Odisha

Odisha's substance is stone. The Sun Temple at Konark, a thirteenth-century chariot in sandstone with twenty-four carved wheels, has been a World Heritage Site since 1984, and Bhubaneswar holds a working temple town's worth of others. The standard loop is Bhubaneswar, Puri and Konark, and it is close enough together that three days covers it, four with Chilika. Chilika is Asia's largest brackish lagoon, holds Irrawaddy dolphins and fills with migratory birds in winter. The mistake is adding Similipal in the far north to the end of that: it is a long drive, it needs a permit, and it closes for the monsoon. One thing to know before you plan around it. The Jagannath temple at Puri does not admit non-Hindus. Rath Yatra, in June or July, is the exception, because the deities leave the temple and everyone can see them. Almost nobody visits Buddhist Odisha at all: Ratnagiri, Udayagiri and Lalitgiri north of Bhubaneswar, and the Jain caves at Udayagiri and Khandagiri inside the city. November to February.