Vacations are the time to rejuvenate ourselves and welcome
the freshness.It leaves behind myriad memories to cherish for. The quality time
spent with our near and dear ones brings in unmatched joy and excitement. It is
the time to just leave behind the day to day hustles and mingle with dear ones.
Well! It can be said that “a vacation is a time to evolve, to energize and to
educate”.
Vacations are round the corner again and the fun and
excitement among all the ages of people doubles up after an outing. Well
planned holidays are necessary to leave us free from last minute hurry. I too
along with my family planned to visit Odisha. I had heard about the scenic
beauty of the state many times but was lucky to visit it only in December last year. We planned our tour in such a
way that we could cover maximum number of places so that we may not spend long
hours in transit.
We booked our train tickets from Hyderabad to Bhubaneshwar.
We need to start after 10 days but each day we ended up ruling out the previous
day plans and making an altogether new one. Finally we ended up making a tour
plan for 5 days covering the important destinations. At last the journey date
was right there; with the complete wish list we all were ready with our bag packs
in time at the Hyderabad station.
The train journey is always exciting as we got to watch many
people and the melodrama at the railway stations adds more fun. Ours was a 12
hour journey to Bhubaneshwar but every hour seemed so long as we all were
eagerly waiting to reach there. Finally, we got off at the Bhubaneshwar railway
station.
We choose road journey further to save time and hence we
booked an Innova to head start. The driver was ready with the vehicle and we
drove straight to the renowned Konark Sun temple. It was about 65 kilometers from
Bhubaneshwar; it took around one and half hour to reach konark. I was really
mesmerized to see the majestic temple with beautiful carvings depicting day to
day life of the people in the past. After spending around 2 hours we headed to
Puri which was around 35 kilometers from konark.
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Konark Sun Temple |
Puri is famous for its pilgrim place
and also for its awestruck beach line. We had a night stay at the hotel and
next day we visited the temple and took the blessings of the god. The next best part was the beach at Puri. The beauty of golden sunset was best viewed from there. We luckily had an opportunity to see the sand beautiful sand art too. It was simply wow!!!
The next day
we visited Chilika Lake which is a brackish water lagoon famous for its
assorted migratory birds. The main attraction is an hour long motor boat ride
across the lake and watching the Dolphins. It was one of my best moments in
lifetime; I can never forget the experience of such an eye catching beauty of
the lake.
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Chilika Lake |
With a heavy heart we left for Bhubaneshwar from Chilika
Lake which is also about 60 kilometers. On the way back we also visited a small
village,Pipli. It is famous for its applique art beautifully carved out with
colorful pieces of cloth. It was the best place to take some goodies for
friends and relatives as a memory to cherish for. After reaching Bhubaneshwar we
took a quick tour of the Nandankanan zoo, the ancient khandagiri and Ratnagiri
caves and the last but not the least the famous Lingaraja Temple.
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Ratnagiri Caves |
Finally we boarded our train for Hyderabad from
Bhubaneshwar. It is very apt Asian proverb that “Better to see something once
than to hear about it a thousand times “.
With Yatra we can shrug off our burden of booking tickets
and hotel and enjoy our holidays without any hassles and with peace of mind.
@Meenal