Day 54 – Puri to Vizag – 17 Oct 2018
After a splendid breakfast at the hotel in Puri, we set out for our journey towards Vizag. The plan was to visit the Puri Jagannath temple and do some shopping in and around Puri, and then take the road to Vizag. The Jagannath temple occupies the heart of the Puri town. The whole town and its business grows around this glorious piece of architecture. We parked the car and went for a casual walk along the streets near the temple.
- TOTAL KMS: 430 Kms
- TIME TAKEN: 10 hours 10 mins
- AVG FUEL EFFICIENCY: 22.8 Km/L
- ROUTE: Bhramapur
- NHs: NH16
- TOLL PAID: 445 Rs
One could witness the traditional Odian ways of life in and around the temple, including a lot of road side flower shops and sweets shops. As the crowd to enter the temple was stretching in a never ending queue, we decided to drop the plan of entering inside the temple as it was too hot to stand outside. We visited some of the textile shops, and we could shop a variety of very good Odisha handloom sarees and churidars there for very low budget. We soon decided to move out of the crowd of the spiritual city, and started our journey towards Vizag.
The roads were spectacular with shady trees on both the sides for a good stretch.
Almost 130kms ahead, we started spotting the largest coastal lagoon of India – Chilika Lake. Though our sight was capturing only a small portion of this blue beauty, Google Maps gave us an overall picture of this gigantic water body and our location with respect to it. It was amazing to see in the maps that we are close to a lagoon and the Bay of Bengal is right next to it!
There was one more greater excitement for us to be in the place – the Chilika Dhaba! Ever since we had known this name, we were eagerly waiting for a seafood lunch at the Dhaba! The Chilika Dhaba is on NH5 in Barkul town, and we were really excited to see a small Dhaba which was really crowded indicating that we have some awesome food inside! It was an amazing Odia seafood feast which welcomed us, with lots of crab and prawns dishes! We had a sumptuous meal, with rice and a variety of fresh sea foods, probably the best seafood of the entire trip! With hearts and tummy filled, we soon resumed our drive to Vizag. After a long and hectic drive, we reached our stay in Vizag in the night!
Day 55 – Vizag – 18 Oct 2018
Vizag – the land of Hills, Ports and Sea! One would be pretty much excited to roam around and visit all the places in and around, except for us! The feeling of the trip coming to an end was slowly sinking in, and we were experiencing a drag in everything! We took enough rest in the hotel after the breakfast, and were just wondering what should be done for the day! I got a car wash from Vizag which really took a long time, and once done, we headed out for lunch from a small nearby restaurant!
As we were planning to spend the rest of the day too in the hotel and recharge ourselves for the next day drive, the wanderers inside our minds couldn’t give up, and we decided to make a quick visit to Bheemili beach! Bheemili was a pristine beach with less crowd, away from the noise of Vishakhpatnam city, and offered us a very relaxed evening ! The place seemed to be having quite a lot of archeological significance, with Buddhist and Hindu religious monuments spotted here and there. As it got darker, we returned to our room after having tea at one of the restaurants in Bheemili.
Roads N Dreams 