So our first Indian train journey was actually a real treat. The train left spot on time, and after about an hour or so the other 4 people in our carriage made ready for bed, and so we did the same. Within 2 minutes of curling up on my upper berth I was sound asleep and didn't stir until Sarah shook me awake as we were pulling into our destination station at Puri. The train was super comfortable, and totally quiet and so I had a fantastically refreshing sleep.
Sarah took over the map reading duties for our stroll to the backpacker area of the town, and after checking a few places out we settled into the Lotus Hotel. Since we arrived nice and early in the morning, and we'd both had a great sleep on the train, it gave us the whole day to explore the small-ish town.
The town itself isn't very nice though, it's really famous for having a huge Hindu temple (that non-Hindus aren't allowed enter), and also for being only 33kms from the really famous site of Konark. So that first day we just took things easy and strolled along the not-so-clean beach and checked out the restaurants and stuff.
The next morning I hired a moped and we set off for Konark (after booking our onward train to Hyderabad for later that night, and failing to get more money out as the ATM's in the town were down!). After the mayhem of getting out of Puri, the road trip out to Konark was lovely, with very little traffic, great weather and lovely scenery. The Sun Temple at Konark really was worth the trip, as the structures there are very impressive indeed. The huge charriot wheels and numerous erotic carvings from the 13th century were amazingly well perserved (the whole complex was buried under massive sand dunes for hundreds of years), and the surrounding grounds immaculate.
We had lots and lots of Indian people asking us to have picture taken with them of course, which gets tiring pretty quickly, but the overall atmosphere was really cool, with all the Indian ladies wearing beautifully colourful saris and lots of kids running around (and the peacefullness was no doubt helped by there being no hawkers inside the site, nor did we have any hassle outside either - in fact after nearly 3 weeks in India we've had very little hassle of any kind from anyone really).
So after a couple of hours exploring the temple we had a great lunch in the fanciest hotel in the area (it's a tiny village area though, so 'fancy' is a relative term), checked out the local museum that had some impressively displayed sculptures before heading back to Puri town.
Seeing as how I was now an expert at driving in Indian traffic I decided to check out Puri town itself (although the traffic is totally manic, with people, bikes, trucks, taxis and cows all over the place, it all moves quite slowly, so it's not difficult at all really). I managed to find all the main sightseeing sights in the town, although the hotel from which you view the famous temple was closed on Sundays. So all-in-all, it was a really great day out, and I felt I well and truly deserved the drink or two that evening over dinner.
Next morning we needed to get a bus to the town of Bhubaneswar, from where the train would take us to Hyderabad. It was bit awkward with timings though, so I decided to head there and spend a night before getting the train the following morning (I could have tried to get there from Puri on the morning of the train, but that would have been pretty stressful in Indian traffic with a fixed train departure).
So it was an auto-rickshaw (basically a tuk-tuk) to the bus station, although of course the guy tried to earn himself a wee commission by dropping us directly to a private bus instead of the bus terminal. I was arguing with the guy and the bus driver dude as another bus driving past just stopped with the conductor guy hanging out the door shouting 'Bhubaneswar'. After asking him the price (a good bit cheaper than our private bus dude, and obviously leaving that second), we both literally hopped onboard and left our cheeky rickshaw driver behind, a tad bewildered looking and completely commission-less.
So that gave us a whole day and night to explore Bhubaneswar, which basically involved a lot of strolling about checking out temples and the like. They were all pretty impressive I must say, and I got a tiny wee tour of one temple from the high-priest guy. He showed me the kitchens were they cook every day to feed the local poor, and it was gorgeous looking food I must say, and lots of it.
That evening we checked out more fancy hotel restaurants and had yet another great Indian feast of a dinner before a drink in a pretty cool local bar. It's strange here that people don't really drink much, or at least not in the open. Quite a few places have now served us beer with the bottles and our glasses wrapped in tissues, or in metal cups. I've seen regular news reports about Hindu conservatives in vcarious parts of the country - the biggest news being about physical attacks on Indian women drinking in Western-style bars.
Next morning we got breakfast as a take-away from our hotel and strolled down to the train station for our train further South to Hyderabad.
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