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Garhpanchkot & Baranti Lake – A weekend trip

Purulia district is the lowest step in the Chota Nagpur Plateau region of West Bengal. The place has earned quite popularity in recent times and its trending as the second best district in terms of number of visitors after North Bengal area of Darjeeling district. Two unique places of Purulia region, Garhpanchkot & Baranti Lake have earned quite popularity these days amongst the tourists.

Purulia district is located at a distance of 290 km from Kolkata and around 85km from Asansol. There are lot of places to visit in Purulia district but this time we chose to visit two very popular places which are Garhpanchkot and Baranti Lake.

Garhpanchkot is located at the eastern foothills of the Panchet Hill in Purulia and just 12 km away from Baranti Lake. Tourists generally cover the circuit of Garhpanchkot, Baranti, Mython & Panchet Dam. However due to shortage of time we only covered the former two places.

Best time to visit Garhpanchkot & Baranti

Winter is regarded as the best time to visit when the temperature generally varies from 10-22 degrees from October to February. Avoid the summer months from March to June as it gets quite warm during this time and temperature generally touches 40 degrees.

How to reach Garhpanchkot & Baranti

There are multiple ways to reach Garhpanchkot from Kolkata:

By Train : Easiest would be to take a train from Howrah and get down at Asansol or Kulti and hire a cab for the tour

By Road : Purulia and Asansol are well connected via roadways from Kolkata. The distance is around 250km and it takes more or less 5 hours to reach the place via NH19 and AH1.

Details about the Garhpanchkot & Baranti trip

We took an early morning train from Howrah to reach Kulti station on a Saturday. The name of the train is Black Diamond Express which departs from 6:15 am from Howrah and reaches Kulti at around 10 am in the morning. You can also get down in Asansol as well , but as we have mutual friend who stays in Kulti which is more closer to the Garhpanchkot region we opted for staying in Kulti this time. Upon reaching Kulti we had our breakfast and along with our friend we started our journey towards the Garhpanchkot region.

Before talking about the rest of the journey, we would slightly touch base the beautiful town of Kulti. It is one of the major neighborhood of Asansol city. The place was once a major hotspot industrial belt which you can easily identify as soon as you come out of the station and start to roam around. The place has its own charm and unlike other major towns we found it to be very peaceful and neat and clean.

Garhpanchkot

The Garhpanchkot region is basically a ruined fortress located at the foothills of the Panchet hills in the land of Purulia. The land was once dominated by the Singh deo dynasty until they lost to the mighty Bargi’s (Mercenary group of the Maratha empire)

The distance between Kulti to Garhpanchkot is only around 20 km and it takes generally around 45 minutes to 1 hour to reach the place. The Puruliya Barakar road which leads to this region is beautiful, filled with natural scenic beauty on both sides. You will also cross the Damodar river if you are travelling from this side. You have to take a left from a place called Raghudi if you are coming from Asansol and right if you are coming from Kulti to reach Garhpanchkot. After crossing through a local village you will finally arrive at the foothills of the Panchet hills. There are multiple eco tourism lodges, resorts across the areas where you can have your lunch or you can opt to spend a nice cozy weekend as well by booking a room in any of these

As we were doing the day trip we did not stay there, rather we went to a hotel nearby to have lunch called Charulata resort. The food was nice, but there service was too slow we felt. Just behind the Charulata resort there is a trail to walk amidst a beautiful jungle which leads to a temple situated in the foothills. As we had less time we did not get time to explore.

We walked a little bit and noticed the ruins of the different temples in the surrounding areas.

The beautiful terracotta ark work is something to notice in every temples. Upon discussing with the locals we also got to know that there are further excavation work going on to find out other temple ruins which had been buried underneath for hundreds of years.

There are lot of local eateries in and around the area as well and local handicraft shops as well. You can definitely buy souvenirs to take away with you which will not only add as a memory of the trip but also will help the local artisans in terms of providing a little financial help.

After spending some time we returned from there to visit the famous Baranti Lake.

Baranti Lake

The distance between Garhpanhckot to Baranti is only 12km and it takes hardly half an hour to reach there. There is a small narrow road which diverts away to the lake from the main highway while returning through the Purulia Barakar highway and if you follow the trail it will lead you to the lake itself.

Baranti is basically a 1 km long irrigation project dam of the Rarh countryside which is situated in between Muradi Hill and Baranti Hill. The place has been a recent hotspot for tourists coming to this region. The place is quiet calm and peaceful and due to the recent huge tourist footfall there has been numerous resorts which had opened near the lake to spend a peaceful weekend holiday.

If you are planning to visit the place, visit during sunset as the view is simply breath taking. The beautiful sunset accompanied by a cup of tea is an ideal situation for which tourists are flocking to this place regularly.

We returned to Kulti that day and next day we headed back home. If you want to utilize the next morning as well you can definitely visit the Mython & Panchet dam. We took the train Black Diamond express at 5:10 pm and reached Howrah at 9:20 pm.

Conclusion

The Rarh region is definitely a place to visit if you are planning for a weekend trip from Kolkata. You can easily get down near Kulti or Asansol depending on your accommodation/hotel booking and can explore the region by hiring a cab. Try to avoid the summer months as it gets extremely hot.

For more weekend trip itineraries, visit our Blog section of NeonBrothers. Do check our pictures section for beautiful imagery.

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Neontraveller

As our name suggests, we operate as brothers in arms when exploring our passion for traveling, designing, and writing. At NeonBrothers, we are looking to infect a larger audience with our passions.  Check our blogs to learn about the best ways of quenching your thirst for discovering new places.

This Post Has 3 Comments

  2. Anjana March 6, 2025 Reply

    Lots of good information for solo traveller like me .. looking forward to many more weekend trip itineraries from kolkata.

    1. Neontraveller March 25, 2025 Reply

      Thank you Anjana, comments like these are our true inspiration. Keep motivating us and do let us know in case you want to collaborate.

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