Trip to Orissa.. Day 3

Today we had planned of visiting the Sun temple at Konark and the Jagnnath temple at Puri. At the end of the day we did manage to visit both the places. Both places are about 50 Kms away from Bhubaneshwar. We left bhubaneshwar a bit late in the morning, so we couldn’t visit the Puri beach which is supposedly very famous and always crowded.

Konark is a great place to visit if you want to see some great architecture. We had hired a guide who explained the architecture to us. There are lot of sculptures around the temple which reminded me of Khajurao and the Kamasutra. Our guide was not shy of explaining the poses and the meaning of the sculptures. One sad thing about the monument is its slowly eroding away. Our guide explained that it’s mainly because of the iron content in the stones that are used for building the temple. Since the temple is close to the sea the salt in the air causes the iron the rust and the stones erode slowly.

After Konark we headed to a small beach on our way to Puri. It was just like any other beach, white sand, lots of water but very few people. We headed to Puri and reached there in about 30 mins.

Puri is a really crowded place, well you can expect that regarding the fact that thousands of people visit the place every day. We were not allowed to carry cameras or cell phones inside the temple grounds. The Puri temple is surrounded by around 25 to 30 small temples. It takes around a hour to visit all the temples. The temple provides lunch to all pilgrims as prasad. Its called the Maha Prasad. We ha that at around 4:30 in the evening and then went for a walk to see all the temples. By the time we left the temple it was already getting dark so we dropped the plan of visiting the beach. We reached Bhubaneshwar at 8:30 and I am lazing around in the room since then. Plans for tomorrow are not finalized. We may go to visit some more temples in the city.