A rubbish day. The sleeper train to Puri was supposed to leave at 9 pm; it actually left at 12.23. We sat in a dark virtually uninhabited station being eaten alive by mosquitoes, watching a man with learning difficulties walking up and down the platform singing a sad little song. I suffered the consequences of a meal yesterday and threw up on the platform, 7 times. The best pewk since my schooldays. There was no electronic departure board saying when the train was leaving. Eventually we phoned Mr Raj who reckoned it was coming in 10 minutes, and it did! We were expecting a sleeper compartment with two spaces, but it had 4 and there were already two people there, an old bloke who spent all night snoring, grunting, groaning, belching and farting, and a young bloke whose phone went off every half hour as his girlfriend phoned up to find out where he was. We didn’t get a wink of sleep. We have been in a 4-person compartment before on the Trans-Siberian; it was twice as big, much more comfortable and our companions were delightful apart from the drunk who kicked me in the head when he fell off the top bunk.
When we got to Puri there was no-one to meet us and after sitting in the sweltering heat for an hour we got a text from a driver who said he was 280 yards away and could we carry our luggage to where his car was parked. After a bit of an argument we pursuaded him to drive round to where we were. The hotel looked brilliant from the outside, although it is still being built and it doesn’t have a restaurant yet. The 6 members of staff looked at each other in bemusement when we tried to get them to understand that we wanted to eat. However it does have a cold lemon tea dispenser and I had 10 cups, trying to replace the liquid I left on Andun station platform.
We went to see the Shri Jagwanath temple. Jagwanath is another name for Vishnu and the temple was built in 1112 AD. Every year an enormous wooden vehicle carrying a statue of Jagwanath is hauled through Puri. The word juggernaut is derived from Jagwanath and nutters go to heaven by throwing themselves under its wheels. I would have liked to see that. Sadly we weren’t even allowed into the temple. A very courteous policeman told us that only Hindus are allowed. We were walking away when some pompous little jobsworth came running over to tell us we couldn’t go near the temple in a rather unpleasant tone of voice. I would have kicked his head in if the policeman hadn’t been standing next to me. A man at the hotel proudly told me that there are 10 temples in Puri. And we can’t go into any of them.
Shree Jagwanath temple
Friendly guard outside the ATM. They have blokes with 19th century guns to protect people getting money in India.
The square in front of the temple has been painted in the past.