Puri

{Photos!  I've just gone back and added images to a few of the posts from the last 2 months, and I'll catch up to the more recent ones soon.} 

Coming from the Bhubaneshwar, Orissa's capital city, Puri was a bit of shock.  From the bus park we rickshaw'ed to the backpacker enclave on CT Road--we, too, wanted a piece of beach to twiddle our toes on--and even before we began to scrutinize housing options my heart had fallen.  I recognized all the telltale signs of a tourist ghetto: gaudy signs for oddly-named restaurants, "adventure" and "tribal tour" outfitters' offices, the vaguely malignant vibe of the local workers on the tourist strip, dependent on the whim of affluent foreigners to make a living.  No surprise here; Puri is a modest destination for foreigners as well as a famous Hindu pilgrimage town.  The city, one of the holiest in India, hosts the annual extravaganza of the Rath Yatra, when lakh upon lakh come from around India to watch a massive wooden chariot being pulled through the streets from its home in the enormous Jagganath Temple. 

But CT Road and the beach are another world entirely, or rather two other worlds: parallel tourist realms, one for foreigners, one for honeymooning Bengalis.  Having settled on a guest house and haggled out a price for a seafront room, we took off to explore the beach.  What we found must come as a rude awakening to many a foreigner looking for an exotic beach destination vacation.  This is the beach.  But it's also India.  The sand is dotted with garbage, the ubiquitous little foil plastic packets fluttering in the sea breeze.  Mangy dogs wander about and deposit their diseased excrement at intervals, to join the variety of feces already speckling the sea scene.  There is a certain odor about the area.  To one side, just beyond the range of budget backpacker haunts, local fishermen sit under the shade of tarpaulin sails and work on their nets, while others launch hollowed wooden boats into the breakers.  Their village lies behind the beachfront: low cement houses crowded together, pungent with fishy smells, children running naked through the sand...

Rather than the reverse, we find ourself needing to escape this constructed holidayland to dive back into the real city that co-exists in another dimension but only a kilometer or two away.  This city is centered on the massive Jagganath Temple, forbidden to non-Hindus (or, in practice, to light-skinned folk).  The streets are lined with stalls selling religious memorabilia, with "pure veg" restaurants for the Hindu devout every dozen yards.  Yes, two separate towns, we agreed...or, as we discovered, three. 

Note: I was intending to come back and finish describing Puri, but life pulled rudely ahead of letters and my recent attempts to wrap it up felt lackluster.  Enter Thandiwe to save the day: a recent mass email of hers fills in the gap quite nicely, I think.  I quote:

Jon and I had a bit of a funny time leaving Orissa. We actually missed our train because we had changed the date of our ticket to a couple of days early and assumed that we were on the same train leaving at the same time and didn't bother looking at our tickets (I know - stupid) until we actually got to the train station at 11:30 for our 12:15 train and Jon took out the tickets and asked, "Why does it say departure 1055? Wry smile. Anyway, we decided to turn our lemon into the best lemonade ever, sucked it up and paid for tickets for the next train out of Puri at 9:50pm, giving us the entire day to bum around the town. We checked our bags at the train station and headed to the old part of town and the Sun Temple to check it out again. Good times and some cool photos taken of all the pilgrims there. We had some lunch then decided, upon my request, to splurge and spend the beautiful day at a swimming pool where I could swim in a bathing suit (as opposed to the full-length mumu/nighty/dress that I wore in to swim in the ocean near Konark). So we went to a hotel we'd read abuot in a guide book, but their pool was being cleaned. They recommended another place called Hotel Hans Coco Palms (I know, hilarious name!) that was across town. We hopped into a rickshaw and headed over there. It turned out, we had missed half of Puri!!!! The area the rickshaw drove us through was jam packed full of hotel upon hotel built for Indian (primarily Bengali, I think) tourists! There must have been 2 solid miles of hotels two or three deep across from a promenade and the beach. The hotels were generally larger, shinier and overall more expensive looking than the backpackers' lodgings over on the side of town where we had stayed. Saari shops boasting Orissa hand-woven saaris and mens' churidars filled in the spaces between the hotels, and the restaurants clearly catered to an Indian clientelle. As we drove in, the beach was lined with covered carts, and I mused as to their opening in the evening. We figured the swim was going to be worth it just to have witnessed this other part of town which, so it seemed, most Westerners (including us, almost) missed entirely.


On our way back to the train station we had a chance to stroll along this beachside promenade, and sure enough, it came to life.  Carts selling 'Chinese' deep-friend crabs and prawns, an infinite array of handloom shops and restaurants, religious paraphernalia, even some small Ferris wheels.  It was nothing less than a carnival, and we the only Westerners in sight.  That's what gets me: the Lonely Planets that serve as bibles to practically every backpacker I meet writes off the whole area!  Sure, Westerners expect certain amenities and have certain, uh, cultural needs, but not to even mention this perpetual pulsating carnival by the sea?  Madness!  Guidebooks are a double-edged sword at best, a lesson that's being driven home here in Varanasi...but that's fodder for another post.