Orissa trip — Bhubaneswar, Konark, Puri

Long weekend in Orissa. Three nights, two days actually moving, a triangle from Bhubaneswar → Konark → Puri and back. Flew in to Bhubaneswar Wednesday, back out Sunday.

This trip was on the wishlist for two years; finally pulled it off this October. Putting the photos and notes up before the details fade.

Bhubaneswar — the temple city

Bhubaneswar is sometimes called the temple city of India because there are over 600 temples in the old quarter alone. The big ones — Lingaraja, Mukteshvara, Rajarani — are clustered close enough that you can do them in an afternoon if you’re disciplined. We weren’t disciplined; we did three in a day and gave up.

Lingaraja is the showpiece. It’s still an active temple so non-Hindus aren’t allowed inside the inner sanctum, but the surrounding complex is open and worth an hour. The architecture is Kalinga-style — a deeply different look from the Dravidian temples I’m used to from Tamil Nadu. Tower (deul) over the sanctum, hall (jagamohana) in front, both with that distinctive curving silhouette.

Konark — the sun temple

Konark is the reason most non-pilgrims come to Orissa. The 13th-century Surya temple is conceived as an enormous chariot of the sun god, drawn by seven horses, with twelve pairs of carved stone wheels along the base — each wheel a few metres across, each spoke a different sundial position.

The wheels are the photograph everyone takes. They are also the photograph that does not lie — they are real stone, real engineering, and they really do tell the time when the sun cooperates. (Locals will demonstrate, for a small tip, by aligning a stick on the central spoke.)

The main deul collapsed centuries ago and what’s left is the jagamohana and the platform. Even partially ruined, the scale of the thing is the point. You walk the perimeter and try to picture what the original 70-metre tower must have looked like before whatever happened — earthquake, structural failure, theological vandalism, the standard list — happened.

Puri — the beach

Puri is forty kilometres from Konark and the standard plan is Konark in the morning, Puri in the afternoon, stay overnight, Jagannath temple at sunrise. We mostly did this.

The beach itself is more functional than scenic — wide, flat, lots of fishing boats, surf that’s not for swimming. But it’s the kind of beach where you can walk a kilometre at sundown and not see the same person twice, which is a quality you can’t fake.

The Jagannath temple is the spiritual headline. Like Lingaraja, non-Hindus can’t go inside, but the Mahaprasad is available outside and it’s the cheapest, most reliable meal you’ll get on the trip.

practical bits

• Fly into Bhubaneswar. Train works but the flight is two hours from Hyderabad and the train is sixteen.
• Konark from Bhubaneswar is a 3-hour cab — there’s no direct train. The road is good after the first hour.
• Stay in Puri, not Konark. Konark has nothing for the evening; Puri has the beach, food, and a working town.
• Don’t try to do Bhubaneswar + Konark + Puri in one day. People will tell you it’s possible; they will be wrong.
• Take a guide at Konark. ₹300 for an hour and the iconography of the wheels alone is worth it.

Twenty-four photos in the gallery on the site under the bhubaneswar_trip set. Browse the full reel if you want it.

— Karthik