Orissa's Eastern Coast, the Land of Jagganath - Feb 7-18 2015

From the rural tribal land of southwest Orissa we crossed the state and arrived at Gopalpur-on-Sea, a former British port and nowadays a sleepy somewhat-deserted beach town which I suppose has a certain charm to it, but we didn't find much to do around there except eat at some food stalls and walk along the rather dirty shoreline looking over a rough unswimmable sea. The only thing worth mentioning is the nice Krishna restaurant where we had a tasty and very inexpensive lunch. 

We stayed one night and continued to Bhubaneswar the capital of Orissa, one of the dirtiest cities I've seen and home to some of the largest and most alarming-looking cows and bulls roaming the streets. There are quite a few temples and of course knowing us (Daniel) we attempted to visit all of them though in my opinion only a few were worth the visit. More impressive were the rock-carved Buddhist caves of Udayagiri and Khandagiri just outside the city. We also took a short  day trip to the small town of Dhauli where we visited the Japanese white stupa, and to the "artist village" of Pipli which is actually just a bazaar selling, among other tourist favorites, pieces of the local craft which incorporates small mirrors on fabric.

Daniel with a group of promoters for a new movie 

A vendor selling stencils for Rangoli paintings

a colorful temple in Pipli

A short two hour ride from Bhubaneswar is the holy city of Puri, a former hippy-hangout and now home to a crowd of mainly older western tourists, Hari-Krishnas and loads of Indian pilgrims who come to worship Orissa's favorite deity Jagganath (the famous Jagganath temple is unfortunately off limits to non-Hindus, so we had to suffice with seeing it from the outside). Our plan was to settle in Puri for about a week until our train to Rajasthan and use it as a base to explore other sights around. In town we took a recommended cycle-rickshaw tour sponsored by Heritage Tours who established this initiative called Green Riders to support the local cycle-rickshaw pullers who are being greatly overshadowed and pushed aside by the numerous auto- rickshaws around. Our dedicated driver took us through the old city of Puri on an interesting journey visiting a few temples, a Buddhist stupa and the famous burning ghat by the sea. We passed our time in Puri drinking tea on the beach, again pretty dirty (often used as an open air toilet by the local fisherman) but still nice to hang around in the afternoon enjoying a nice breeze and watching the fisherman returning from sea with their fresh catch. At night we delighted in walking around the market at Marine Drive, a popular spot for Indian tourists especially honeymooners from Kolkata, where we stopped to eat some great-value food at the local stalls including veg momos for 30 Rs and fried shrimp for 60!

We hopped on a crowded 1-hour local bus to visit the famous Sun Temple in Konark, where we hired a guide to take us around and though he was knowledgeable he seemed most interested in pointing out the erotic Kama Sutra Carvings scattered around and fiercely encouraging me to take photos of them. We had a nice lunch at Suntemple Hotel (great eggplant curry) and visited the museum which was surprisingly well-maintained and also interesting, before getting caught in a storm and enduring a very long and cold rickshaw ride back to Puri. 

We caught another crowded local bus to the nearby heritage craft village of Raghurajpur whose residents are artisans known for their impressive and impossibly intricate Pattachitra paintings, an ancient art form depicting scenes of Hindu mythology on special cloth called patta or on dried palm leaves. Despite the hassling by the pushy locals to visit their houses and of course buy something it was a nice visit. Prices of the paintings vary according to size and quality and can be quite expensive (perhaps over-priced) but we did manage to buy some cheap bookmarks (10 Rs) which make a nice souvenir or gift and one painting engraved on a palm leaf (300 Rs).

We stayed at the friendly Lotus Hotel the first 2 days whose owner is absolutely lovely then decided to check out the popular Z Hotel where we somehow found ourselves taking charge and managing the place for a few days at the request of the friendly manager who had to leave to attend a wedding. Before embarking on our short-lived but successful hotel management career we took another day trip this time joining an OTDC government tour to Chilika lake, Asia's largest brackish lagoon at the mouth of the Daya river and flowing into the Bay of Bengal. We joined local tourists in an AC mini-bus to the town of Satapada on the lake, visiting a few temples on the way. The trip included a  long and rather boring 3-hour boat ride on the lake where we spotted some wild dolphins and stopped at the mouth of the lagoon for a walk on the beach and tea. The highlight for us was of course lunch at Panthanivas where we had an excellent veg pullao, pakoras and my favorite mushroom masala curry, and surprisingly also the short film at the visitor center explaining about the history of the lake which was very interesting. 

While Daniel took care of business at the lovely Hotel Z located in an old maharaja home and frequented by many interesting foreigners including some Puri veterans, I read books and watched tv on the huge plasma in the hotel lounge. It was nice to relax for a few days and not do much considering our usual fast-pace travel and keeping in mind the 36-hour train waiting for us from Puri all the way to Jaipur. We said goodbye to our loyal customers, the guests of the hotel who became our friends like Rosa from England and Helen from Scotland, and boarded the early morning train heading west on a long and tiring journey across the nation.