Bhubaneswar

[Sujatha]

This simple city is the main point for the tourist locations of Puri, Konarak, and Chilka Lake.

All the way from Raipur through picturesque eastern ghats, our train reached the Bhubaneswar railway station in the morning. Station itself is not too big, may be just to our Hyderabad Deccan railway station capacity. It has four platforms. First platform entry leads to the premier hotels like swosti. Along the fourth platform side there are so many budget hotels are located. As usual if you come out of the fourth platform so many rickshaw pullers wearing Lungi, may chase you. If you pay them just Rs10/- they will take you any of the budget hotels along the cuttack road or else along the lewis road. We took a room with charges approximately Rs 150/- per day. Rooms are clean. They provide hot water in winter months free of charge in the morning hours. We took our breakfast in a restaurant called Shirose south Indian restaurant along the Lewis road. In Bhubneswar rice is the main eatable for the local public. You can see plenty of south Indian restaurants that give excellent puri, Masal dosa, Idly, Vada etc in excellent taste cheaper than Hyderabad. If you come along the Lewis road, you will find the State museum. From that point, so many private buses are proceeding to places like Puri and Konarak.



At about 1000 hrs, we were walking along the road. I stopped an auto. The young driver spoke to me only in Oriyan language. I talked to him in Hindi. He could not understand clearly. Some how, I managed his Oriyan language. He agreed to take me to all the temples for just Rs150/-. First, we went to an old temple maintained nowadays by the Archaeological survey of India (RAJA RANI TEMPLE). We need to pay an entry ticket of Rs 5/- per head. There is no presiding deity here. It is unfortunately a Dead temple. The temple has good erotic sculptures, which are worth watching. By the time we went there, we could see some Russian tourists.



Then we came to one of the main temple complex area. We saw the Siddeswara temple+ Mukteswara temple complex. I throw some coins over the well, so that it could cure infertile condition. This is some belief. You know we are also suffering from infertility. I could see so many coins around the wells. Then we came to the oldest Parameswara temple. The panda priest over there was talking bit aggressively with a fellow temple staff. The panda priests in Orissa are not soft as that of our Hyderabad temple priests. They are all fearless humans. Then through the Bindu sagar lake areas, we reached the famous Lingaraj temple. Before entering temple so many Panda priests started chasing us for special poojas. One young priest of around 20 years of age almost blocked me. Somehow, I managed to escape from him. With in Lingaraj temple complex there are so many sub temples, some of them are left abandoned. I saw a shocking incident. I saw few youngsters smoking Ganja . When I approached near them, they suddenly disappeared. Lingaraj temple itself has so many sub temples, each one having so many priests. They are holding old books/manuscripts with all pooja rules and regulations. They can explain in Bengali language also. You may need to pay good amount after the pooja is over. One odd habit I saw here for the first time. I saw the devotees holding lamps in their palms and showing towards the deity.



Then our auto came to the main road. It straight away went to the area called Dhauli placed at 10 kms from the main town. Before entering in to that village there is a small tollgate sort of a thing. They compulsorily collect fees Rs5/- per vehicle. They give one-rupee coupons for that. There is a small hillock over there. We saw the old Ashokan rock edicts at the bottom of the hillock. At the top, they have built a beautiful Buddhist Stupa. Here also along the path way I saw a gang smoking Ganja. The group had a foreigner, wandering monk, and a local.



Finally, the auto driver dropped me at the state museum. Took an amount of Rs 160/-



On evening, we came around the city. Surprisingly there are no government buses here. All are autos and private mini buses. Three or four passengers generally share the Autos. Roads are surprisingly very broad here. At most, of the cross roads there are no signal lights. Just a traffic police manually controls the tropic. You should never miss the famous ISKCON temple at Vishakapatnam national high way road. When we went there was a huge crowd dancing with full energy. They may not allow you to enter inside the temple with leather waist belts. The temple is maintaining a star range vegetarian restaurant called Govinda.



Later we took the Oriyan dinner in Anand bazaar hotel. It almost tasted South Indian.



Next day we proceeded towards Konarak temple in Chevrolet. I will tell you the stories later.







































This simple city is the main point for the tourist locations of Puri, Konarak, and Chilka Lake.

All the way from Raipur through picturesque eastern ghats, our train reached the Bhubaneswar railway station in the morning. Station itself is not too big, may be just to our Hyderabad Deccan railway station capacity. It has four platforms. First platform entry leads to the premier hotels like swosti. Along the fourth platform side there are so many budget hotels are located. As usual if you come out of the fourth platform so many rickshaw pullers wearing Lungi, may chase you. If you pay them just Rs10/- they will take you any of the budget hotels along the cuttack road or else along the lewis road. We took a room with charges approximately Rs 150/- per day. Rooms are clean. They provide hot water in winter months free of charge in the morning hours. We took our breakfast in a restaurant called Shirose south Indian restaurant along the Lewis road. In Bhubneswar rice is the main eatable for the local public. You can see plenty of south Indian restaurants that give excellent puri, Masal dosa, Idly, Vada etc in excellent taste cheaper than Hyderabad. If you come along the Lewis road, you will find the State museum. From that point, so many private buses are proceeding to places like Puri and Konarak.



At about 1000 hrs, we were walking along the road. I stopped an auto. The young driver spoke to me only in Oriyan language. I talked to him in Hindi. He could not understand clearly. Some how, I managed his Oriyan language. He agreed to take me to all the temples for just Rs150/-. First, we went to an old temple maintained nowadays by the Archaeological survey of India (RAJA RANI TEMPLE). We need to pay an entry ticket of Rs 5/- per head. There is no presiding deity here. It is unfortunately a Dead temple. The temple has good erotic sculptures, which are worth watching. By the time we went there, we could see some Russian tourists.



Then we came to one of the main temple complex area. We saw the Siddeswara temple+ Mukteswara temple complex. I throw some coins over the well, so that it could cure infertile condition. This is some belief. You know we are also suffering from infertility. I could see so many coins around the wells. Then we came to the oldest Parameswara temple. The panda priest over there was talking bit aggressively with a fellow temple staff. The panda priests in Orissa are not soft as that of our Hyderabad temple priests. They are all fearless humans. Then through the Bindu sagar lake areas, we reached the famous Lingaraj temple. Before entering temple so many Panda priests started chasing us for special poojas. One young priest of around 20 years of age almost blocked me. Somehow, I managed to escape from him. With in Lingaraj temple complex there are so many sub temples, some of them are left abandoned. I saw a shocking incident. I saw few youngsters smoking Ganja . When I approached near them, they suddenly disappeared. Lingaraj temple itself has so many sub temples, each one having so many priests. They are holding old books/manuscripts with all pooja rules and regulations. They can explain in Bengali language also. You may need to pay good amount after the pooja is over. One odd habit I saw here for the first time. I saw the devotees holding lamps in their palms and showing towards the deity.



Then our auto came to the main road. It straight away went to the area called Dhauli placed at 10 kms from the main town. Before entering in to that village there is a small tollgate sort of a thing. They compulsorily collect fees Rs5/- per vehicle. They give one-rupee coupons for that. There is a small hillock over there. We saw the old Ashokan rock edicts at the bottom of the hillock. At the top, they have built a beautiful Buddhist Stupa. Here also along the path way I saw a gang smoking Ganja. The group had a foreigner, wandering monk, and a local.



Finally, the auto driver dropped me at the state museum. Took an amount of Rs 160/-



On evening, we came around the city. Surprisingly there are no government buses here. All are autos and private mini buses. Three or four passengers generally share the Autos. Roads are surprisingly very broad here. At most, of the cross roads there are no signal lights. Just a traffic police manually controls the tropic. You should never miss the famous ISKCON temple at Vishakapatnam national high way road. When we went there was a huge crowd dancing with full energy. They may not allow you to enter inside the temple with leather waist belts. The temple is maintaining a star range vegetarian restaurant called Govinda.



Later we took the Oriyan dinner in Anand bazaar hotel. It almost tasted South Indian.



Next day we proceeded towards Konarak temple in Chevrolet. I will tell you the stories later.

[Reality,,its here.Accept it.]

hello Doc,

that was a good and detailed account of your travels.

And i have a small suggestion for you , instead of posting your travelogues on the dbs and they getting buried under lots of other garbage i think you better start a blog and put up ur writings there. For the amount of effort you put in they dont stay on top that long on the dbs. but this is just a suggestion. anyway good work.

[Sujatha]

getting buried under lots of other garbage i think you better start a blog and put up ur writings there.

Hi, Reality



Thanks a lot.



I understand your point.



But at present I dont have the technical support to start a blog.



Infact I want to share with others who have also travelled and faced similar experiences in those tourist areas.



lets see, thanks once again

[misuse_dowry_laws]

Its near Bhubaneswar, that the great Kalinga war took place in about 269 B.C. and this is where Ashoka got converted to Budhism. Even today, there are Budhist and Jain monks living in the outskirts of Bhubaneswar (near Khandagiri Caves which were used for meditation by the monks).



During 1000-1500 A.D. when there was chaos in other parts of India, Orissa had its Golden period. Konark temple was built sometime around 1220 A.D. by Narasimha Deva. The formidable army led by Gajapati kings in Orissa had thwarted the advances of Muslim invaders from North and also from Bengal in east. Orissa got into the Bhakti movement sometime around 1520 with arrival of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu to Puri. The Hare Krishna Bhakti movement which followed weakened many generals and this is one of the main reason for fall of orissa in 1580 with attack from Mughal discident satrap of Bengal even though emperor Akbar had friendly relations with the king of Orissa. Later on there was integration between Bhakti movement and the Sufism.



There are many stories in Orissa centred around the temples. For example, the Konark was built in the sea and the difficulties involved. Now sea has moved away by about 1.5 km. There is also a story on the 12 year old son of the head architect of this temple.

[ycr007]

Well Sujatha Ji,

Its really a surprise that you have visited bhubaneshwar and have enjoyed

as you did. You may know it or not but i happen to have lived in

Bhubaneshwar for some years and beleive-it-or-not my residence was just

across the road from the Shirose Restaurant on Lewis Road.Almost every1

at shirose knows me by sight (Me Quite a Regular There)



It is indeed a pity that most auto drivers in bbsr inspite of knowing Hindi,

try to bluff away as not knowing it just to make some easy buck.But there

are some very helpful ones also.Bhubaneshwar is indeed a Temple city

and am glad that you've managed to see all the main ones. Altough they

are cultural n heritage sites,they are badly in need of repair n maintenance.

Guess the govt. is too laidback to look after it.

One visit to the State Museum will confirm the utter neglect of the Govt.

ISKCON temple is by far the best one since it is modern n well-kept.Ramakrishna Math on

Vivekananda marg is another unkempt but

serene place



There is no dearth of good Hotels n Restaurants in Bbsr.Though none

may match the grandeur n style of those in Hyderabad,the food's quite

good. Try Swosti Plaza,Venus Inn, Cook's (Chinese) Khana Khazana, Utsav, for some delectable dishes.



A plus point of bhubaneshwar is the wide expanse of the city.At no place

would one find houses or buildings crowded together.There are vast open

spaces allaround and the roads are really wide n easily Motorable.



Hoping that your Trip to Konark n Puri will be an even more merry one.

And do not miss Pipli &its Handicrafts......

[Habitual Perfectionist]

getting buried under lots of other garbage i think you better start a blog and put up ur writings there.

Hi, Reality

Thanks a lot.

I understand your point.

But at present I dont have the technical support to start a blog.

Infact I want to share with others who have also travelled and faced similar experiences in those tourist areas.

lets see, thanks once again

Starting a blog is not all that difficult. The blogs section of FH has an easy interface, and you can get started without much ado.