Cruise At Chilika - A beautiful Visiting Sites And A Lake Where Resides A Lot Of Irawati Dolphin

Chilika is a brackish water lagoon on the east coast of India. It consists of 35 rivers including Bhargavi, Daya, Makra, Malaguni and Nuna flowing into bay of Bengal. It is approximately 65 Km long covering an area of more than 1000 square kilometer.

Chilika is famous for the following reasons:

There are several islands in this lagoon namely Badakuda, Honeymoon, Kalijai Hill, Kanthapantha, Krushnaprasadrah (Old Parikuda), Nalabana, Nuapara and Sanakuda where you can reach by cruising through the lake. There is a tiny brick-built structure which the boat operators used to call “Breakfast Island”.

It is the largest of all the grounds in the Indian sub-continent for wintering migratory birds. There are almost 160 species of birds visits Chilika each season from as far as Caspian Sea, Baikal Lake, Aral Sea and other remote parts of Russia, Kirghiz steppes of Mongolia, Central and southeast Asia, Ladakh and Himalayas. Each bird coves around 12000 kilometer to reach Chilika.

This is also a home for a number of threatened species of plants and animals.

This is also a great recourse for fishery and more than 1,50,000 people are earning their livelihood from this.

Nearest airport is Biju Patnayak Airport at Bhubaneswar. There aremainly four locations from where you can explore the Chilika Lake.

Puri 60 KM from Bhubaneswar and well connected by Rail.

Balugaon 100 KM fromBhubaneswar and well connected by Rail and road.

Barkul 105 KM fromBhubaneswar and well connected by Rail and road.

Rambha 135 KM from Bhubaneswar and well connected by Rail androad.

Accommodation

Private Hotels: Lots of private hotels are available at Puri. A fewprivate hotels are also available at other three locations.

OTDC (Orissa Tourism DevelopmentCorporation Ltd.) Hotel (Panthanivas) is available at all four places.

Cruiseat Chilika lake

If you have a chance to visit Chilika, you must cruise at the lake.This would be the most amazing part of your tour. I have included somephotograph of my recent tour to Chilika, which you would love to see.

We choose Rambha Panthanivas (OTDChotel at Rambha) because it was less crowded and have all the facilitiesrequired for the cruise.

Don’t miss the sunrise view fromPanthanivas!

We started our three and a halfhour cruise in the early morning. Hotel staffs arranged our breakfast in thebreakfast island.

We were lucky to view a lot ofIrrawaddy dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris) from the breakfast island. This is athreatened species of dolphin and Chilika is one of the few places of the worldwhere you can find this species.

Chilika is famous for winteringmigratory birds. Although we visited the place in the early summer, we werelucky enough to view a lot of birds. Look at the pictures it was amazing!

We visited two islands Nalaban (Alsoknown as Birds Island) and Honeymoon. We didn’t find any bird at the island;they all were at the lake. We could take a few fantastic photographs of thoseamazing birds!

There was nothing to see at theHoneymoon Island except a few broken buildings! It was told that some king hadbuilt that house for his honeymoon.

PS: The photographs used in thishub have been taken by me with a Nikon D3000 camera. It can be used by anyonebut should be restricted to personal use only.