Beach Bliss

Puri has been pure laziness. It's nice and hot here, around 32 in the day, 20 at night, so it was a sweaty walk from the train station to our hotel. We settled on what happened to be the only internet cafe around, with a great restaurant/bakery, two minutes from the beach. The room even has Television, this time with three English channels, including HBO. Most importantly, there are two other restaurants right across the street that have excellent and cheap food. We're easily staying within a 1000 rupee budget for the three of us, including hotel, three meals a day, drinks and snacks. The beach isn't amazing compared to many, but if you can ignore some of the garbage, avoid the sewage outlets, and keep away from the fishing village stench, it's pretty nice. I flew the kite for the first time since Thailand, in a nice strong breeze that had me skidding down the beach. Raven and Su both had a turn, and besides the guys trying to sell us hash and fish, there wasn’t too much of a crowd. I couldn't stop myself from swimming after the surf picked up, the 3-4 foot waves breaking on the smooth, sandy beach. I caught the first wave I went for, and was in for an hour, thinking about the pollution the whole time. The taste of my mouth finally drove me back to the hotel, for a drink and a shower.

Puri is another very holy city, with some popular and important temples and festivals. We're lucky to be here while it's quiet, as room prices skyrocket during the festivals. Another World Heritage Site is just north of town, the Sun Temple in Konark. It's only 35 km away, so we went on a day trip by public bus. We had a pretty late start, so it was good and hot for the walk to the bus station. The road to Konark is fantastic; smooth and straight, with little traffic. It runs through another wildlife preserve, then cuts close to the ocean, before turning inland. The Sun Temple was originally at the shore, but the sea has receded a full three kilometers since it was built in the 13^th century. It was damaged by Muslim invaders, then partially destroyed by successive cyclones, before being enveloped in the shifting sands. The interior has been filled with stone and sand, to prevent a potential collapse, but it is still an incredible structure. Similar in style to the temples in Khujaraho, but on a grander scale, and built to represent the cosmic chariot of the sun god, Surya. We had our picture taken dozens of times with different Indian families and their crying babies, but it was pretty laid back.

After seeing how nice the road was, we decided that renting scooters to explore the beaches on the way to Konark would be a great idea. We had such a late start the next day, after staying up late watching the boob tube, that we skipped the scooters in favor of a trip to the Jagannath temple. It's closed to non-Hindus, but you're supposed to be able to get a decent view from the old library across the street. After wandering through the derelict building and paying 200 rupees as a 'donation', we were led up to the rooftop viewing area. We should have saved our money, because the temple is surrounded by a massive wall, and all the action happens inside the temple, anyway. Duped again...The god Jagannath, an incarnation of Vishnu, and his brother and sister, all carved from black stone, look a lot like the characters from South Park. They are continuously draped with garlands, and dressed in different costumes throughout the day, with over 6000 men involved in caring for the deities. It's a pretty big deal. During Rath Yatra festival, Jagannath and his siblings are dressed up and paraded through town on massive chariots, up to 15 meters tall. Devoted pilgrims used to throw themselves under the wheels, to die within sight of the gods. I can't even imagine believing something so strongly, and it makes me wonder if I've missed out on some part of the human journey. Should we all worship a god that is worth dying for?

Anyway, back to the scooters...We were up and ready to go for the 8:30 opening, but the rental shop next to our hotel had no scooters left. We walked up the road a bit looking for another shop, but a large group had rented all the best machines. We finally found a shop with bikes, but he only had one scooter left. The bikes are actually slower, so we were about to wait until the next day when a guy on a pink scooter pulled up. We could have it and another older grey one for a good price, so off we went. There's nothing like cruising around on rental bikes somewhere tropical. Freedom, warm wind in your hair, palm trees whizzing by. Just perfect. We pulled off the highway, climbed over some sand dunes, and had a beach all to ourselves for as far as the eye could see. Not much shade, but I was looking for waves, so I didn't really care. A few groups of Indian men managed to find us, maybe looking to see who left their bikes on the side of the road. It was mildly annoying, considering how empty this stretch of the coast is. No one for kilometers, and they come and hang out 10 meters from us. I just shook my head and shot some disapproving looks, and after a bit of gawking, they eventually left. Another couple of guys showed up, one joining Raven and I in the water, and the other chatting with Su. This time the police showed up to chase them away, even though they weren't really bothering us. We played in the waves for hours, getting a pretty good sunburn in the process.

The scooters were due back by 5:30, so eventually we packed up, planning to ride up towards Konark for a late lunch. I started my scooter and pushed it out of the sand onto the road, but Su's wouldn't start. I tried and tried, but it just wouldn't fire. It had run perfectly in the morning, but now we were stuck. We had the other scooter, but couldn't just leave the broken down one on the side of the road. The police came by again, and we used their phone to call the rental shop. The owner said he'd send a mechanic out, so I waited while Su and Raven went to grab some snacks. Over an hour later, the mechanic finally showed up, but after working on it for another hour, he still couldn't get it to run. He needed to take it to his shop to work on it, but it was starting to get dark by now. There was no way we were going to pay for an autorickshaw to get it there, so we just bailed out. I told the police and the mechanic to get ahold of the owner, it wasn't my problem anymore, then we all piled onto the one scooter, and drove away. I kept the throttle wide open almost all the way back to Puri, trying to make it back to town before it got too dark. It's hard enough dodging cows, goats, dogs, people, and head-on traffic in the daylight. The next day I tried to get a free day out of the scooter guy, but I knew it would never happen. I complained that we'd only used it for an hour, got stuck out in the middle of no-where, and still had tons of fuel left in the tank. He countered by complaining about how much he'd had to spend on the repairs, and would only give us some free fuel if we wanted to rent another bike at full price. Bah. All in all, it was still a great day.

Puri was all about the food. The Peace Restaurant, across the street from our hotel, was by far our favourite. Like their menus says: World Famous in Puri, but Unknown Everywhere-Else. They had egg and tomato sandwiches for 35 rupees, cheese and garlic sandwiches, a delicious stir-fried potato dish with peppers and sauteed veggies for 35, and Om Rice; fried rice poured into an omelette with cheese for 50 rupees! Yum. Yum. Yum. We did start planning our meals around TV shows, though, which was a bit much, but a necessity under the circumstances. The day we planned to leave, it rained in the morning, so we stayed for an extra night, making nine in total, a nice long rest. We're off to Chilika Lake, a huge lagoon with dolphins and over 250 species of birds, before continuing south. Loving Orissa.