The below was one of my earliest blog posts.. felt like reproducing it here.
"Day after day, day after day,We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.
Water, water, everywhere,And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,Nor any drop to drink."
--The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
The sea mouth shone brilliantly converging the lake and the mighty Bay of Bengal making it a splendid view to the eyes of the observers as the "ship" sailed towards it. We were spell bound looking at its vastness and awe forgetting our gruelling journey for a while hoping to get to the sea and take a dip into the blue water. But it were just a mirage, which was more than expected, the sea was so far that we had to climb a nearby hillock to get a glimpse of its waves creating phosphorescent froth.
This was on 23rd August 2008 when we all set to go for adventure to visit nearby places of the temple city Bubhaneswar. Creating a little breach to our hectic schedule we set off in a Qualis towards the mighty Chilka lake. Our plan was to first explore the great lake first which was also the dwelling place for dolphins. I had never seen dolphins in reality and my only expectation was to see them as closely as I could.
We enjoyed the trip with torrents of rain fall till the end of the city. We then stopped at a little hut-hotel at the outskirts of the city to have breakfast which was awful and created ripples of Chilka lake in our stomachs. We had to agin get down at a village nearby and had lemons to vanquish the discomfort.
It took nearly three hours before we finally reached the lake. There were two packages. One for three hour tour and one for half an hour. We preferred the three hour tour to make it more interesting and also of course to see more of the lake.
The motor boat was old with an engine that made sound similar to a tractor on field. It sped leaving the bank back and sped towards the first site. It was an island with a temple of Shiva. We visited the temple and were back in the boat. The boat started gain speeding it's way towards the sea mouth. Then I remembered about the dolphins.
The engine stopped after a while and the driver announced that dolphins were all around us. Where? I wondered and suddenly saw something jump in the water. "There is the Dolphin" I yelled only to realize that it was an over grown frog.
After a while a little froth appeared a few meters away when all of us screamed together! Yes it was a Dolphin but only a part of its (nose?) was (barely?) visible!
