Mangrove Odisha — Odisha Weekend Getaway (3 Nights), Off Season

The Mukteswar is small, easily missed if you're rushing to Lingaraj. But it has the toran, the freestanding arch the others lost. The carvings on the toran are tighter and stranger than anything on the bigger temples. It's where the guides start when they want to teach you to read Kalinga architecture.

The boat in Bhitarkanika is slow and the guide kills the engine before each bend. We saw nine saltwater crocs in the first hour. Most of them sunning on logs, one in the water with just the eyes above the surface. The mangroves close in overhead and the sound drops away.

Ratnagiri and Lalitgiri are the Buddhist edge of Odisha. Eighth-century viharas, mostly ruined, mostly empty of tourists. The museum at Ratnagiri has two seated Buddhas that survived the iconoclasms intact. The custodian let us walk through after closing because we'd come all the way from Bhitarkanika.

Udayagiri is older than Lingaraj by a thousand years. A Jain monastic site cut into the hill, second century BCE. The Hathigumpha inscription names the king who built it. The elephant gallery is at eye level, the carvings still readable after the heat and the rains.