It was still rainining when we reached Bhubaneshwar (at around 13:30 or so), which made the roads splotchy and wet. After finding a place to stay in Bhubaneshwar Hotel(where at the reception we were asked to show our passport! that was because of Rajiv[a friend of mine from US] I am sure....) we went out to look around for food. We spotted one crowded dhaba right opposite our hotel so we went there.... ordered for the non-vegetarian thali on the menu almost instantaneously. We were very hungry indeed. For it showed as none of us spoke a word when we ate.
It was still drizzling, and therefore I decided to visit Lingaraj Mandir (the main attraction of Bhubaneshwar) later in the evening, hoping that it would stop raining by then. So we got back to our hotel room. Inside we read the Lonely Planet, trying to plan out the following days journey. It was decided that we will leave for Konark the next day, and from there we will head towards Balasore the very same day. Balasore is the nearest town to Baripada, from where one can organise a trip to the Simlipal National Park (this idea of visiting the Simlipal forest occured while we were in the train to Bhubaneshwar, which only started to concretise now). From what we could gather, we set ourselves a very tight schedule if we were to make it to Balasore the very same day we were going to Konark. This is because from Bhubaneshwar to Konark by bus takes about two hours. But we had to come back to Bhubaneshwar railway station to catch the Balasore train, so four hours there! Plus, the train journey from Bhubaneshwar to Balasore would take about five hours! To give you an idea, Bhubaneshwar is on the eastern side of Orissa, and Konark further east bracing the eastern coast. But Balasore is on the north-eastern side of Orissa which promised us an ardous journey ahead. "We'll make it, we're young", said Rajiv. It lifted my spirits a bit! ;-)
That evening we headed for the famous Lingaraj Mandir. After much haggling in the drizzle we found an autorickshaw that took us to the temple. Before getting inside the temple we had to keep our leather purse, belts, shoes,cameras,etc at the counter outside the temple itself. Inside there were hardly any visitors around, this was quite surprising to me because the Jagganath Temple in Puri will never be free of crowds. Perhaps it was the rain. The moment we entered the gates of the temple we were greeted by a english-speaking panda who offered to be our guide cum priest . We refused his services, on which he was grinning. He insisted and followed us around saying that he can explain everything to us in English. To this Rajiv insisted that the explanation be done in German, which made the panda leave us alone, still grinning. Phew! We were kind of regreting that such architechtural wonder was not allowed to be photographed. However, to my surprise Rajiv had slipped in his miniature digicam within his jacket-pocket! So we went to an isolated part of the temple and surreptitiously pixelated the 54 metre high temple dedicated to Trivbhuvaneshwar (Lord of Three Worlds)!
Having left the Lingaraj Mandir we looked for the other temples dotted around Bindu Sagar - also known as OCEAN DROP TANK. It is believed that Bindu Sagar "contains water from every holy stream, pool and tank in India." Visibility was poor, the only source of light was Rajiv's torch and the street lamps. The water in the tank might have been holy but the unbearable stench from it was quite repulsive. Still. we trudged along looking at the other temples. More pictures were taken of them - this time- legally.
Within eleven we were back in our hotel room after a quick dinner at one of those many dhabas.....
The following morning it was a jump start to the bus stand from where buses for Konark left. It wasn't raining anymore and the sun was shinning. We took an auto rickshaw to the stand which proved to be a long ride in itself. The path the auto took was through the more developed part of Bhubaneshwar with wider roads and less congestion, which was a relief I thought. A jolt was when we realised that the autowalla left us a great distance away from the bus stand and charged us full for it! Such brashness! :-(
We started shouting out loud to all the oncoming buses KONARK??!? It was difficult for us to understand where the buses were headed as most of the destinations were written in Oriya language, and strangely none of the conductors could understand what Konark meant(making it seem as if Konark's outside Orissa!). It's only when they added an extra O after KONARK+O, and repeated after us, that they realised where we wanted to go. Still, it seemed getting a bus to Konark would be difficult. After much expedition we reached the real bus terminus, and finally boarded a bus that was to leave for Konarak! Soon the bus filled up with local passengers, the driver got on to start his engine.....real progress! It was a long ride to Konark. The bus made its way through beautiful Orissan villages, with open green fields on both sides of the roads. It indeed was quite beautiful outside; inside the bus, however, it was nearly hellish - just as the book had warned - 'overcrowded busses' ! As Rajiv put it "packed like sardines in a tin can!". The bus made several stops at every small village and town it passed by, loading and unloading passengers, all in their Oriyan best! Sun-burned women dressed in screaming orange and fluorescent green sarees and their beau in bright yellow shirts and spotless white trousers and dark goggles!
Soon the conductor who was until now invisible in the thick of things yelled KONARKO!! And we got up to unload ourselves when the bus stopped for a brief moment. As the bus left I could see the shikhara of the Sun Temple. Seemed like we had some entertainment in our hands. As we walked towards the gate where the ticket counter was supposedly positioned we stopped by to drink some daab water, two in a row!! I for the first time loaded film in my camera, hoping to find something.
As we headed for the ticket counter, I could feel someone following us. Looked around to find one man wearing a white cap and a shiny grin expectantly looking at us. He was one of the many registered guides available around the temple. We said we might consider taking his help later, but not now. So he was hanging around with us, still smiling at me expectantly as I tried to concentrate on photographing the facade of Sun Temple. Eventually we did seek his 'help', and he started off like a school boy doing a recital of the history lessons before the exam day. It was good fun listening to him. We asked him a lot of questions....like where would be the carving depicting the Raja's connection with the South African king?... Why are there exactly 128 dance postures depicted on the Nritya Mandapa(dancing hall), What was used to bind the huge rocks to one another? He went on an overdrive, almost cathartic in nature as he went about describing the erotic carvings on the walls of the temple....perhaps he has little chance to be so explicit when families come to avail his 'guidance'. He was very comical.
After the heady tour of the Sun Temple we headed for food at the PANTHANIVAS (Orissa Tourism and development centre) Restaurant, good food, relatively expensive[I still have the bill of Rs. 176.25 for two non-veg thalis dated 24.08.2006]. We finished our lunch there, knowing preety well that our next meal would come after a long time. Then we got on a bus to Bhubaneshwar, thankfully the bus dropped us near the station. At the station we bought tickets to Baleshwar, the train was due in ten minutes...soon we were on a not so clean train to Baleshwar....it was around 16:30...it took about five hours to reach there according to the book ....time was killed watching the sun set outside over the distant hillocks that seemed to run along with our train...one thing was clear that we had to stay back for the night at Balasore instead of Badipada....neither of us had any idea what was in store for us, reaching there in the night time, an odd town at that....totally extempore....adventorous yes, risky -very much! Thoughts of staying near the police station in case we didn't find any place to stay were already playing in our minds....hmm.. it was not without any reason though....the stations the trains stopped by before reaching Balasore were dimly lit with a solitary gaurd waving a lantern with hardly any passengers on them......that sort of gave us an idea of the kind of place Balasore might be.....frankly I was a little apprehensive....we had thought of going to Chandipur, the beach town...which was thrity minutes away from Balasore, in case we didn't find a place to stay there ....all planned and replanned soon we found ourselves loading off the train at Balasore station at around 21:30 or so....a little apprehensive...we asked a policeman there for the directions to the nearest hotel....he was helpful and directed us properly....we thanked him and ran up the overbridge into the town - to our surprise the town wasn't as desolate as we imagined it to be .... phew what a relief!! we checked into one of the hotel's as mentioned by the cop...anything at that time seemed reasonable. had dinner at the hotel's retaurant ..Rajiv went for Kitkats!
Next morning took a rickshaw to the bus stand where busses left for Badipada, found one leaving as soon as we reached the stop. So we hurried ourselved into it.. it was about one and a half hours journey from Balasore to Badipada....the bus got overcrowded preety soon as it set off......on reaching the badipada bus terminus we were beseiged by the auto mafia...but we avoided them and headed for the orissa tourism centre at badipada.....reaching there we found it to be closed...damn..nope.. there was someone there who was directing us to come up.....so we went up and enquired "how do we go to the Similipal forest...?" he gave a blank look saying "it's closed to visitors in monsoons, opens at around the month of November!!"
SHITE!!!!!
We headed back to the bus stop, deciding to take the train to Calcutta from Balasore. This meant we were to return a day earlier than planned.....the bus ride back to Balasore from Badipada was absolutely hellish...it took three hours to reach us back!! went to balsore station and cancelled the tickets we had, and reserved tickets for a Balasore Howrah journey for that very day....the train was due at 16:00 and it was around 13:30 or so....so we had about three and a half hours to kill...Rajiv decided to do away with his long overgrown beard and also to go for a haircut at the local saloon...i waited outside reading the lonely planet book...wondering where to hit next....then we headed to a restaurant in one of the upmarket hotels out there, thinking I would only go for ice creams....but ended up ordering for lunch! By now it was around four o' clock..so it was time to head back to the station....we didn't have confirmed seats so things were preety dicey...
On our way back, the ticket checker never asked for tickets all the way till Howrah! Also, the seats weren't bad. And before the blink of an eye the Dhauli Express entered Howrah station at around 21:30 or so.....thats all folks....!! ;)
