Konark Sun Temple

Nov 11
So apparently there are only a few Sun temples in India. I saw one near Ahmedabad a few weeks ago, and there was one near Bhubaneswar, so Nihal and I hired a taxi and took a triangular route from Bhubaneswar to Konark to Puri, one of the most important Hindu pilgrimage sites. All of this is in the east in the state of Orissa. On the way there we stopped at Dauli where there is a big Buddhist stupa built on the hill.

The sun temple was really amazing. The whole building is supposed to be in the form of a chariot and there are carved wheels and also horses to pull the sun god. I think our taxiwala called a guide he knew, because as soon as we arrived, a man wanted to come give us the tour of the temple. This guy was pretty amusing, too. I think he'd been doing this since the 60s he said, and he did seem to know his facts... sometimes a little too much. He talked for some on the edge of the temple before he would let us go in, and he had specific spots and things he wanted us to take pictures of.

And in addition to this being a sun temple, this is also one of the Indian temples that have erotic carvings...many of them...pretty much a big majority of the walls. Our guide's commentary was pretty amusing! It was the most fun I've had touring a temple here yet! The guide said that there were a lot of people converting to Buddhism around the time the temple was being built - the 1200s i think, and so the Hindi king building the temple wanted the Hindus to procreate and prosper and so basically put the Kama Sutra on the temple as propaganda. Man, who wouldn't convert??
Our guide pointed out which positions 'you have to be strong to do' and other interesting things like a man treating himself for an STD.

After that we went on to Puri which is right on the ocean. It's the site of another of the most important Hindu pilgrimage temples, Jagannath temple. It was dark by the time we got there, and there was a big market around the temple. It was amazing how crowded the whole area was. Unfortunately I couldn't go in the temple, only Hindus are allowed; I tried to negotiate my way in but that didn't work at all. Nihal looked "indian" so he got in without problems! We stopped on the way to eat Puris - a type of fried indian bread - in Puri. We thought it was fitting.

By the time we got back to Bhubaneswar it was late and most restaurants were closing. We hurried to the hotel just next to ours for dinner. Despite both of us saying we weren't very hungry, we somehow both decided to go for this huge buffet. I just didn't feel like waiting to order something. So of course we at a lot, and it was expensive! We had a good laugh about it afterwards - how we both went from not very hungry to chowing down at the buffet!