We’re not in Delhi anymore. Left yesterday morning to find ourselves in a new, hot and humid world. We'd been surprised that despite notices that the temperature in Delhi had been 95 degrees during our stay, we rarely felt hot. As soon as we exited the plane in Bhubaneswar we knew things had changed. Bhubaneswar is the capital of the state of Orissa and is located on the eastern coast of India.
After arrival we headed straight to the Orissa State Museum to see ancient statuary, paintings, palm leaf texts and tribal costumes. The guidebook said this was a “don’t miss” but I wasn’t prepared for the antiquated state of the building which is completely crumbling, stained and has electrical wiring hanging loose along the hallways.
Our hotel is extremely nice – a posh oasis in an otherwise modest (to put it mildly) and dusty town. Hallways ramble in all sorts of odd directions. It has six or seven different dining rooms to choose from. The pool outside my room looks like something from Las Vegas complete with a statue of mermaids spouting water.
This morning we toured five or six beautiful temples; some of the oldest in Orissa, dating back to the 7th century. We learned to tell the difference between a temple dedicated to Shiva vs Vishnu (a Shiva temple has a trident on top; a Vishnu temple, a wheel) and saw many carvings of Ganesha adorned with leaves and colorful flowers. We are all trying to learn more about the pantheon of Hindu gods and goddesses which is made more complicated by the fact that each can be reincarnated multiple times, each time with a different name.
Our local guide, Baadal (pron like “bottle”) is lovely but a challenge for me to understand. In fact everyone in Bhubaneswar is difficult to understand. Orissans speak a different language than Hindi which must make their pronunciation of English different than most other Indians. Baadal pronounces both a “v” and an “f” as a “b”, a “z” is a “j”, and a “w” as an “o”. And those are just the notes I made in my little book. I’m sure I missed a few. I listen with a kind of 10 second delay before I understand what's been said.
Bhubaneswar is home to a million people and it looked as if half of them were on the road today as we drove around. My impression of Bhubaneswar so far is of a huge, flat, gray, dusty city with clogged streets, every vehicle honking its horn. People ride motor scooters, bicycles, tuk tuks and small cars (cars a relatively rare sight) or cram together on busses or trucks. There seems to be no concern for turning according to any sort of traffic rule. You just turn and it is assumed that the oncoming vehicles will yield – and that seemed to be the case today. The same rule applies when crossing a street. We just held hands and stepped out as one and traffic slowed down enough for us to dash across. And keep in mind that cows and dogs are also meandering through traffic at the same time. It’s all pretty hair raising.
In the afternoon we visited a local market (think Chinese market crossed with 14th Street complete with plastic flip-flops and wind-up toys) plus an emporium selling ikat textiles from local towns. Late afternoon found us at a wonderful fair celebrating the goddess Kali. There are virtually no tourists here and we are the only non-Indians walking around at these markets or at temples.
