Puri Diary

Puri re-visited!! I took an annual leave from work, I took my bag...and took the Delhi-Kolkata flight on 9th April 2006. Then another 12-hour bus journey from Kolkata to Puri....and I was there, at last.

It was a planned trip. Planned by my brother - to celebrate our sister's birthday. It was 17 years ago when we first visited Puri, Orissa. It was a family holiday then. The beach near the town was much cleaner then...Now, it has become very dirty and the smell of fish and prawns lingered in the air.

We stayed at Toshali Sands, a resort, which is a member of the Resort Condominiums International (RCI). The RCI pioneered the concept of exchange vacations since 1974. Today, RCI has more than three million members worldwide, who enjoy dream vacations at RCI's 3,700 affiliated resorts. These timeshare owners and resorts are a unique community of travel enthusiasts with the common bond of a lifetime commitment to quality vacations through timeshare. Toshali also has a sister resort in Shimla.

First day we visited the private beach near the resort and I was overwhelmed. Sadly this beach was also dirty, though not as much as the stretch we saw near the town. The rest of the days were spent in travelling around Puri and Bhubaneshwar, the capital of Orissa and a lot of swimming in the resort pool. We visited the famous Sun Temple at Konark, definitely the most notable marvel of Orissan art, which was built in 1250 AD during the reign of the Eastern ganga King, Narasimhadeva. The structure was designed in the form of a chariot drawn by 7 horses on 12 pairs of exquisitely carved wheels. The walls of the temple contain many animal, floral and geometrical and sensuously carved human forms in a variety of gestures and rhythmic actions.

Another place we visited was the Chilka Lake, the largest salt water lake in the country and located to the South West of Puri. We arranged for a boat ride which was to take us to a location where we could see the famous Chilka dolphins and then to the spot where the Bay of Bengal meets the lake. The sky was overcast and the air was heavy with moisture.

There were many fishing boats, almost all of them coloured in blue, as majority of the people living near the lake earn their livelihood from fishing. The boat ride took 3 and a half hours. We spotted the dolphins and walked on the beach washed by the waters of the Bay of Bengal. It was so clean. One could just walk on for hours and not feel tired. It was as if there was a spell that captivates one's senses.

I returned to Delhi on 17th April after a truly wonderful time at Puri, and I just could not wait to upload the pics and start writing this piece. I must confess that before the trip, I was doubting whether we made the right choice of choosing to visit Puri, as I thought the temperature would be too hot to handle. Fortunately I was wrong. Puri does gives the traveller an unexpected comfortable welcome. It was a trip well made.