Trip 3: Puri

Who: Me, Pris, Aly, & Steven
Where: Puri
When: Jan 25 - Jan 27
How: 1.5 hour flight + taxi
[All pics are courtesy of Pris.]

The tagline for this trip: "Remember that one time, in Bhubaneswar/Puri ...."

Puri is known for being a nice, relaxing beach village with beautiful temples. You can bet that we were eagerly anticipating our relaxing beach time and 4-star accomodations at Toshali Sands.

To get to Puri, you have to fly into Bhubaneswar and then take a taxi for a 1.5 hour drive. As is expected in India, things didn't exactly start off on the right foot. The Bhubaneswar airport was tiny, and we had difficulty at first finding the pre-paid taxi stand. Then, to avoid being overcharged for the drive by revealing that we were staying at a nice hotel, we only told the counter the address/street of our hotel, rather than the hotel name. We were set at about 650 Rs for the ride to Puri. However, once we got into the taxi and told the driver we were going to Toshali Sands, he said that we had to pay about 150 Rs more. He claimed that it was because Toshali Sands was 15 km outside of Puri, but we figured that he was just trying to cheat us for more money since we revealed our hotel. After about a good 10 minute dispute, we finally told him to just drive us to the location that we paid for, and we'd find alternative transportation from there.

Arriving in Puri felt sooooo good. We got dropped off along the beach side, which was just booming with people and food stands of THE BIGGEST SHRIMP IN THE WORLD. Well, at least, the biggest I've seen so far. The air was cool, there was a slight breeze, and we could see and hear the waves crashing not too far away. The beach had an exciting and lively atmosphere, and it was nice to feel the vibe after the hectic taxi situation.

We found a place to grab dinner, and after an hour emerged from the restaurant to make our way to the hotel.

And then it was raining. Correction, it was POURING. It never rains in India! At least, not during this time of the year. That fabulous scene I described? Gone. The streets were bare, all of the transportation was gone, and it was soaking wet. What the hell, right?

We managed to find one rickshaw that was willing to drive us to our hotel for 200 Rs. Given the rainy conditions, we had no choice. The 4 of us climbed into the rickshaw and braved the weather. Keep in mind, rickshaws don't have full covering, so we were getting soaked in the rain. Furthermore, a very large portion of the 15km drive to our hotel had no lighting whatsoever. We pretty much thought that we were driving into the darkness to die in the cold rain. But thankfully, eventually we made it. Whew.

The hotel ... well, let's just say that I had higher expectations. It was decent, but not worth the money that we were paying for it. The rooms weren't too cozy or comfy, but we didn't have much of choice -- most places were booked because it was an Indian holiday (Republic Day). We settled down, laid out our clothes to dry (my entire bag of clothes got wet!), showered, and got some rest for the next day.

Luckily it wasn't raining when we woke up. After breakfast, we found a taxi to take us to Konark to see the Sun Temple. It's a huge, beautiful temple .... and it kinda reminds me of Indiana Jones. :)

The Sun Temple.

We spent a good half hour taking a look at the intricate carvings and detail. I honestly wish I could see what it was like 1000 or so years ago when the temple was in use. It's difficult for me to imagine how they could create such temples like this so long ago.

What we found really interesting is that, as conservative as the country is, a lot of the imagery is very provocative! Check out this carving on the temple:


And there were kids pointing at it! It's such a contradiction, don't you think? On one end, everyone is completely covered from head to toe. On the other end, you have saris and carvings portraying lewd acts. Something's not adding up here ...

After the Sun Temple, we made our way back to Puri, grabbed some lunch, and walked along the beach. I would say that the Sun Temple was the main attraction, and everything else was just relaxing. It was cloudy all morning, but the sun did manage to peek out for an hour or two in the afternoon.

Clouds and the beachside.

Around late afternoon we took a bicycle rickshaw to another temple located in Puri. The bicycle rickshaws are actually good fun -- it almost feels like riding a carriage, but then you start to feel bad when the old guy who's peddling for you breaks into a sweat when riding uphill.

Me riding in the bicycle rickshaw.

We couldn't enter the temple (Muslims only), so we just observed from a restaurant roof top over tea and milkshakes.


Also, some small processions came through with lots of people chanting and singing and dancing to music being blasted over speakers -- I'm assuming it was because of the holiday. It looked fun. I wanted to dance too .. I just had to jump with my hands up in the air.

After some bar time and dinner, it was finally about 9pm and we were ready to head back for sleep. And, of course, it started raining. Again. So once again, we had to pay a rickshaw driver a little more than usual (200 Rs I think?) to take us back to our hotel. In the end, I realize that that initial taxi drive didn't try to cheat us at all. It really did cost us around 150 Rs each time we travelled between our hotel and the main Puri village.

The next morning, we simply got up, checked out, and made our way back to Bhubaneswar for our early departure around noon. We killed some time at the airport by playing hearts (card game), and then we finally boarded the plane and came back to Hyderabad.

Let me take a moment to address airports and IndiGo airlines. Airports here in India are nothing short of a chaotic mess. In the States, each airline has its own terminal, but here in India, there's usually only a small handful of terminals all shared by several airlines. There are no directories to tell you where you have to go -- you just have to listen to the loudspeaker announcements, or follow people carrying the same tickets as you. Haha. It's pretty crazy.

And IndiGo airlines ... kinda scared me a little. Well, more like a lot. I understand that turbulance happens ... especially up-and-down turbulance. But, left/right turbulance? No, that has to be the steering wheel. We're pretty certain that we only landed on one wheel at first.

So note to travellers: just be prepared for the chaos known as Indian airports.

Back to our trip -- we safely made it back to Hyderabad (whew) and winded down with a delish brunch buffet at the Marriott Hotel. And the best part is that after all of that, I still had the whole Sunday afternoon and evening to relax. :)

All in all, Puri was an interesting trip, to say the least. If the sun had been out, it would have been gorgeous. Nonetheless, it was still a nice, chill, and relaxing adventure, and I'd still recommend the village to anyone. The troublesome taxi ride, the rain, and the seductive temple carvings? Those just give me more reason to say "Remember that one time, in Bhubaneswar ..."