Odishaaah!! 3
- krolesh
- Feb 17, 2024
- 3 min read
Konark
One day I took a local bus to visit this incredible ancient place.
Konark is home to the amazing Sun Temple, a temple built about eight hundred years ago, and dedicated to the sun god, Surya.
I walked to the local bus station to get a bus there.
These posters aren’t advertising sexual services, but medical services, non-surgical - to cure things like sleep disorder, erectile dysfunction, incontinence, female sexual dysfunction, and, wait for it, “short and curved penis.” Just with medicine huh. Good luck with that one guys. I’ll grab some of the snake oil too.
Note the new curved script btw. This is Oriya (or Odia) script, which is Dravidian-based. That’s why it looks similar to Tamil or Malayalam (Keralan) script.
Odisha’s ancient history is Dravidian, as opposed to the Aryan ancient history of much of northern India.
They don’t make ‘em like this anymore
As opposed to Southeast Asia, Indians don’t just ride scooters, or scooties, as they call them here. Loads of people ride good old-fashioned motorbikes, and some are big hefty road bikes.
The main brands are Yamaha, Hero, and, of course, Royal Enfield, which is also the bike of choice for old Western male ex-hippies that you see riding around in some places in the country, smoking local cigarettes and wearing handmade leather boots.
The local bus was packed, as usual. They never leave until they are.
Running the market gauntlet, on the way to the Sun Temple
Shady art
Traditional Odishan craft styles, these bags sporting images of Jagannath
The Three Amigoas, again. They’re everywhere.
Yay! I’m back in coconut country! Back to my staple.
Now that’s an idea. Get hundreds of people to line up in the hot sun for tickets, but with just two working ticket counters, so the queues move super slowly, and everyone fries, inside and outside.
My first view of the temple.
The Sun Temple is probably the most magnificent piece of existing Odishan art in the world. It was built in around 1250, to enshrine an image of Surya, the Sun God.
The whole stone temple was designed in the shape of a huge chariot, drawn by seven spirited horses, on twelve pairs of huge and exquisitely carved wheels.
The size of the whole temple complex, and the intricacies of the stone carvings within it, are a true sight to behold.
Simha-gaja guardians protect the front of the temple
One of the seven horses
Magnificently carved wheels
You can sorta see the chariot shape from this angle
Don’t ask me what this creature is. It looks like a croc with a trunk to me. Maybe it’s an alliphant.
Much more crocettish
The elephants are mean around here
Why let road safety get in the way of decorative worship?
Sad little curry-bits
Moving On
I’ve got a deadline, so I’ve gotta keep moving.
I’ve had a lot of trouble getting train or bus tickets out of Puri, for anywhere further than a couple of hundred kilometres from here.
All of the long distance trains to Chennai, or even halfway to there, are fully booked out, with long waiting lists (in the hundreds). There’s no chance of me getting on one with those stats.
And the trouble is, my destination, Trivandrum in Kerala, is over two thousand clicks away, and I have to be there in a few days.
I just didn’t think to book stuff that far beforehand. I’ve never had to in India before.
So I’m gonna have to bite the bullet I think, and fly.
As much as I really really don’t want to.
Flying seems to be the only way I can get there in time to meet my friends, when they arrive from Oz and Sri Lanka.
I mean, principles are super important, but love always rules❤️
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