Ancient Temples on the Beach - Puri, India

India is a fascinating and exotic travel destination, but most visitors never discover just HOW exotic it can be. Package tours cover Rajasthan, the Taj Mahal and other well known areas, but the eastern state of Orissa is a wonderful alternative. Orissa includes ancient temples, some only recently discovered, large beaches with fishing villages, and beautiful scenery from mountains to jungles. Travel in India isn't easy, but it should never be painful. Take your time, allow extra time for the inevitable delays, and more time just to unwind and appreciate this wonderful country. Planning a trip to an Indian beach resort isn’t as easy as booking a week in Cancun or Orlando, but with the internet you can deal with local agents who can help you plan. [More details on planning a trip like this are at the end off this article].

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Orissa is the home of over 62 ‘tribes’. Defined in the Indian Constitution as ‘scheduled castes’, they have historically been outside the political arena, although some of the tribes are mentioned inancient texts like the Mahabharata. A quick tour on the narrow mountain roads shows why. Their religion and culture were outside the traditional Hindu society, but they melded the Hindu Pantheon into their lives to produce a special masala similar to the absorption of Christianity by Mexican and South American tribal societies. [Masala is a versatile Indian word, specifically referring to a mixture of spices in cooking, but easily adapted as a metaphor.]

We spent our first week in the Orissa hills using Jeypore - Koraput as our base for daily exploration. This is mountainous country, with hidden valleys that offer prosperous conditions for farming. Weekly markets form a major communications function, as merchants bring manufactured goods from the lowlands to trade with tribal peoples who bring local produce, livestock and crafts from their hillside villages. The Bonda are known one of the best examples of this exchange, but even here only a few tourists, mostly Europeans, were present at the market. We went for days without seeing other tourists in the other areas. I’ll be devoting a separate hub to cover this area in more detail, since I’d like to show some of the other reasons to visit Orissa.  For now, here's a short photo tour.

We had a long travel day to get to Puri, leaving about 8 in the morning, and arriving at 4 in Goraput.

We had the full experience today – monkeys still on mountain highway to Koraput, then winding switchbacks out of Koraput to get to Andhra Pradesh, drop down sharply thru jungled ghats, to wide open plains of rice fields. Next we drove on the 4 lane divided highway along the coast, passing herds of buffalo, cows, sharing the freeway but even making it to 100 kph for a minute or two at a time. Always motorcycles, lorries, bikes, and the odd car or motorcycle coming the wrong way without anyone much caring. As we approached border with Orissa, trucks backed up for at least a mile, waiting to get thru – even with the proper paperwork, they often have to bribe their way thru and this takes time. As tourists, paying for a special tourist ‘permit’, we were eventually able to jump the line and get thru to find another line of the other side at least 150 trucks long coming from the opposite direction. At times, bottlenecks or jams slowed us as auto drivers tried to go both directions – at one point we popped thru a double lined corridor of patiently waiting trucks in our lane by driving between them with just inches to spare.

The next day we arrived in Puri and realized how comfortable the hills had been. Got out of car and both cameras fogged over for a minute, difference between lightly air conditioned and high humidity heat on the beach. Walking along beach – fishing boats were fitting out for evening launch.

Boatmen offered a ride in their boat in the river behind the sand bar for a small baksheesh. Fish eagles, crows and gray gulls flying overhead. Some boats quite colorful, other completely washed out. Fishermen repairing prawn nets and seiners. Grappling style anchors in the sand. To our hotel about 5, dripping sweat, but room had a cooling fan and nominal AC.

A typical dinner included prawn tandoori and mushroom masala, both very good. Orissa and Andhra Pradesh pride themselves on the hotness of their food. We often surprised our waiters since we enjoyed the spiciness, especially cayenne like pepper pakoras. We’d also had a week’s training, by eating at local roadside dhabas, where you had a choice of the chef’s special or plain rice.

Puri is a small town, mostly spread along a long beach. There is a cluster of hotels, mostly used by Indians on holiday, and few people swim. Instead they gather in groups and wade out, often fully clothed to let the waves wash over them . I had been wearing long pants earlier in the trip, in deference to a more conservative style in the interior, but here shorts were proper. Lunch at Wildgrass Restaurant – prawn masala and mushroom masala, both excellent

Even with the resorts, the beaches themselves are nearly deserted, once you pass the small cluster around the resort hotels. We were staying in a timeshare resort we had exchanged for, that was several kilometers out of town. After breakfast we walked along beach into town for about an hour. The tide was coming in, with 5-6’ breakers along long sandy beach. Hardly anyone around until well into town. We saw pllovers and black-winged stilts and other shore birds, and small tritons tossed up by the surf, and a dead cuttlefish. A few boys with fishing seine nets, but not catching much and the usual pearl sellers and others sitting under palm frond shelters. After an excellent fish tikka, and palak paneer, we grabbed an auto rickshaw for the ride back to our hotel. In all, a relaxing day. The temperature was still well into the 90’s F with high humidity, but we adjusted our pace, and drank plenty of liquids.

Back to room about 3, we tried to read when jackhammers allowed, but more on that later.

The next day we were picked for a lunch of prawn malai curry and palak paneer with freshly made butterscotch ice cream for dessert. Then our local guide Samar picked us up, along with 2 French women for short walk thru village & rice fields along roads leading out of the town. Pastoral, luxuriant tropical agriculture. We saw many birds including drongos, cormorants brown heron. Samar named one as a ‘yellow roller’, but the closest I’ve found to it may be a Brahminy Myna. Also saw nests of the Baya Weaver handing like Chinese lanterns from

Then on to twin temples to Shiva & Parvati; Temples are situated in the midst of a giant banyan tree. Every Tuesday & Saturday, priests acquire a trance state by means of intoxicating drugs in the sanctum sanctorum of the small temple, to the accompaniment of drums and musical instruments, bell ringing and much smoke.

We lazed around after early morning rains. Around 2 pm our driver took us to the nearby Konark Sun Temple. We arrived about 3 and, as usual a guide found us. Our plan was to tour the temple while the afternoon light was good, then remain for the free light show after sundown.

Built in the 13^th century, Konark was designed as the gigantic chariot of the Sun God, with twelve pairs of enormous ornamented wheels pulled by seven pairs of horses. While walking around the temple, it’s hard sometimes to picture the totality, but the wheels themselves bring the concept back. The poet Rabindranath Tagore wrote of Konark: "here the language of stone surpasses the language of man."  The temple was once quite near the coast, but silting  and ocean tides have changed the landscape.

Like the temples at Khujaraho and the southern Indian temples, Konark is covered by scultptures that make gothic cathedrals look like plain brick walls. Thousands of images include deities, celestial and human musicians, dancers, lovers, and scenes of courtly life, ranging from hunts and military battles. We didn’t have time to cont, but two thousand individually conceived elephants march around the base of the main temple

Also like Khurajaho, the temple is famous for its explicit depiction of scenes from the Kama Sutra. Our guide distinguished the scenes by identifying pointing out monogamy, bigamy, polyandry, etc depending how many people were involved. At one end of the temple are several statues of Sutra, sun god – on the eastern side, a young Sun in morning with full complement of horses pulling his chariot, on the western side, an older Sun only 1 horse left in evening. Very hot and clammy, absolutely soaked thru. After tour, waited til dusk for illumination. It started raining lightly about 5:30, and got heavier with lightning and thunder which were unscheduled additions to the light show. We made our way back thru the gauntlet of stalls selling cashews, religious items and tourist trinkets, reaching the car as it opened up completely. This was mid November, well beyond monsoon season, but we were were deluged for about 30’, roads flooding in places. The road into the hotel is already severely damaged from a storm last year –sometimes only ½ lane left with no shoulder – just a 2-3’ drop to the beach.

We took a real rest day for our last day,  breakfast about 9.  The hotel is like an Indian Marienbad – a vast, mostly empty hotel, and maze like dilapidated gardens. Passages which worked 2 days ago are boarded up the next day, but have glass doors today;  people scurrying everywhere; but nothing seems to change very much.  There is major restoration going on – we’e among the few guests staying here.  The former  pools in the courtyard have been jackhammered & dug up.  The workers are staying in part of the hotel, so they can get an early start.   But now women carry head loads of sand from the nearby to level the bottom where a fountain system appears about to be installed.