Route: Turn right from Achariya Vihar. You are on NH5. Follow it past
Khurda. Pay toll at Sunakhela (Rs 70 both ways, Rs 45 one way) and
keep going till Chandpur Tangi. It takes about an hour and ten minutes
to cover this distance. Just before Tangi, on your right
you will see a hard-to-miss board "Pattanaik's bar and restaurant".
Leave NH5, turn left. Follow the road through Chandpur market place.
Keep going until you see "Way to Mangalajodi" written in green on a
clearly visible board. Turn left and follow the road. Once you reach
Mangalajodi, you will find on your left "Mangalajodi Eco Tourism"
office (Phone: 095836-19624). Look for Santosh Mahapatra or Lakhmi. Staying: They have two huts (one double and one single room). You need to reserve in advance if you want to stay overnight. Toilets are clean!
Boat trip: The office will provide you with a guide (ours was
22 years old ever-smiley Ashoke. We were told that the best guide is Madhu Behera. He was not
available the day we went.), a binocular, a book
called "Bird Atlas of Chilika", and arrange a boat for
your bird watching. The whole trip is going to
last about 3 hours on this locally made boat which
they call "dangi". We saw these are
being made by local people. They use
"Chakundi" wood (Siamese Senna) and these trees are
available there in plenty. The trip starts from the watch tower which is
about two kilometers away, close to which we found 
Birding: Your boatman (ours was Shankara) will follow one
of the 30 channels to take you into Chilika and that is
the start of a journey which is surely hard to forget. This Northern Sector
-- primarily a fresh water zone --is the
largest and the shallowest area of Chilika. The most common marsh plant
in this region is Khagra Reed (Phragmites Karka), see the pictures. This region provides shelter
to many fresh water birds like moorhens, crakes, warblers and ofcourse, the near threatened,
black-tailed Godwits. In fact, Mangalajodi is the most favoured foraging ground for
Godwits. On our way, we came to know that, under
Ramsar criteria, if a wetland supports one percent of biographical population of one
species or subspecies of waterbirds, the wetland is considered to be internationally important.
Incidentally, for five species, over thirty percent of the threshold population was recorded
in Chilika! Below are some of the birds that we saw on our way. They are extremely
visitor-friendly, we could picture (or should I say record) them with a normal camera, with 30-110mm
lens.
