Bhubaneswar: Despite a hot and humid weather, the 78th edition of Ekamra Walks recorded 45 walkers.
Three families, one each from Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, travellers from Germany and Italy, senior bureaucrats of the state government and Centre and many more heritage enthusiasts took part in Sunday’s Ekamra Walks Old Town Circuit.
For the walkers who joined the heritage-cultural expedition on a day when the discomfort level was quite high, the cloudy weather came to their rescue.
Komal Gupta from Ayodhya called her experience at the major Shaivite religious circuit “wonderful.” “This is my first visit to Odisha, but today’s heritage walk really introduced me to the unique temple building style and architecture of Kalingan era,” she said.
Similarly, N Priyanka and N Srinivas from Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh and Gayatri Soni from Baloda near Raipur in Chhattisgarh also enjoyed the heritage walk.
Priyanka termed her experience as “educative and culturally enlightening” as it profusely dealt with Kalingan art.
Rebecca Hof, a graduate student from Munich University, also joined the heritage walk with her friend Shraddha Mehta. Rebecca, after completing a three-month internship at Kolkata-based NGO Kadam, has arrived in Bhubaneswar to explore the major tourist destinations.
“I found the heritage walk interesting and the way our guide explained things with a comparative study vis-á-vis other regions of India was a cherry at the top. I will stay here for a couple of days,” she said.
Anna Madaschi, an Italian tourist, who is exploring the entire country, said, “I want to explore all these Buddhist sites near Bhubaneswar and Cuttack and would like to go to Dhabaleswar shrine near Cuttack. Odisha is a nice place and I feel like home here.”
Among bureaucrats principal secretary to government of Odisha was present.
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