Odisha is a state I have visited twice . The first time was a sponsored trip, visiting a resort to write about them, as well as some of the more popular places to visit. I wrote the required content, but never got around to writing about the trip on the blog. This May, I visited Odisha for the second time, this time with family. The timing wasn’t great – it was either raining or it was terribly hot; besides, I wasn’t in the best of health and I couldn’t quite do as much as I liked. Despite all the challenges, it was a pleasure to explore the beautiful heritage of this state, and do things I couldn’t, the first time around. There is much I want to write about – the gorgeous temples, the sculptures, the museums, the natural beauty….. and yet, as I sit down and think about where to begin, there is only one place that I want to start with – the place we stayed at, for one part of our visit – Svanir . The story begins long before our trip actually happened. As Samhith and I went back and fo...
Travelling in an area which has some interesting wildlife sanctuaries, it was one of my greatest regrets that we couldn’t visit a single one on this trip, since it was primarily a pilgrimage to the two Jyotirlingams. However, we are now constantly on the lookout for birds, and make all efforts to photograph as many as possible. The only wild animals we saw on this trip were monkeys and snakes. While we weren’t able to capture the snake on camera, the monkeys posed obligingly, especially at the Sandipani Ashram, Ujjain . The Sandipani ashram would be an interesting place to visit; for we found some peacock feathers lying near a bush by the path (what was really surprising was that no one had picked them!!). Samhith was all excited, but unfortunately, the peacocks did not make an appearance. Just outside the ashram, though, we chanced upon a flock of birds which we couldn’t identify. The only one among them that I could capture on my camera was the little green bee eater (t...