IT�S amazing, Orissa�s only heritage hotel is a 77-year-old pink-coloured wood and limestone structure standing close to the Puri coastline and looking out for guests to come and inhabit its ancient rooms. It�s on Puri�s famous Chakratirtha Road. And from far, with its slatted wooden windows, stone arches and balustrades, the hotel looks like an old military hospital. Only instead of an ambulance parked in the driveway, there is an old steam engine of British vintage sunning itself there peacefully.

This place is called the BNR Hotel, or the Railway Hotel of Puri, because BNR stands for Bengal Nagpur Railway, which is now the South-Eastern Railway of the government of India. BNR was of the British Raj. That explains the steam engine at the entrance. Closer inspection reveals it is a PL-692 Locomotive built in 1904 by Stuart King of England for the Maharaja of Paralakhemundi at the cost of Rs. 12,000. Neither Mr. King nor the Maharaja remain, but the steam engine stands outside BNR as if ready to chug off on adventure.

The hotel itself is quite a charming place and full of memories and memorabilia of the Raj. From inside, it does not resemble a military hospital at all; instead, it looks like a railway station. The 35-odd staff members here are all employees of the South Eastern Railway. And they dress up like they are working on railway stations and in waiting rooms and cafeterias, too. However, no trains draw up at the BNR Hotel. That�s because the Puri Railway Station is a few kilometres away and there is no railway line that extends towards the beach.

Sandeep Chowdhury, the manager of this old hotel, says that it gets occupied only during the holiday season. �When there are holidays in Kolkata, like during Durga Puja time, that�s when people drive down to Puri and stay at the BNR,� he explained. The hotel has 34 rooms out of which only four are air-conditioned. The rest have big ceiling fans. But they are all breezy rooms, because they overlook the sea. The rooms are spacious and with railway wooden furniture, bathrooms with huge geysers and glass partitions. A double-bed air-conditioned room at BNR costs Rs. 1,500 a day and a single-bed, non-air-conditioned room is for Rs. 600.

Its guests are mostly pilgrims coming to the Jagannath Temple in Puri which is two kilometres away. And they come not only because BNR is cheap and has an old world charm about it, but also because the stories about its food, which is a menu from the Raj, travel far and wide. The most outstanding item on the menu, even one-time visitors to the hotel will tell you, is the Trifle Pudding. Breakfast is English, porridge, eggs to order, cornflakes, toast, tea and fruit. Lunch is Indian, soup, a fish, a chicken or mutton curried dish, rice-dal-papad, ice-cream. And dinner is Continental, with a souffle or pudding for dessert.