PURI Belter

Puri was canny. A nice beachy place, and a small step up from Digha.

Our hotel, The Gandhara, had a pool and a statue of Monty (or 'creepy Groucho Marx character' as our friend Si Carps put it) and nice breakfasts and a built-in travel agency and it was all nice and oasis-like.

The beach was the usual strip-cum-building site with loads of gaudy plastic trinkets for sale and Buddhas made out of seashells, locals being excited, lots of rubbish, some pony rides and a camel.

A packed local bus took us out to Konark to see the 13th century Sun Temple.

Tucked away in its own beautifully-manicured grounds, the stone temple is a massive, Earth-bound representation of the chariot attributed to king Narasingha Deva I, complete with huge wheels and pulled by six frankly disappointing small horses.

Temple belles.

The nags may have been very strong, but were surely underpowered for this jalopy:

Horse, er... power

Next, by bus power to Chilika Lake, to see some pink dolphin action.

Okay, we only saw a couple of humps, but lots of nice birds and it was a big, blue, beautiful day out on the lake, shared with some dead canny Indian folks.

Jagannath Temple was great fun, too.

Approaching the place, which is more like a small town, was like walking up to a huge Cup Final on match day.

Streams of folks were heading in, even more than normal as there was (yet another) festival going on that day.

Hawkers, beggars, etc (ie the usual crowd), lined the way.

It was so hot the authorities had put on a water bowser/spray station, so the hordes wouldn't shrivel up on the roadside queuing to get in.

As non-Hindus we weren't allowed into the temple itself, but made our own entertainment watching the chaos unfold.

A quick drink of pop on a hotel balcony, from where we surveyed the carnage, then a wander back to our pool.

And now for something completely different.