Visit to Bhubaneshwar and Puri in Odisha

During the summer holidays, we visited Odisha for the first time. We experienced two different cities in Odisha - Bhubaneshwar and Puri (both known for centuries old temples and monuments).

Our onward journey was in Coromandel Express. We left Chennai at 7 am and reached Bhubaneshwar by 2.30 am in the middle of the night (almost 20 hours travel!). There were enough autorickshaws and cabs available even at that time in Bhubaneshwar railway station. We stayed in Hotel Swosti Grand which was very close to the station. Google Maps showed a longer distance and hence we engaged an autorickshaw. Finally, we realized that the hotel was just at a walkable distance from the railway station. 

Day 1

We started from hotel at 8.30 am, booked a Ola auto and reached Udayagiri and Kandhagiri Caves by 9 am. We spent closer to 3 hours there visiting various monuments / cave structures. Udayagiri has

lots of caves and stone structures. But, Kandhagiri is almost defunct. If you climb to the top of the hill there is a small temple - which was under maintenance / renovation during the time we visited. We spent 2 hours in Udayagiri and 1 hour in Khandagiri taking enough rest in between. You can ideally see both the places in just 2 hours. 

Later, we booked a Ola auto to reach Odisha State Museum. It is a

must to visit place and maintained really well. We spent nearly 2 hours visiting various sections of the museum. They have centuries old artefacts maintained well in that museum. There were also play structures for little kids, lush-green/colorful parks and other attractions (like a large roaring dinosaur) in the museum. We had our lunch at the Utkal Kanika Galleria Mall, opposite to the State Museum. The food court had lots of dining options. 

We wrapped up Day 1 and retired for the day, as we had leave early to Puri the next day.

Day 2

We had booked a cab from Puspa Tours and Travels in Bhubaneshwar for our Trip to Puri. They charged Rs.3.5K for the entire trip Bhubaneswar -> Puri -> Bhubaneswar. The cab came sharp at 7 am. It took an hour and half to reach Puri. 

We had our breakfast (lots of good vegetarian restaurants near the temple!) and then visited the Puri Jagannatha Temple by 9 am. There was heavy crowd in the temple. We had to wait in the line for nearly 1.5 hours to get the Dharshan. There were some 'agents' who were ready to help people to bypass the line and have a direct dharshan. They said the cost is Rs.500 per person. But, it was hard for us to trust them in an unknown place. So, we decided to go in the line. 

After entering the temple, there was another fresh queue. We were shocked to see that. A poojari charged Rs.200 per person and took us directly to the place of Dharshan - navigating us through the heavy crowd. I'm glad that I took that option. Otherwise, with our little child we would not have gone through the queue where the crowd was behaving like "animals". It reminded me of the horrific experience that we had in Tirupathi. 

We finished our Dharshan by 11.30 am or so. We then headed to Konark Sun Temple. On the way to Konark Sun Temple, we visited Chandrabhaga Beach and Ramchandi Temple (Maa Ramachandi). These are quick stopovers to avoid the boredom of a long drive. We missed to visit the Blue Flag beach near Puri (lack of planning!). Konark Sun Temple is a marvellous structure, but in a very dilapidated condition. Most areas of Konark Sun Temple is inaccessible due its current condition. You can just see it from outside. The lawns are maintained well and you can easily spend 2 hours in this place. It appears as if some maintenance projects were kicked off years ago and paused. I wish this monument is restored to its past glory. 

We returned back to Bhubaneshwar from Puri by around 5 pm.

Day 3

On Day 3, we left the hotel by 8.30 am - took an autorickshaw to reach Lingaraja temple which was about 8 Kms from our place of stay. They don't allow mobile phones / bags inside the temple. There is a dedicated photo spot outside the temple that offers an aerial view of the entire premise. The architecture of the Lingaraja temple was quite unique (compared to the templates in Tamilnadu, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Karnataka which we had seen in the past). The temple wasn't very crowded and there is proper water / toilet facilities outside of the temple. 

We spent about an hour and half at Lingaraja temple and then covered other shrines in/around Bindusagar Pond. It was easily a 2 hours trip going around the pond and visiting the different smaller temples. There were no proper restaurants in that locality. So, we just had some fresh fruits and nuts for lunch. We booked a 4 hours Ola package and covered Dhauli Shanti Stupa and Chausathi Yogini Temple. Dhauli Shanti Stupa is a must-to-see place. Yogini Temple is a very small temple in a remote village and not worth the time spent in driving back 'n forth. On the way back to the hotel, we had lunch at ISKON temple (a great place to have good quality vegetarian food) and spent an hour at the Indira Gandhi (IG) Park. Kids would love this place as it has lots of play structures, beautiful lawn and mini gym. We reached hotel by around 4 pm. 

Day 4

This is the last day of our trip. We packed our things, checked out

and left our luggage in the cloak room of the hote. Hotel Swosti Grand offers a fantastic buffet breakfast for Rs.440 per person. We had breakfast there on 3 of the 4 days. We took a cab to reach Nandankanan Zoo, which was roughly 16 kms from Hotel Swosti Grand. The entry fee was just Rs.50. We booked the battery car (glad that we did this - as the park was in a vast area) and
Safari ride. The battery car is the convenient way to see the different places in the park with less walk. Safari was not great... we just saw 1 tiger in a distant place, no lions, a couple of bears. The regular animal enclosures had a better view of these animals than the safari ride. We had lunch at the cafeteria near the entrance - somewhat an ok place for vegetarians.  We left the zoo by 4.30 pm, reached the hotel, collected our bags and went to the airport. We finished our dinner at the airport. Thankfully, the Indigo flight was ontime and reached home by 11 pm or so. 

Overall, the Odisha trip was not very exciting (compared to our Jaisalmer Rajasthan or Ajanta/Ellora visits). However,  it was a peaceful and laid back trip. We reached hotel by 4 or 5 pm on most days. Our trip covered mostly temples. Most importantly the trip was very relaxing - meeting one of the objectives of the trip.