We stopped for the night at the cosy Barjorji’s Banjara hotel in Balasore. The reason I mention the hotel is because we were treated amazingly well there, and I cannot recommend it enough.
The next day we got up bright and early and headed out towards Chandipur (20 km from Balasore) to check out the famed beach there. The Fortuner, a big, burly muscular car seemed out of place in Balasore’s tiny lanes, but the car was no bother to drive whatsoever, despite its massive proportions and the mad traffic there. Used as a test site for India’s defence missiles (including nuclear capable ones), Chandipur is one of a handful of beaches worldwide where the tide recedes by close to five kilometres everyday during low tide. A glorious sight, and a beach that’s pretty much devoid of human presence — that beach is staggering, and a must visit, even if it is slightly off the G-Quad. Beach scoped out, we headed out of Chandipur and towards the port town of Visakhapatnam (a k a Vizag) in Andhra Pradesh.
