Shitting on a beach (not me)
Trip Start
Mar 10, 2007
1
104
153
Trip End
??? ??, 2007
Puri,
India
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Seeing as we were all bloody starving we were none too pleased to find that where the restaurant used to be there was now merely a bomb crater, least of all Joao, who had his heart set on his favourite meal
thats a good photo
. Thankfully though Raju had relocated to a smaller place nearby, so breakfast was still possible. After room hunting we all met up again and Priscilla and Koot informed me that there was a dance festival on a Konark, and that today was the last day of it, so we bussed it to Konark, aware that there were no buses running back to Konark at the time the festival finished and unaware of how we were therefore going to get back from Konark.The sun temple in Konark, built by king Langula Narasimha Deva in the 13th century, is really something to marvel at. We all agreed that it reminded us of the complexes at Siam Reap, but as you can walk around the outside and see the whole complex, none of us felt the need to pay the extortionate 250r fee for foreigners to enter the grounds.
Our stomachs filled, we then went to the dance festival, where todays performances were of Orissa and Manipur dance styles, stopping on the way in a little tent where they were holding a promotion for India tea. The promoters were seemingly glad to see us westerners and made the most of our presence, photographing us with their salesgirls (absolutely gorgeous women) and some free India tea (no complaints from me there, I'm a sucker for freebies). The guy in charge of the marketing was a little strange, he kept going on and on about how British Indian culture really is, how they read Shakespeare, specifically citing Macbeth and King Lear as his proof of that
sorry corrin
.The performance of orissa style dancing was far more entertaining than the manipur dancing, and also far more energetic. How the dancers managed to keep going for one hour straight, with no breaks is a mystery to me. After getting a little bored, we left early into the Manipur dancing (as did many Indian people) and contemplated how we were going to get home. Luckily managed to hitch a ride with a puri army guy who was driving back there and so we experienced the craziest driving i have seen in my life so far (yes corrin, even worse than when dad picked us up and drove us back to his!)
Puri is basically one long street of restaurants and guest houses along the beach, which cater to holiday makers from Kolkata and backpackers alike and have sprung up from an area which i guess was originally just the fishing village at the end of this strip. I spent the next few days exploring this area and the town further inland mainly with Joao, as Priscilla and Koot did their own thing, which in Koots case was mainly sleeping. There is also the very famous Jagnnath temple further inland, a very popular pilgrimage site for Hindus as in the eyes of Jagnnath (lord of the universe) there are no caste distinctions. The temple is impressive, though we could only view it from the outside and the roof of the library across the street, being non Hindus.
The fishing village is an interesting place to visit, the people there are very friendly and obviously used to people walking around their village, as they didn't seem to mind
lovely
. There were photo opportunities left right and centre, the kind of photos one would expect to see in the colour insert of the lonely planet. Also left right and centre is human faeces and people excreting it, as it is no secret that the fishing beach is widely used as a toilet.Further down on the 'tourist beach' i saw one of the legendary Puri lifeguards, legendary for the uniform they wear. The guy i saw looked like a 'down and out', with his yellow vest on, his rubber tube around his waste and his conical paper dunces cap (the standard uniform). If i fancied swimming amongst the faeces here there is no way i would entrust my life to one of these guys.
Also met a nice Indian student/teacher on the beach and had a good conversation with him (Manas) about differences in our cultures, politics(yeah thats right, i can talk about intellectual things too!) and studying etc.
Had my dinner in a place where some Indians came in to start a drinking session, or judging by their manner i should say start another drinking session. One guy kept desperately trying to get me to drink and worryingly kept saying he loved me like a girlfriend before trying to feed me boiled eggs.
Finishing my meal, i left the 'restaurant', watching my behind very carefully, and met bumped into Jamie and Kyomi, who were also here in Puri, before socialising with fellow travellers at my guest house and then with Joao
aaarrrgghhh
.Next day i wandered around the village again, met up with Manas again on the beach for a chat before meeting Jamie and Kyomi for our arranged dinner date. Jamie is a very friendly guy and as soon as i met him i could tell he was one of these 'spiritual travellers' as Joao would call them. He demonstrated this further tonight when he explained to me that he and Kyomi met in Thailand two weeks ago and were on a spiritual journey to discover themselves. He also said that as soon as he met me in Kolkata he felt i had a very strong Aurora around me and that i was a very good person with a good spirit and that he felt he had been destined to meet me. He also said that he felt i was on a mission to discover my past lives and that i should go where it feels right. Now I'm not into this kind of spiritual beliefs, more accurately i know nothing about it and have never thought about it, but it was very interesting to hear his views and beliefs and i had a really good evening with the two of them.
Next day i decided to take Jamie's advice, and opted to go against the travel route of the others and instead to travel to Hyderabad, even though it meant being on a train where i had no seat and was 72nd in line for a free seat. I would leave the next day so me and Joao used this day to visit the Khandagiri and Udayagiri caves at Bhubaneswar. Though impressive, these caves are in a bit of a sorry state and it seems the Indian population are even more disrespectful when it comes to historical monuments than the English, as these are severely defaced with initial engravings and writing on the walls. I got mobbed by a group of school kids who wanted to know everything about me as usual, but then taking it farther and farther, wanting me to 'autograph' their shirts, arms and even a 500 r note. Joao had to rescue me from this gang before we returned to Puri around 10pm.
Next day did usual internetting and admin stuff, then got the bus to Bhubaneswar, from where my train to Hyderabad departed. Pretty crammed yet uneventful, except the businessman next to me who had the audacity when i opened the window to get some air to lean across me and promptly close it, before giving me the sleaziest grin that said 'I'm the boss here'. Obviously not all Indians are soo friendly.
