Temple Hopping

We are now in Bhubaneswar*, a city of temples. I mean a lot of temples. There were originally over a thousand of them built between the 7^th and 11^th centuries when Bhubaneswar was the capitol of Orrisa. After that, the capitol moved to the beach town of Puri where the temple building business started all over again. They have managed to preserve about 100 of the temples in their original condition. This is far too many, in my opinion, especially when your tour guide insists that you really must visit them all. However, viewing a sampling of the best temples is well worth it, especially the ones with the erotic engravings. You can tell that these were party people.

Yesterday, we visited the flower market in Kolkata. This is THE place to be if you like marigolds (anyone remember Monsoon Wedding?). You also have to really like people to go there, as it is packed. I am pretty sure that there were more marigolds than people, but it was a close count. Tomorrow we are off to visit the craft villages, a cultural experience that will no doubt be accompanied with opportunities to shop.

Carol insists that her cow pictures are better than my cow pictures, so I am including one of hers. I’ll let you be the judge.

In case anyone is wondering, we are having a great time… our stomachs aren’t, but we are. In fact, my stomach packed up last night and returned to Seattle on its own. I hope it arrives safely.

*You can pretend that you can pronounce this, and I’ll pretend that I spelled it correctly.

Carol here.

This hotel is wonderful with lagoons, water fountains, lush gardens, and exotic birds calling in the trees. Our suite is twice the size of our bedroom/bath at home and the carved wood, art, and views of Buddha outside our room is lovely. Last night I swam in the pool under an almost full moon while just 20 feet away a priest rang a brass bell and began evening prayers in front of a shrine. Until the man with the huge machine that sprays mosquito fog everywhere (you can’t see 2 inches in front of you after he passes by). I am sure it is just a “gentle” insecticide, don’t you think?

Yes, today we did see lots of temples and although Mike and I aren’t capable of absorbing the history lectures, the visual images are set in our brains. The sculptural tiles go from the ground up to the 110 height of the temple. Ganesh, Shiva, wives of the gods, women that are half snake and half women are all carved in stone. The artists, designers, and carvers from these temples were sent to Angkor Wat in Cambodia to construct the temples there. And some of the 11^th century temples were done by artisans that later went to Japan (so there are clear pagoda like similarities in the later temples).

Of course we were tired, hot and hungry and on our way back to the hotel for lunch when yet another “strike” and demonstration began in the streets. Our bus was stopped and told we could not use the road and so had to turn around and find another road to get to the hotel. Unless we were a communist car (the group “today” that was in charge of the demonstration –tomorrow it might be the opposition) we could not go through. 15 minutes later on another major arterial, we are stopped by another policeman and army guy that said we couldn’t use that road either. Luckily we think some money changed hands and we were only a few minutes late for lunch.

One last story and I will let you go. Yesterday Mike jokingly told the tour guide that his favorite soup was potato, leek and lentil (he made this up as a joke). Today our main course was , yes you guessed it, potato, leek and lentil soup. WITH chocolate éclairs. I don’t know how MIke does it, but the guide just loves him.