On Saturday we had a relaxing day. There is nothing to do in Puri if you can’t visit the temples. There are sandy beaches which I thought Jennifer might to lie on but she reckoned that, if we are going to lounge about, we might as well do it in the hotel where it is cool; it is just about too hot for comfort in Odisha State of eastern India in mid-March. However we had a very nice evening after I looked up restaurants on tripadvisor and found the Wildgrass which is renowned for its seafood, which I expected to be a big improvement on the hotel’s veg-only menu. They don’t even do eggs on the grounds that they are produced by animals (ie hens). But they do drink milk which comes from an animal and, moreover, a cow. Apparently all the holy cows we see wandering around, rooting through rubbish at the side of the road, are owned by someone who milks them and sells the milk. The more I learn about vegetarianism, the less I understand.
We were told by Mukesh why cows are holy and, as I’ve forgotten the story and the internet is off, I will have to return to it. I asked Mukesh if cows get hit by cars and he said that is very expensive for the driver. He has to compensate the owner of the cow, then pay for the cow to be taken to hospital and, if it is still alive, undergo surgery. Then, to maintain his karma, he must go to Rishikesh, Hardwar or Varanasi on the Ganges and perform a puja (prayer) for the cow by throwing petals into the river. Or otherwise drive off and pretend it didn’t happen, hoping that nobody saw the accident. Its a good job we don’t have similar laws for people hitting deer near Kyle of Lochalsh.
Anyway, the meals at Wildgrass were excellent, with Jennifer having prawn tandoori and garlic naan while I had curried prawn with boiled rice. The chef put just the right amount of spice for Western pallets; not too hot but sufficiently hot to bring out the flavour of the huge prawns which had been beheaded to make them easy to eat. He came out of the kitchen to ask if we were happy with them. I also had pineapple slices which had been baked in cream and were delicious. We went back to the hotel with an honest tuk-tuk driver who charged us 100 rupees; the crook who took us to the restaurant charged us 200 (having wanted 300) and drove us twice as far.
On Sunday the driver taking us to the station at Puri was 30 minutes late and we got on to the train with only minutes to spare. The 90-minute train ride was first class and the landscape of Odisha State was mainly paddy fields where the first crop had been harvested and cows, buffalo, sheep and goats were feeding on the stalks. Many had black birds on their backs eating the parasites. Other small fields, separated by low earth walls, had the second crop starting to grow in water. There were many beautiful palm trees, either singly, in small clumps or in forests. At Bhubaneshwar station, we waited at one of the station entrances while the taxi driver kept phoning us wanting to know where we were. Eventually Mr Raj asked us to send a photo, and the taxi driver turned up moaning that he had waited 40 minutes at another entrance. We tried to explain that he should have met us at the platform, or made a tour of the entrances looking for us. He was very grumpy and didn’t get a tip.
The La Franklin hotel is lovely and has a restaurant with a highly impressive menu. It also has a sign saying that there have been no deliveries of LPG from Qatar because of Trump’s war, and the menu is limited. We are about to set off to see what, if anything, is available.
A painting of what the temple looks like when the juggernauts are hauled through Puri