ORISSA

I went to Orissa with my friends several years back. While going through some damaged photos I relived the Orissa trip once more. It brought back great memories of the wonderful places that we visited.
The photos are digitally scanned and uploaded hence the quality is not so good. Some restoration work has to be done.
Trip Details in Short
- Kolkata to Puri by overnight Puri Express. Puri has hundreds of Budget Hotels and premium hotels near the sea beach.

DAY 1
- Wonderful Puri beach. Its crowded but its good.
- Afternoon and Evening -> Visited the Puri Jagannath Temple. We fixed a 'Panda' , a local brahmin boy who arranged for everything. He showed us the different parts of the temple , we did a puja and darshan. Entry to Puri temple is slightly crowded at normal times and hugely crowded during the "Rathyatra" or Car Festival. There were some restrictions to the entry of non-hindus.
- After the temple darshan , our Panda collected the prashad for us and we returned to Hotel. The Prashad or the offering to God has a specialty here. Its said that whatever is the amount of prashad it will satisfy all the persons who offered the Puja.

DAY 2 & DAY 3 -> Combining two days there are a lot of things to see around Puri. All of these are unique and must see places for a traveler to get the essence of the great history of Orissa.

Puri -> Konark
The nearest is the Sun Temple at Konark. En route one can also view a lighthouse.
This is one of the greatest architectural marvels. Much part of it was destroyed by the sea , but whatever is present is being restored.

The other great places are near to Bhubaneswar
Nandan Kanan ( a wonderful Zoo) - This takes a long time, its a big zoo
Khandagiri
Udaygiri
Lingaraja Temple

We decided to skip the Day 3 which was originally planned for Chilka Lake, one of world's largest saltwater lake.