Day Three: Ambling Along The Sea Beach

The only complaint that I have with a holiday is - it gets over even before you blink.And especially the Puri holiday turned out to be excellent and the car and the road were the real stars of the trip, if I may say that.

When we woke up on the third day we were left clueless regarding what to do.There were certain things that were certain, like, we werent going to gorge on Aloo Paranthas for the third consecutive day or we werent going to while away time at our hotel room - so we opted for a darshan of Jagannath Thakur and sea bathing.

Make hay while the sun shines,and take a sea bath when you are in Puri. The morning was spent on visiting Jagannath Mandir and most of the afternoon was spent bathing on the sea, by which time the shore sands became absolutely hot and we returned back terribly hungry and headed straightaway for a normal shower. And because we didnot get the scope to have Bengali food for quite sometime, we wanted to lunch some where Bengali.I remember dining at Dada-Boudi hotel, long long back when we were in Puri the last time and that is a good 18 years ago. The Ghee diye bhat, Alu bhaja and dal are still fresh in my memory. But there were folks who discouraged us to go there and so, we opted to visit Parijaat, very near to Puri
Hotel and tucked away in a gali on the sea beach road. We ordered Vegetable thali and a plate of chicken Kosha. Food wasn't too Bengali-ish even though there were postos, alu bhaja, dal and a subzi. The Chicken was tasty, but in no way qualified for a Kosha.

Lunch done,it was time to head back to hotel and get a nice siesta, which lasted for a good 3 hours. We woke up fresh and to a cup of tea and headed back to the beach. We captured the sun set, sipped some more tea, sat for some time on the rented chairs and watch the never ending waves invade the land one after another.It was past 9 when we took leave and ambled along the Sea Beach road to Swargadwar and for some last minute shopping. Dinner was standard vegetarian fare at the Hotel's "Original Family Restaurant" which was quite tasty and went off to sleep.

The next day was supposed to be the drive back home and we needed to rise up early.But this time the road was a known one and we knew beforehand about the route and the ride!