you direct access to that beach road, it is not allowed to take bath in the beach area which is right in front of the hotel.

The hotel has also got 2 cottages out of which only one cottage is worth booking, this is in the lawn of the hotel and directly faces the sea, but the cottage which is positioned near the main building is a complete wastage of money if booked.

One development in Digha is a wonderful park is under construction and there are some royal chairs that have been placed in the park from where you can sit, relax and enjoy the sea, sunny days will create problems as there is no shade but cloudy season is really romantic, this park is in Old Digha and very near to Sea Hawk hotel, within walking distance, there is also a watch tower which has been erected and the 3^rd floor of the tower is at a good height from the ground and you can take a wonderful 360 degree view of Digha, how this park will get maintained is something only time will tell us.

The watch tower

Taken from the watch tower, located in the park (upcoming) in Old Digha

Royal Seating Arrangement inside the upcoming park in Old Digha

There is a beach area on the left hand side of Sea Hawk hotel, you need to exit through the back gate and then move towards the left side, the concretized road will cease and lead you to a beach which is open and very wide, perfect for playing football and other games, and during low tides one can go much deep into the sea as the water level here becomes very less, here is the place from where you can see Shankarpur resort, no need to have binoculars, also white waves in the distance on the Shankarpur beach.

Commutation from Sea Hawk hotel to Digha main market will cost Rs 10 per head. In the evening we went to the Digha local market for buying fresh fish, it is best if you buy fish from the market and make them fry from some local shop. In the market you will always get fresh fish, on Saturdays and Sundays they are priced high as the shop owners know the demand will peak, so bargain and get at right price,  we bought Prawns at Rs 300 a kilo, Pomfret fish- a note on buying Pomfret from Digha market, don’t get fooled by seeing super sized Pomfrets as they may not be original Pomfrets and Chinese ones, we did the same mistake by buying Chinese Pomfrets but one thing I should admit is that taste wise you can hardly find any difference. Pomfrets were Rs 550 a kilo. We also bought Hilsa, try to identify fresh ones and we selected a fish which was Rs 700 a kilo. We wanted to fry them and so we bought 1 kilo mustard oil and gave it to a hotel very near to Sea Hawk for frying, we did this as we wanted our fish to be fried with fresh oil. It enhances the taste as well as a healthier option.

The Silver Queen- Hilsa

Pomfrets

Prawns fresh from the Sea

In the night time when we returned to hotel we ordered food at 8pm and then ultimately the food got delivered from the hotel restaurant at 10:30 pm, so this is how they serve their customers, there are phone numbers or intercoms to connect to restaurants and reception but no one was there to take the call or provide the service. The hotel has got a large campus which is the only plus point that I noticed and there is a lawn cum park for children to play, there is a small temple inside the park. There are seats where you can relax.

Post dinner it was 11:30 pm and we wanted to take the night experience of the beach, we all left our mobile phones and money bags at the hotel as beach area at night is not all safe, you can feel the strong breeze standing on the elevated boundary that has been constructed along the concretized road, you can also feel the raw earth, the beauty of the dark earth, its something which is beyond description and an indescribable beauty, if it’s a moonlit night then you can feel how romantic it becomes or if its a cloudy night then you can feel and see the sparks of lightning ripping the sky and falling at the end of the horizon, it something which is superb and enigmatic. Chairs placed in the park being constructed will give you a different fun but remember not to be on those chairs for a long time as the chairs are made up of iron and it can catch the lightning strikes, also don’t be outside in a night where thunderstorms are there as it can be disastrous.

Night time experience was horrible in that room and in the evening we got to know that there is a hotel in the name of Artland just beside Sea Hawk which has 3 bedded AC rooms at just Rs 1000 a night. There is another hotel which gives beautiful sea viewing experience in the same locality where Sea Hawk is located, the name of the hotel is and it has got many rooms facing the sea and the garden under construction and each room is fitted with a separate balcony which is just amazing, this is a much better choice than selecting Sea Hawk.

Sunday 05^th July- We woke up from bed and for breakfast we went to the makeshift shops just outside the back gate of the hotel, we ordered bread butter toast with egg preparations and we really enjoyed the food as it was an experience of having food sitting on the benches placed on the boulders from where we could see the morning sea and fishermen catching fish and also feel the cool breeze.

After breakfast we left the hotel to catch the bus that we booked on the previous day, we chose bus as we could not get train reservation the previous day, our bus was at 8:15 am and that was an AC bus by Jackson Travels which charged just Rs 200 per head, interestingly the same bus service charges Rs 350 for journeys made after 9:00 am. The bus was good with push back seats but unlike Volvo here once if you recline your seat the passenger seated at the back will be uncomfortable or that passenger also needs to recline his seat. Seats are well cushioned but the arrangement is 3 on the left hand and 2 on the right hand and taking the full capacity into consideration , you will feel a bit stuffy, the AC was okay and did not fail and could keep the temperature in control. No emergency exit, and narrow passage but has luggage spaces on the roof as well as inside the body where passengers can keep large bags and luggage. Seating will be a bit uncomfortable in the seats as the space is not that sufficient.

Digha – Kolkata route is notorious for bus accidents and we were a bit scared as this bus too sped heavily and till the time the single road continued we could not sleep , there is a point from where the road becomes one way and then the journey becomes smooth, like every bus it gave a halt at Kolaghat for 15 mins and the bus did not stop at that famous dhaba but at some other location near to that dhaba, here you can buy snacks and tiffin or you can have lunch, there is a problem with the route of these buses and it is that these buses will take the Howrah town route and so it covers Howrah town which remains jampacked and due to narrow roads it takes much longer time or say 30 mins extra in reaching Esplanade than other buses. But, I would say that at Rs 200 it was a very good deal. We reached Esplanade at 1pm and thus our short trip to Digha ended on a sweet note.