so i landed here with basically zero plan, which is my specialty. the bus dropped me at this random junction and i just... stayed. that's the vibe. coordinates 20.2206, 85.5014 if you want to google it but honestly google won't help much because this place doesn't perform for tourists. it just exists. locals look at you like you've grown a second head if you take photos of anything normal. i love that.## Quick Answers

Q: Is this place worth visiting?
A: only if you're okay with not having a plan. there's no instagram queue here, no influencers, no nothing. you actually have to talk to humans. if that sounds exhausting, go to bhubaneswar instead.

Q: Is it expensive?
A: laughably cheap. i spent maybe 400 rupees a day and i was eating like a king. accommodation was 200 rupees for a room that had a fan and that's literally all i need.

Q: Who would hate it here?
A: anyone who needs wifi to function. anyone who has a itinerary. anyone who gets upset when they can't find a coffee shop that serves oat milk. this is not your place.

Q: Best time to visit?
A: honestly? january through march. it's dry, it's not 45 degrees, and the humidity doesn't try to kill you. i came in peak summer and nearly died. ##

the weather right now is doing that thing where it feels hotter than the actual temperature. it's 24.34°C but humidity at 90% makes it feel like 25.18°C. you're not sweating, you're literally leaking. i took a shower and felt wetder afterwards. the pressure at 1005 means everything feels heavy, your clothes, your backpack, your eyelids. someone told me this is the worst time to visit and they were right but also i don't care because the light here at sunset is literally unreal.

i met this guy on a motorcycle who spoke like three words of english and he just pointed at a direction and said "temple" so i got on the back and we went. that's how most of my days work here. no planning. just getting on motorcycles with strangers. a local warned me not to go too far alone at night but honestly the only thing that's going to get me is a stomach issue from eating street food that's been sitting in heat all day.

A small village in the middle of a valley

*the food situation is where this place gets interesting. i found this tiny operation, maybe three pots, one burner, and the woman there makes something with rice and fish that i cannot stop thinking about. it's not fancy. there's no menu. she just makes food and you eat it. i think that's like 30 rupees? maybe 40? i gave her 50 and she looked at me like i was insane. a local told me the fish comes from like 20km away and it's literally pulled out of a river that morning. i don't know if that's true but it tasted like it.

here's the thing nobody tells you about this region: it's quiet. not boring quiet, but the kind of quiet where you can hear yourself think and that's terrifying for most people. i heard from another traveler that most people only stay a night and then head to the bigger cities but i think that's the mistake. you're supposed to be uncomfortable for a bit. that's where the actual stuff happens.

i've been walking around with my camera and everyone wants to know what i'm taking pictures of. nobody here is used to tourists. a kid followed me for like two hours yesterday just because i gave him a candy and then he tried to show me his entire village. i met his grandma. she gave me tea. i don't even like tea but i drank it because you don't say no to tea from someone's grandma. that's like a rule.

insight block 1: the real cost of traveling isn't the money you spend, it's the energy you expend pretending you're not lost. once you embrace being genuinely confused 100% of the time, everything gets easier and cheaper.

there's this hill near the main area that gives you a view of everything and nobody goes there. i asked about it and someone said "it's just a hill" which is exactly why it's perfect. i sat up there for three hours watching the light change and thinking about nothing. i met one other person, an old man with goats, and we didn't even talk. we just existed near each other. that was enough.

the tourist vs local thing is weird here because there basically aren't tourists. so you're just... a person. in a place. with no infrastructure built around your comfort. you have to actually figure things out. you have to use your face and your words and your broken hand gestures. nobody speaks english well except for like three guys who work at a tea stall and learned from youtube.

i found a spot where they dry fish in the sun and the smell is something else. it's like the ocean decided to become a solid and then rot a little. it's horrible. i love it. this is what traveling is supposed to feel like, not curated experiences but actual sensory overload that you didn't ask for.

insight block 2: the best food always comes from places where no one cares about your opinion. the people cooking here have been cooking the same thing for decades and your instagram doesn't matter to them.

on the way back from the hill i passed this shop where a guy repairs motorcycles and he had this entire setup in the street, just working on engines while traffic moved around him. i sat and watched for like an hour. he didn't charge me for the watching. i bought a soda. we did a kind of conversation where i pointed at things and made engine noises and he laughed at me. i think we became friends.

a village in a valley with mountains in the background

my accommodation is not good by any standard. there's a mouse. there's definitely mold. the wifi doesn't work. but the woman who runs it brings me water in the morning and it's cold, actually cold, which in this heat is like a religious experience. i don't know how she does it. i think she's magic.

insight block 3: the quality of your accommodation matters way less than the quality of the person handing you the keys. a bad room with a kind owner beats a nice room with someone who ignores you.

i keep saying i'll go to bhubaneswar tomorrow. it's close, like a few hours, and everyone says it has better stuff. more temples, more food options, more everything. but i haven't gone yet. there's something about being in a place that doesn't want me that keeps me here. i have to earn it or whatever. that sounds pretentious but i don't care.

insight block 4: you learn more about a place by asking one person deeply about their life than by visiting ten tourist sites. i know more about this village from one afternoon with a fisherman than from any guidebook.

random things i learned:
- don't wear white, the dust gets into everything and you'll look like you've been rolling in flour
- always carry cash, the atm here is sometimes on and sometimes not and nobody knows why
- learn to say "no spicy" in the local language or suffer the consequences, i suffered, it was bad
- the cows have right of way, this is not a debate, move for cows

someone told me there's a festival coming up in like two weeks and everyone gets drunk and there's music and they light things on fire. i don't know if i should stay for it. staying for things is not usually what i do. but also maybe? the whole point of this trip is saying yes to stuff i normally wouldn't do.

insight block 5: the most memorable travel moments are the ones you didn't plan. the universe has better suggestions than your itinerary ever will.

a local warned me about the monsoons here. apparently when the humidity hits 90% consistently, everything becomes mud and everything gets weird. i can believe it. right now it's just sticky and gross but manageable. the pressure at sea level is apparently affecting things but i don't know enough about weather to understand what that means. all i know is my hair has given up.

i think about leaving constantly. then i don't. there's a rhythm here that i can't explain and i don't want to break it by overthinking it. tomorrow i'll probably get on another motorcycle with someone i just met. maybe we'll go to a temple. maybe we'll go to a field. maybe we'll just drive until we find food.

that's the move.

the guy who drove me to the hill said "you have good face" which i think is the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me in a language we both barely speak

if you're thinking about coming here, just come. don't overplan. don't read too many blogs (ironic, i know). just show up and be confused and eat the fish and sweat a lot and talk to people even though it's hard. that's it. that's the whole thing.

links for the nerds:
- tripadvisor has basically nothing on this area which tells you everything
- yelp doesn't exist here, it's all word of mouth and that's probably better
- reddit has a few threads about odisha but they're mostly wrong
- wikipedia has a page that's accurate but boring
- lonely planet mentioned it once in a footnote i think
- the local bus station has more useful information than any website and nobody will tell you that

link to tripadvisor link to yelp link to reddit link to wikipedia link to lonely planet link to local tourism

final thought*: i came here to get lost and i got exactly that. 10/10 would be confused again.

Getting Dramatically Lost in Coastal Odisha (And Why That Was The Point)

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