Orissa on the sea.

Hello from Puri, Orissa. After a 11 hour train ride from Kolkata we found ourselves in a tropical and lush country side; rolling hills, larges lakes and coastal towns. The first place we visited was Gopalpur, a small fishing village littered with beach hotels and small patio restaurants. The town was very quite and without many tourist. Our hotel manager was a little pushy at times (trying to make a buck) but the rest of the town was very nice and relaxed. A typical beach community.
We left Gopalpur after one night for Puri; rick shaw ride for 40min, bus ride for 5hrs, and another bus ride for 2hrs. A very long day. Waking up in Puri the next day we then took off the the Sun temple in Konark, a small tourist destination about an hour away by bus (only 15 Rs per person). The temple was functional in the 13th century through the 16th century with a main structure reaching 72 meters in height. Now there are only remains of what was once there. The primary remains of the temple is a 36 meter tall structure once built as the primary area for praying and worship. The temple was built with great precision mapping the pattern of the sun and surrounded by 3meter diameter sun dials with the ability to keep track of time by three minute intervals. There were also large and small carvings of mythical beings, depictions of everyday life, and kama sutra.

After the sun temple we came back to Puri and headed to the beach. The beach was full of people swimming, eating, selling, and relaxing. There were horses, camels, and a market set up in the sand on the far end of the beach. While we were there I went swimming while Sylvia looked after our stuff and took pictures of the scenery. We also ran into a friend we had made on one of our bus rides and talked about the differences between American and Indian cultures.

By the end of the day we had eaten many prawns, mutton, fish, coconuts, pineapple, and other yummies. We were enjoying Puri immensely.

We woke up the next day to experience perhaps the most amazing sights we may ever see in our lives. The Rath Yatra is a festival that takes place once a year where up to a million people come to see Jaggernath leave his temple and get pulled on massive chariots. It is hard to grasp the magnitude of the event even after being there and seeing it in person. Imagine that your god, in it's most powerful representation, comes out for everyone to see and worship in person. During the course of the year only a very small population is allowed near Jaggernath, but it is believed that in order for your "soul" to be freed from continuous reincarnation you must come in contact with the Jaggernath. The way that this can be achieved is by being a servant to Jaggernath and help pull on his chariot. A man told me that even though I am not a believer by pulling on the rope attached to the chariot and helping Jaggernath down the street I will, at the very least, be reincarnated as a human. So I battled the crowds and with both hands tugged on the massive rope while hundreds of thousands of people were attempting the same feat. Now I "won't come back as a dog".

Jaggernath has a sister and brother that are also pulled down the street by the masses of people. Each chariot had by my estimation 100 people on board. Plus the structures them selves were made entirely of wood and were about 15-18 meters high. The weight for each chariot must have been in multiples of tons. You can You Tube the festival to get a visual if you are curious. Hopefully there will be time to upload video that we took of the event so you can see what we saw while we were there.

*A big thanks to Sujata, Santosh, and their sister, some friends we made during the Rath Yatra. We sat next to them on the rooftop of Jaggernath Hotel, and they took very good care of us, explaining various parts to the story of Rath Yatra, and making sure we were hydrated and fed. Santosh also kept a watchful eye out for Garrett when they went down into the crowd. It was funny, in the hundreds of thousands of dark haired Indians surrounding the ropes to pull the main chariot, Garrett really stuck out like a sore thumb. He was about a head taller than everyone else, and of course, was super white, and you could see his big grin from even a few hundred meters away (and thanks to the ultra zoom on the camera). I asked Sujata how she was supposed to find Santosh in the crowd, quite impossible! It was indeed an amazing event, and I am happy to witness it. I hope to see it again sometime, but then to stay in Puri for a bit longer. Really, the festivities really gave the town lots of life and excitement, and to see all these devotees travel so far just to get a glimpse of the god is truly amazing. Such a devout act of faith. While in Puri we also met up with a fellow IndiaMiker (indiamike.com...if you ever go to India it's the ultimate resource), Brandon and his friend Tommy, who seemed like they were having a great time traipsing throughout the country as well.