Chill out time

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I needed a break from cities and thousands of people so I got myself onto a train to Balasore in Orissa, fairly off the beaten track by the sea in the Bay of Bengal.

Once I eventually found the tourist office it felt like I had dropped into a scene from "it aint half hot Mum", a1970's British comedy. There were servant wallahs, typewriters bashing away in the office and all paperwork filled out in triplicate. It was clear I was probably their first foreign tourist for a few months, I was treated like Royalty! When I got to the hotel at Chandipur (the only one in the beach part of the area) the whole staff was lined up to greet me (I kid you not!).

The beach was amazing it was long and deserted except for thousands of red crabs who scuttled around in huge packs but fortunately always away from me, I did worry what if they sussed out they outnumbered me 5000 to one 😊

After a day chillin I hired a driver and headed into similipal national park to spot tigers and elephants. I was hopeful, there are meant to be over 300 tigers in the park, they dont make it clear that the park is the size of Yorkshire 😊

It was amazing scenery though, jungles, tree covered hills, 1000 metre waterfalls, open african like plains and vietnamese style paddy fields, and I only met 4 other tourists in the whole day!
I had a packed lunch of cold prawn curry, a mistake that I would find out 24 hrs later ....

After that it was back to the hotel and the next morning back to Calcutta and straight onto Varanasi, however Plan C was about to come into play ...

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