Shedding Light on Orissa Temples

PURI, India —  Now that the June-to-September monsoons are over and the heat has yet to sap the dusty-green rice paddies and endless ponds of lavender and white-water hyacinths and lilies, the verdant state of Orissa on India’s Bay of Bengal east coast becomes an even more enchanting melange of muted colors.

Orissa’s gentle landscape, near-tropical foliage and soft colors lend an almost sensual quality to this peaceful land, one that is expressed most forcefully in its temple bas-reliefs.

India’s “golden triangle” of Delhi, Agra and Jaipur has its cultural counterpart in Orissa’s Bhubaneshwar, Puri and Konarak. Orissa’s triangle is more of a piece, with Hindu-Buddhist-Jain temples glowing golden in the sunlight everywhere. Bhubaneshwar, which has 500 temples in various stages of preservation and once had 7,000, remains a very holy city to Indians.

The capital of Orissa, Bhubaneshwar is a bustling up-country city of 220,000 that is best known for its temples, built in extravagant Orissan style between the 8th and 13th centuries AD. The great Lingarraj Temple is considered one of India’s most important, but to us it was one of the least satisfying. Off limits to non-Hindus, it must be viewed from a nearby platform built for Lord Curzon in the 19th Century, when he was viceroy. You will be badgered shamelessly for “contributions” at the platform; just avoid eye contact with these harmless but insistent men.

A much more pleasant experience is a visit to the exquisite Raja Rani Temple, a pure gem of Orissan architecture set peacefully at one end of a quarter-mile, tree-lined lawn. There is no deity or worship here, so one is free to peruse the lovely reliefs leisurely and without crowds of pilgrims.

Konarak, 39 miles south of Bhubaneshwar on the Bay of Bengal, has few acceptable accommodations and indeed is noteworthy only for its magnificent Temple of the Sun. The 13th-Century temple was built to resemble a gigantic chariot for the sun god, with 24 carved-stone wheels at its base and seven stone horses (two are still left) pulling the entire edifice.

Puri, 34 miles south of Bhubaneshwar and just 20 miles from Konarak on the coast, is half the size of the capital and one of India’s four most important pilgrimage sites. People come from all over India to visit Puri’s temples, convinced that a three-day stay in the town will release them forever from the cycle of rebirth. There is but one real street (the Grand Route), leading from the enormous 1168 Jagannath Temple a mile or more to the Gundicha Mandir, the Garden House, where the images of the gods are taken from the Jagannath Temple and reside for a week each year.

Puri is most noted for its midsummer “car” festival, when 45-foot-high chariots 33 feet square are pulled by thousands of men along the Grand Route, taking the gods’ images to the Garden House. The enormous chariots of Jagannath represent the origin of our word juggernaut .

Apart from its innumerable temples and festivals every month of the year, Orissa has endless miles of unsullied beaches on the Bay of Bengal, all seemingly deserted save for a few Indian families on holiday timidly testing the waters. In Puri there are “lifeguards” who will accompany anyone into the water for a small fee. It is rumored that many of these stalwarts can’t even swim.

How long/how much? Give the towns of the triangle three days, more if other areas of Orissa are to be visited. Lodging and food prices are downright inexpensive.

Getting settled in: Bhubaneshwar’s Hotel Swosti is an excellent choice for anyone flying from Delhi and starting their Orissan holiday here. Ranked as a four-star hotel by the Indian Ministry of Tourism, the Swosti measures up with a cool lobby of white marble, bedrooms with typically Indian furnishings and surely the best restaurant in town.

A distinct throwback to the Raj era, Puri’s South Eastern Railway Hotel was built by the English for their exclusive use in 1922 and named for the railway that ran from Calcutta to Bombay. There’s an old and new wing, both having spacious but simply furnished bedrooms, the former with four-posters and mosquito netting. Some rooms in both wings have air conditioning; all have ceiling fans.

The long veranda facing a spacious lawn with tables and umbrellas is what one would expect in a British seaside hotel. Then there is a billiards room, and the marvelous beach is just across the road. Bear in mind that the South Eastern Railway Hotel tends to show its age in spots, but the room and meal prices are laughably low.

Between Puri and Konarak, the woodsy Marine Drive skirts the bay and passes through the Balukhanda Reserve Forest, with cashew, coconut and mango trees lining the road. Five miles from Puri, the Toshali Sands resort is an absolutely delightful complex of spread-out cottages and villas in acres of secluded and well-kept flowery gardens, with a huge pool, fine private beach, bedroom cable TV, sauna and handicraft shops.

Regional food and drink: With the Bay of Bengal in its front yard, fresh seafood in all its glory is a staple of Orissan menus. Tuna, pomfret (a delicate whitefish), prawns, crab and numerous other fish are prepared in endless ways: charbroiled, curried, fried, coated with yogurt or cooked in a gravy of vegetables and spices.

Chicken curry- masala is a wonderful version of the bird cooked in a rich gravy, while rogan josh is lamb or mutton in a piquant sauce of saffron and other spices, a big favorite with us. Other fish, kebabs, meats and breads come straight from the clay-oven tandoor in Mughlai fashion.

Indian beer is excellent and perfect company for most food, while Kissam is a thick-bottled juice that’s delightful and refreshing, particularly the mango version. Thums Up is the cola of choice, albeit a bit sweet.

Good local dining: Bhubaneshwar’s Hotel Swosti has two dining rooms, and the slightly more “expensive” and elegant Executive Room served us the best meal of our Orissan stay.

We started with hors d’oeuvres of hot cashews and bits of chicken tikka , delectable bites of chicken marinated in yogurt and spices, then cooked tandoori style. We then had Malabar mutton curry of small meatballs cooked in a coconut milk sauce, tandoori pomfret, plus a few rice dishes. The tab for everything, including beer, was less than $10.

Puri’s South Eastern Railway Hotel dining room is replete with turbaned waiters in white jackets, ceiling fans and all the other Raj trappings. Guests are offered a table d’hote menu of five courses, including Indian at lunch and continental at dinner, each costing $2.75.

We had a marvelous fresh tomato soup, tuna fried Bengali style after a mustard marinade, another Bengali specialty of prawns malaikari in a turmeric and garlic sauce, plus chutneys, breads, salad, dessert and coffee. It’s hard to believe that all this great food and service came for about the price of a stateside hamburger.

Toshali Sands’ dining room is as Indian as the one above is British, with walls of the red-clay brick of village houses, chair coverings of local grass weavings and handmade artifacts galore. The menu is huge, with English translations of Orissan specialties, plus a good selection of Western food.

Mulligatawny, a hot curry soup brought to India by the British, is here and on most of the country’s menus and it’s delicious. Chinese food given an Indian twist is also a staple throughout the country, filling an entire menu page here.

Try the mutton boti kebabs marinated in ginger and chiles and cooked in the tandoor; tandoori prawns or chicken, and the mutton or chicken biryani , a saffron-flavored rice dish. All are in the $2 price range. Here, as in all but the dining rooms of five-star hotels, it’s almost impossible to exceed $10 for a marvelous meal for two, including beer or soft drinks.

GUIDEBOOK

Orissa, India

Getting there: Fly British Airways, Pan Am-Delta or Lufthansa to Delhi, then Indian Airlines on to Bhubaneshwar. An advance-purchase, round-trip ticket from Los Angeles to Delhi will cost between $1,805 and $1,993, with the onward flight $128 one way.

A few fast facts: India’s rupee recently sold for 25.5 to the dollar, about four cents each. Best time for a visit is between October and March, with the monsoon season running from mid-June to mid-September. You’ll need a visa. And stick to only bottled mineral water, pop or beer. In four visits to India, we have yet to encounter “Delhi belly,” perhaps because we have eaten only Indian food and shunned tap water and ice.

Accommodations: Hotel Swosti (103 Janpath, Bhubaneswar; $30 B&B; double); South Eastern Railway Hotel (Puri; $20 B&B; double); Toshali Sands (Puri-Konarak Marine Drive; $42 double cottage, $53 villa with sitting room and refrigerator).

For more information: Call the Government of India Tourist Office at (213) 380-8855, or write (3550 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 204, Los Angeles 90010) for brochures on Orissa, Bhubaneswar-Puri-Konarak and East India, a map of the entire country and forms for a visa from the Indian Consulate in San Francisco.