Look at my video: https://mouthshut.com/diary/bafjounnm/Outside-Sri-Jagannath-Temple-at-Puri
Last time I visited Puri was in 2001 when my daughter was only six months old. Now she is 8 years. Mainly to show her the gorgeousness of sea at Puri made me enthusiastic to visit Puri again. I and my wife planned of the tour before a week and get the required railway boarding through internet. One of my friends, Sanjay was at Puri while we are planning for the tour. We catched him over telephone and requested him to book a suitable hotel for us. He confirmed our hotel booking within 6 hours. Thanks to Sanjay for selecting a nice hotel from where we get endless beautiful views of the sea as well as the city. The hotel we stayed was Hotel OM(DAB Sea Facing Rs. 500.00 for off season and Rs. 1150.00 in season)
We started from Howrah on 16th Aug. 6:45pm by Jagannath Express. My daughter started enjoying the tour just after boarding on the train.
17th Aug. 2008: We reached Puri next morning and went to our hotel by a Autorickshaw which are plenty available outside the railway station. On our way to hotel, when the sea became visible, my daughters eyes sparkled with joy. Throwing our luggages to our hotel, I took a few snaps from our hotel room and withing half an hour we prepared for taking a bath at the sea which is just 60 feets away from our hotel. Our room was sea facing and there was not even a single obstruction in view. We bathe there for a complete long hour.
After bathing, we came to our hotel wet, as it is only 10-15 secs. away and found that the hotel was arranged with a water tap at the ground floor for removing sands after sea bath. We bathe there and discovered that the pockets of my barmuda was filled up with sea sands. Finishing our bath, we changed our dress. A panda came to meet us and we told him that we are here only for sight seeing and we don’t want to visit the temple, as we were aware of the horrible pandas at Sri Jagannath Temple. The panda was a very nice man and told us that if we change our mind and want to visit Jagannath Temple we may contact him. We again came down for breakfast and having the breakfast, we went to Mohana, which is just 2km away from Puri. We went there on our foot, and the beautiful nature made us forget our tiredness of long 2km walking. The place was beside the Bay of Bengal and an small river meet the sea. All the areas surrounded by sea, high land, various trees and lot of enthusiastic people like us. Though the place is much less crowded than the Puri beach. I visited puri 6 times, but this was my first visit to Mohana. I and my wife too enjoyed this walking trip. We spend 1 hour there and then back to our hotel.
In the evening we enjoyed ourselves in the Puri beach and went to market behind our hotel. The sea green water and the golden sand made a nice view at Puri sea beach. Meanwhile, my wife lost her mobile phone by a great wave. In this rainy season generally the waves are much larger than rest of the year, and it was the full moon when we visited there, so the waves were really big enough. I never watched such a large wave at Puri in my life. We were sitting on the beach and all on a sudden a large wave came towards us and we could manage ourselves by escaping but my wife could not manage her mobile phone, and the phone was taken away by the large wave. We wait there for a long time, if it returns back, but it did not.
There sea beach was full of temporary shops where we could get anything. We enjoyed fried sea fish, crabs, chicken legs. Mmm. all were really delicious. A chicken leg costs Rs. 20, big crab Rs. 20, big fish Rs. 20. The smaller ones costs less, Rs. 15 or even Rs. 10 per piece. After sepending the whole afternoon and the evening beside the sea beach, we went to Chakrathirtha road. There were some shops which gives motor bikes on rent. We talked with one shop owner and booked a bike for the next day for Rs. 250 plus usual fuel cost to be borne by myself. We planned to go Konark via Marine Drive Road with the bike and we did it. It was a great adventure.
Look at my video: https://mouthshut.com/diary/bafjounnm/Outside-Sri-Jagannath-Temple-at-Puri