Odisha Diaries - Neela Madhab beckons!

28.10.2026

Bhubaneswar airport is neat, cozy and compact. It hardly took us minutes to collect our baggage. We booked Uber Intercity for traveling to Puri.

We did however pose in front of a beautiful sand sculpture showing the unique trademark of Bhubaneswar. 

The airport is surrounded by lush greenery. That, coupled with a sky overcast with dark clouds created a beautiful panorama. The road leading out of the airport is really scenic. There is a huge Ramakrishna Math just outside the airport premises. We passed by, already regretting the very less time that we were going to spend at Bhubaneswar. 

I usually think of a word that best describes my first impression of a city. 'Big' is the word that came to my mind on seeing BBSR. Walls adorned with the traditional and beautiful murals of Odisha, broad roads with some of the greenest dividers that I have ever seen and sprawling farms on either side of the road made the drive a heavenly experience. There is a major highway connecting BBSR to Puri and it is indeed every driver's dream come true. 

It started raining slightly while we were still in BBSR but picked up pace once we reached Puri.

Puri stood in stark contrast to BBSR. The roads near the temple were small, narrow and bumpy. Small shops lay next to each other, most of them sharing a wall. We passed many individual houses which must have been beautiful during their time but now had a dilapidated look. 

We checked in Hotel Sunbay which turned out to be pretty decent. We got a pleasant surprise here.

The hotel had a restaurant, a pure vegetarian one. When we asked the staff about the availability of Jain food, she looked affronted and said, "Madam, this is a PURE VEG restaurant. Of course all the food that we served is prepared WITHOUT onion and garlic!" This was the first of the many times we would hear this whenever we enquired of any restaurant about Jain food. It never failed to make us smile that pure vegetarian meant meals without onion/garlic here!

We had a delicious breakfast (and my kid remarked, 'Aaj main Puri main poori kha raha hu!'). 

Our initial plan had been to leave for the temple after lunch as we did not know how long it would take for the Darshan. On a whim, we decided to visit the temple then and there, for it had started raining and we thought that the temple would not be too crowded due to the cyclonic weather.

We met a nice family of Maharashtrians in the hotel. While they originally hailed from Pune, we were delighted to know that they had stayed briefly in Jamshedpur too. (Jamshedpur is where four generations of my husband's family stayed and still stay). This family advised us to hire a guide for the temple as it would be too difficult to get Darshan without one. They shared a guide's number and told us to take his help. The guide's name was Om.

My husband called him and was advised to come to the South gate of the temple by 1 in the noon. We rested for a while and left for the temple at around 12.40. It had started raining heavily by then. Though the temple was very near to the hotel, we decided to hire an auto.

That was when we learnt an important lesson.

The staff at the reception informed us that autos do not come that way generally and that they would have to be called. The security guard of the hotel usually called auto-drivers to come and pick-up their guests and drive them wherever they wanted to. This guard booked autos for us during our stay in Puri. He was honest to the core and always informed us the correct auto fare beforehand so that we didn't get overcharged. 

Our auto-driver came after a few minutes and told us that he won't be able to drop us at the South gate where Om had told us to meet him. He dropped us off at the Main gate from where we got our first glimpse of the temple. 

It was a ten-minute walk to the South gate of the temple. It was still raining heavily. Amidst heavy rains, we took in the grandeur of the timeless temple, the magnificent Neel Chakra with its Dhwaj and ... completely missed an important part. 

But Jagannath sees what we don't! He saw what we had missed, and he ensured that we got what was meant for us!

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