Delhi Day / 24 Oct 09

Said farewell to our hotel in Bhubaneswar and to the Jagannath gods and flew via Jetlite to Delhi. Arrived at hotel by 1:30. Took taxi to Connaught Place shopping complex and descended down a pedestrian stairway into something that looked like the 14th street arcade from hell. If this had been in New York I would never have entered. But Cathy is intrepid and with LOVE DELHI book in hand she quickly and miraculously found the shop she was looking for. The very small shop sold pretty cikan (pronounced chicken) embroidered cotton and silk shirts. We found lots of things to investigate.

What puzzles me about Indian shopkeepers is their inability to read interest. They will unfurl endless numbers of garments before you while you repeadly say "no" and then when you finally do express interest they unfurl another unwanted item. It must be a cultural thing. Anyway we did eventually bridge our communication gap while Cliff watched the latest David Pogue technology update on his iPhone. Next stop was a DVD/CD shop. I bought two sitar CDs, not Ravi Shankar.

Then we ventured out to the Regal Building to visit a khadi cloth store. Ghandi advocated India's return to homespun simple clothes and this store is devoted to selling all types of khadi cloth. I had though that khadi came only in off white, but this shop taught me a lesson. Cliff bought material for two shirts which he will have made at an elegant tailor around the corner.

Puri-fication / 23 Oct 09

Arrived at the seaside town of Puri on the Bay of Bengal last night and checked into the Mayfair Beach Resort. After looking over our itinerary, which had been designed to include leisure time, we decided that we might have added in a bit too much. At least at this point in the beginning of trip we weren’t ready to spend much time poolside. So we rejiggered things and came up with a new plan that would enable us to do all the sightseeing in one day that had originally been scheduled over several and fly to Delhi early. That will give us time to visit museums before catching an 8pm flight on Sunday to Jaipur. Spirit of India, our outfitter, was extremely accommodating in making all these spur of the moment arrangements and we compliment them highly.

One note about the Mayfair Beach Resort in Puri…there is no resemblance whatsoever between it and its sister hotel the Mayfair Lagoon in Bhubaneswar. The Bhubaneswar hotel is luxurious and the Puri hotel is well…not. As we had a glass of wine at the bar, for example, I noticed something small and dark with four legs and a tail scamper by. From then on keep feet strictly off the floor. Dinner was in a restaurant call the “Aquarium” that had the brightest lights I’ve ever seen outside of a Japanese pharmacy. As in Bhubaneswar there seem to be no foreign tourists anywhere to be found, but there are plenty of Indian travelers.

So this morning we loaded our bags and set off early. The first stop was a pottery village where clay vessels are made for use at the famous Jagannath Temple in Puri (more about this in a minute). What I had feared would be an uninteresting stop turned out to be a great one. The village was very different from others we’ve seen. Houses had clay walls and thatched roofs and each house was painted a different color. There were attractive decorations painted next to the entry door on either side; motifs that include clay pots, palm trees and coconuts which by looking at they as you enter and exit the home are meant to bring good luck. Also charming were words painted on the front of house such as “Puspa Weds Krusna” or “Sonia Weds Purna”. We probably saw 10 small temples in this tiny village and watched a priest chant, bow his head in prayer and wave a lighted oil lamp. There was a steady flow of villagers to these small Shiva or Kali temples, stopping briefly to touch their foreheads to the ground.

Then to a spot we’d all been waiting for because we’ve seen images of these gods since our arrival in Orissa. The Jagaannath Temple in Puri is one of the four most important Hindu temples in India. The others are in the south, west and north areas of the country. The Jagaannath is the eastern-most temple. The name Jagannath means “lord of the universe”. Jagannath is the 9th reincarnation of the god Vishnu.

The temple was built in the 12th century (Kalinga style architecture) and is a four temple complex. The 1st temple is for offerings to the priest, the 2nd is the dance temple (there is still one lady in her 70s who dances each night to the gods!), the 3rd is the prayer temple and the 4th is 65 meters tall and is the temple to the gods. On top of the 4th temple is the symbol of Vishnu, the wheel. One of India’s most famous events happens in July of each year when the gods are removed from the temple and are drawn through the streets for 3 km. The “king” of Orissa sweeps in front of the chariot with a golden broom.

Despite being the god for all people, non-Hindu are not allowed inside so we were limited to exterior views only. But what we did see was amazing – up there with the Varanasi experience of last year. We exited our van nowhere near the temple and walked through a teeming crowd under broiling sun along a wide main street in town. There were people going in every direction, vendors selling food or religious objects, beggars without hands or feet, busses, tuk-tuks, bicycles, cows. Eventually we reached what was called a “library”, another room full of brown, crumbling papers, and climbed a winding stone stairway to a rooftop. From there we had the most unbelievable view of the street we had just navigated as well as a view of people walking up the 22 steps to enter the temple, and the entire temple complex. To me the vista with thousands of people in it looked like something out of a Cecil B Deville move. I took a movie with my camera and when I get back to New York I will try to upload it to YouTube. Baadal told us that the temple’s 700 ovens serve 56 kinds of food to any pilgrims who wish to have a meal. Then we walked around the perimeter of the temple complex and purchased small souvenirs.

As if that weren’t enough, we headed on to a craft village called Raghurajpur that specializes in palm leaf and other kinds of beautiful painting. The entire village came out to greet us and everyone tried to lure us into their home “just to look”. We finally acquiesced and entered the home of a long-time painting family who demonstrated various techniques. The palm leaf technique was especially interesting. They carve into the leaf and then rub waterproof ink into the etched marks and then wipe the ink away. What’s left appears to be an ink drawing.

And then for something completely different…we turned to two things Buddhist. We stopped at the Shanti Stupa (aka the Peace Pagoda) built in the 1970s by a Japanese monk to promote world peace. And at Cathy’s favorite stop of the day, the place where King Ashoka issued his edicts, carved on stone tablets in 260 BC, that decreed that the principles of Buddhism should be followed in India.

So we had a very full day, as we had had yesterday. One thing about traveling in fairly remote or primitive rural areas is there’s no place to stop for lunch and certainly no place other than behind a tree to stop for other matters. At one point we asked Baadel what villagers who have no running water and no village facility do in this regard. He told us that there is a field to which the women go once in the morning and once in the evening. I have great sympathy for them because for the past several days we too have been on this same schedule, although not trekking to a field.

Around 5pm we checked back into the Mayfair Lagoon Hotel in Bhubaneswar, a place that now seems like home. My room wasn’t quite ready so I waited in the lobby until 6 or so. When I finally got to room I discovered that my bathroom had a rather strange shower. There was a showerhead hanging from in the ceiling but it was obvious that the shower wasn’t supposed to be a huge open area, it simply wasn’t finished. When I rejoined C&C later they said their shower door had fallen off and I should ask the front desk to put shower doors on mine. I did so and was told it would be fixed straightaway. When we went back to C&C’s room to retrieve a package and we found the repairmen busily at work on their shower and no one at all working on mine. Oh well, I was happy to have running water and we all had a good laugh. Dinner at our favorite Indian restaurant. Tomorrow we catch a flight to Delhi at 9:55am.

The Great Konark / 22 Oct 09

Checked out of our little palace at the Mayfair Lagoon and loaded up the bus. Drove to see the famous Sun Temple at Konark, 75km from Bhubaneswar. The route took us through interesting scenery. There are still rice fields and occasional ponds with water hyacinth and lotus. But as we approach the coast both the flora and houses became more tropical. We started to see many palm, coconut and banana trees. Houses have thatched roofs and are wicker sided.

Konark temple was built around 1250 AD and is a dedicated to the Sun King. When it was originally built it lay near the shore of the Bay of Bengal but today the coast is quite a distance away. The temple is designed to look like a giant chariot carrying the Sun King. At the bottom are 12 gigantic wheels each intricately carved. The entire temple is decorated with carvings of beautiful women, amorous couples and panoply of gods and goddesses. Our guide told us that during the heyday of the temple unmarried young women were chosen to dance each night for the gods. What a sight that must have been.

The sun king must quite happy with his temple because during our visit between 12-2pm we were absolutely roasted. After this visit we continued on to our new destination, Puri, a coastal town where we will spend the next few nights.

Ikat Dhonga Ikat Dhonga / 21 Oct 09

Woke up to find that the electronics jinx cloud that I’ve been operating under had spread to my wonderful Indian cell phone. When I met C&C for breakfast Cliff had reception but I did not, and we have identical phones and were sitting next to each other. Cliff is pretty handy with gadgets but couldn’t fix it. For some reason he had the idea to ask one of the people in the restaurant if they could take a look at it since everyone in India has a cell phone and ours is pretty simple. A beautiful hostess was standing nearby and she a tried a few things that didn’t work. The two of them had their heads together when I left the table to get last minute items ready for the day. When we met in the hotel lobby, low and behold the hostess had fixed it, saving me/us a lengthy stop at an Indian store. I would have never thought to ask a hotel employee. What’s really wonderful about the phone is how inexpensive it is. I spoke to Eze and Scott last night for a total of 30 minutes at a cost of only $.06/minute. The US cell phone rate would be $2.99/minute. Now with our technical problems resolved we could proceed.

In the morning we visited a very interesting ikat village called Naupatana. It was only 80 km from Bhubaneswar but it took us two hours to get there. Roads in this part of India are horrible anyway, never mind going to a remote village. Although roads are paved they’re filled with enormous pot holes. Along the way we passed ox-carts, water buffalo (Scott, you would have loved the huge herd we saw wallowing in water), people herding cows and bulls, bicycles carrying six foot bundles of sticks, adorable school children in their matching uniforms and backpacks…

The ikat village was L-shaped with houses lining the street on either side. Each small house seemed to have an identical layout, long and narrow with the first room containing a loom, the room behind that a ladder to the roof, behind that a “kitchen” and that was as far as I could see. We saw women working at looms and young men sitting outside tying off ikat designs.

My favorite experience had nothing to do with weaving. We encountered a group of women with small bowls of food in their hands and they were making a “tak tak tak tak” sound. Our guide explained that they were performing a ceremony to ward off being bitten by the King Cobra. The sound was an imitation of the sound it makes. Fantastic!

Lunch on the bus. We’d been told to bring something with us and after all the food we’ve eaten we were perfectly happy to much on just nuts and bananas. After lunch we visited a bronze dhonga making village, Sadeibareni, which was much more primitive than the first and that’s saying something. Apparently this village has always made bronze but the government is trying to help the villagers by promoting sales and has put in a paved walkway for tourists to make their hovels more accessible. Children were caked with dirt but ran along accompanying us in a friendly and playful way.

Women in both villages were saris with nothing underneath but discreetly keep themselves covered. Men wear dhoti which is a long cloth wound around the hips and tucked between the legs.

Then a long, 110 km drive back to Bhubaneswar…we arrived at the hotel hot, sweaty, dusty and exhausted. I excused myself for the evening but somehow C&C had the energy for an Orissan dinner and musical performance.

Ambling through Cuttack / 20 Oct 09

Began the day visiting monastic caves carved into a hillside by Jain priests over 2000 years ago. The sun was intense despite the fact that we arrived at around 10am. We took every opportunity find respite in the shade.

Next we visited a real Bhubaneswar gem – the Museum of Tribal Art & Artifacts. Orissa is home to 13 officially designated “Primitive Tribal Groups”. I was shocked to read in the museum’s brochure that these peoples make up 22% of the state’s population. Exhibits are arranged by theme (jewelry, textiles, musical instruments, hunting, agriculture, household objects, etc) and include examples from each tribe. These tribes must be an anthropologists’ delight. In one tribe, men and women dress exactly alike even down to hairstyle. The only way to tell gender apart is by number of nose rings (women wear three; men two). In another it has become taboo for women to wear any clothes above the waist. Instead they cover their bodies with layers and layers of beaded and silver necklaces. In another, a shaman paints a beautiful protective or curative painting in white on the interior wall of the home. These paintings are so famous that facsimiles are depicted on the tribal museum’s exterior walls. I could go on and on. We were interested in buying books to tell us more about the indigenous tribes and so went to another building (the “Library and Research Center”) which was the most antiquated place I think I’ve ever seen. It was filled with stacks of paper to the ceiling and boxes of manuscripts I suppose, all yellowing and covered with dust. Four men assisted in filling out the receipt for my small purchase, in triplicate, with lots of “official” rubber stamping. It reminded me of getting a liquor permit in Gujarat.

After lunch we drove 30km to town of Cuttack, which until 50 years ago was the former capital of Orissa. It is situated between two important rivers. Because of its age and its confined footprint Cuttack has a much different feeling than the more modern sprawling town of Bhubaneswar. Its narrow winding streets and brightly colored (albeit decaying) buildings were charming. We wandered through various markets, looking in shops, some selling silver filigree and gold jewelryh, others selling brass objects, others selling food of every conceivable kind. I love seeing the barbershops, tailors with one old painted sewing machine, and the pharmacies. In other places like fabric shops the salesman sits on the floor on a cushion behind a small boxlike table. The visitor takes off their shoes before entering.

As we walked we quizzed our guide about the deities depicted everywhere, from shop banners to statues in shrines recessed in small alcoves along the streets. Hinduism has a pantheon of thousands of gods, but the most important are Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the protector) and Shiva (the destroyer). Where it gets really complicated is that each deity has been reincarnated many many times and each time has a new name. For example Krishna is also Vishnu, but in a different reincarnation. Shiva in various incarnations has about 10 names. We are here in India during the time of a Kali festival. Kali is another form of Parvati, the wife of Shiva. (Keep in mind that Dhurga, who we heard much about in Bali, is also another form of Parvati, but a different mode.) We are learning how to identify each deity. For example Shiva is always depicted holding a trident; Vishnu a wheel; Laxmi a lotus. Ganesh, second son of Shiva, is easy since he has the body of a man but the head of an elephant.

Then almost an hour-long drive back to Bhubaneswar in thick traffic and red hazy smog. The sun is already beginning to set at 4pm these days. It seemed as if every vehicle in Bhubaneswar was on the highway at 5pm, each on a mission to get to where it was going and by any means necessary. Indian driving is exactly as everyone had described to me: no rules, everyone going whether they like, all vehicles honking incessantly. We especially liked signage on the front of local buses that use brightly colored flashing bulbs (think slot machine in Vegas).

Temple Day in Bhubaneshwar / 19 Oct 09

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.