An awesome weekend!!!

I wrote my last mid-semester exam on 28th February. I always come out of the last examination with a mixed feeling - happy that the ordeal is over and the usual sadness that I didn't do very well. I came back to the room and started exploring the various forms of entertainment that awaited me in my room. Praveen pinged me in the middle of some crap movie, whose name I don't remember. He said he was going to play the role of Barney and plan an awesome weekend and my only job was to go along. He went back to his books( poor guy, had two exams the next day), but had left the idea of an awesome weekend in my mind. I immediately jumped into explore mode and started scouting for places we could visit. After spending a couple of hours on the net, I came up with two possible weekend getaways. The first was to explore the Sunderbans and enjoy the wilderness of the estuarine forests and the tiger reserve. The other was to visit Puri, Konark with their beautiful temples and beaches. Visiting Sunderbans required a lot of planning with visitors having to take permission from the tiger reserve authorities. Since the travel bug had already bitten me, I was in no mood to wait. I pinged Bala and asked him to find first hand information from people who already visited the place. He was averse to going on a trip at such short notice. YAK was wary but ready. Ravi was sleeping through this period of planning. Praveen was aghast that I snatched his role and put off decision until after his exam. Raghu did not give me any signs that night. I went to sleep that morning at around 7am with the idea in my mind and very little support.

Ravi came to my room after his exam and we went to Swapna. He was surprised when I told him that I had bought tickets for our journey that night. Raghu and Praveen came to my room at 4pm after their exams. Raghu was completely against 'wasting' two days visiting temples and that too in Orissa. Praveen,Ravi,Bala and YAK completely bought my idea by then, so he had no choice except to accept. We tried to book the tickets online but couldn't as the charts had already been prepared. Tickets were available, so we decided to board the train and take our chances. We went to the station and bought general tickets. It still did not seem real. We had no tickets, no plan, and no idea of what we were going to do. We boarded the train after consulting the TTE. The train chugged out of the station and we got going. We struck a deal with the TTE and he allotted us berths. After we settled into our seats, we tried to make a list of the places we were going to visit. After much consultation and phone calls to all the places around the world, we decided to alight in Bhubaneswar inspite of having tickets upto Puri.

We reached Bhubaneswar at half past four in the morning and found our way to the booking counter. We booked three beds in a dormitory hoping that the six of us could use the facility. The door keeper at the dormitory was like 'bharateeyudu'. He did not listen to a single word of our proposals and our attempts to bribe him failed. Bala, Raghu and Praveen chose to use the facility while YAK, Ravi and I found our way back to the booking office. The booking clerk who was a nice man guided us to use the facilities at the waiting room. He had a special regard for us after he recognized that we were IITians. The brand still works :D All of us got ready by seven. A tour operator had already learned of our intentions when we were speaking to the booking clerk and was waiting for us. He named a lot of places and showed us various brouchures of the Orissa Tourism department. He proposed a price of 1800 to show us around Bhubaneswar, take us to Puri via Konark. We bargained a lot and struck a deal at 1350.

We did the most foolish thing that could ever be done. We left our luggage with the taxi guy while he dropped us at a place to have breakfast. He promised to go and get a different vehicle while we had our breakfast. The breakfast was good.........authentic South Indian after a long time. As time passed, our anxiety grew. We finished our breakfast and were discussing the union budget, but my heart was racing at the prospect of having made fools of ourselves. It occured to me that I met this guy at the railway station and all the stories of visitors being duped came to my mind. I was just hoping he would turn up and at that instant he did. It was such a big relief. I paid the breakfast bill and proceeded. It was decided that everybody would deposit their money with me and I would handle all the finance.

We first visited Siddheswar-Mukteswar temple which is supposed to have been built in the 10th-11th century A.D. The Archealogical Society of India(ASI) has taken over the temple complex for conservation. They maintain beautiful lawns and ensure that people don't damage the crumbling masterpieces of architecture. We were amazed at the complexity of the designs that were etched in the red sand stone. The craftsmen should have been exceptionally talented to produce such wonderful designs which makes the stone speak to you. The kings of that age were great to have supported art and architecture in such a grand manner. We clicked a few pictures and proceeded to the Lingaraja temple. This temple had an infinitely large number of deities though the main deity, as the name suggests is Lord Shiva. The diameter of the lingam was almost 30 ft and lots of abhishekams were in progress. I reckon that ASI is in the process of taking over this temple complex too. This also belongs to approximately the same period. After having appreciated the art at this temple and having had discussions ranging from comfort in Kingfisher to the differences between the beliefs of Shaivism and Vaishnavism, we proceeded to Dhauli giri. Ashoka fought the famous Kalinga battle which led to his transformation in this region. A huge buddhist stupa has been erected on a mountain top and provides a bird's view of the land below which witnessed bloodshed ages ago. It is beautiful now with the greenery of the paddy crop and buffaloes lazing by the stream of a river.We proceeded to Konark via Pipli. Pipli is famous for its handicrafts but we were not in a mood to shop. The highways were extremely good and it shattered a few negative images we had about Orissa.

We reached Konark at 11.30 am. We were cursing our planning as we would have nothing to do for the rest of the day. We entered the temple complex and it seemed very ordinary at the first look. This was built in 1250 A.D. and the Sun God was the presiding deity. It was built in the form of a huge chariot drawn by seven horses. They added as a footnote that much of the temple has been damaged due to natural causes but we could clearly see the act of miscreants( read mughal rulers) in damaging much of the sculptures. Renovation work is in progress and the interior of the main temple has been filled to support the weight of the temple gopuram . The carvings of the dance postures on the pillars in natya mandapam are amazing. We explored the main temple complex and were amazed and dumb struck at the sculptures depicted on its walls. They communicated through the sculptures the whole length, breadth and depth of the sexual practices prevalent during that period. We spent infinite time analyzing all those sculptures trying to understand all the information that the artists tried to convey. Much of the temple is in a dilapidated state. The temple is supposed to have had a magnetic power which attracted enemy ships towards itself. They used to crash against the rocky beach against which the temple was located. The sea has receded 4km farther since then and the temple seems to have lost its magnetic power too. Iron bars that were used in the temple construction were put up for display and they did not rust even after 800 years!!! The spokes of the wheels of the chariot on which the temple is based can accurately tell you the time of the day!!! After having explored the temple, we were overawed by the artistic, technical and sexual knowledge of that period. Hail the kings who spent time and effort and money in preserving the culture for posterity. We had lunch at a hotel attached to the tourism guest house and shopped for a while. We visited the beach which is 4km away now and spent some time. We proceeded to Puri which is about 30 km and landed in a hotel which was a stone's throw away from the beach. I had clicked away at a frantic pace and realised that I had filled the memory card of the camera. We went in search of an internet cafe to transfer the pics to a CD. We found a shop and he took an infinite time to find CD's. We had our dinner at a hotel on the beach road and struck a deal with another tour operator for our Chilka trip the next day. We went and sat on the beach enjoying the breeze while YAK showed us a movie which had all the elements of a typical faction movie, only difference was this was a real story. We crashed onto our beds late in the night while YAK,Prav and Bala went on further about girls, marriage and stuff.

The alarm went off at 5.30 in the morning and it felt like I had slept a moment ago. I and Ravi got up and got ready. It was a tough job to get everyone out of bed and get them ready. We went down to the taxi. The guy said he could only find a Sumo and wanted a hike in payment. We did not budge and he finally agreed to go at the price we initially agreed. We set off at around 8 am and reached Chilka lake at around 9.30. We evaded a few extortion attempts on our way due to the bravado of our driver. The whole setup near Chilka was so unprofessional that I was hoping that we were not being kidnapped. I went to buy the tickets for the boat ride while YAK was approached by locals selling toddy and even *that* experience. One of the hoteliers struck a deal with YAK that we would have lunch in his hotel in the afternoon. We bought some snacks and fresh water and proceeded towards our boat. The boat was a little distance into the water because of the low tide in the morning and we had to walk a little distance in water. All of us folded our pants, got the footwear into our hands and got onto the boat. We started off on our journey and all of us were very excited. We started clicking a lot of pics. The boat used to tilt even if we moved by an inch and all of us had to balance our weights carefully. We had fun frightening each other by destabilizing the boat. We first went to a place where there were a huge number of sea gulls. They looked like small birds but had a huge wing span. We landed on a small island where we saw a 'red crab'. They were beautiful. We also saw the location where migratory birds generally nest. They arrive in large numbers during december and january. We proceeded towards the bird sanctuary where we found a few species that we couldn't identify. We saw a crane with a longer neck and a few ducks. We were disappointed that we paid a huge sum for visiting the bird sanctuary. We proceeded towards the dolphin sanctuary. The kid who came along with the boatman started pointing in various directions shouting 'ooooh dekho'......'ooo' I initially thought he was making a fool out of me as I couldn't see a thing. But as my eyes got adjusted to the environment I started seeing small disturbances in the otherwise calm water surface. I had glimpses of a form coming out and going back into water. Dilip, our boatman tried to maneuver our boat in the direction of the disturbance and all of us stood up. Then I sighted the most amazing thing I had ever seen - a dolphin came up to the surface and dived in. It was a beautiful creature, a stout nose, sleek fins and the puff when it came up to breathe. We continued to follow them and we slowly saw that there were two, then three and later four dolphins. They entertained us for a long while we pursued them wherever they went. I had kept my camera in the burst mode and took pics continuously to capture the dolphin. I left the camera to do its job and tried to capture the scene into my mind with my bare eyes. It is so much different when you see it yourself. After we found the dolphins, a large number of other boatmen brought their rides to the same place and created a lot of noise. I felt bad that we were torturing these poor creatures in their habitat for our fun. By this time I had gained enough experience and started predicting the location of the next sighting of the dolphins. After having spent close to an hour following the dolphins, we decided to leave them at peace and continue on our journey. I had clicked more than 400 pics in my attempt to capture the dolphin when it surfaced. We travelled through the lake for a long time and reached 'sea mouth'. This is the region where the sea enters the lake making this the largest lake in India. We spent a lot of time on the beach etching our names in the 'Toshali sands', playing with the waves and doing all kinds of fun stuff. We saw birds fishing in the sea, the change in the water level due to the rising tide, trunks thrown out of the sea, carcasses of turtles and a lot of other things. Meanwhile, Bala found a fisherman who just came out of the sea. He brought out his catch of oysters and started selling them. He used to break open an oyster and give us a pearl out of it. It was an amazing feeling to buy the pearls out of oysters. The climate was wonderful throughout the journey - it wasn't very hot and there was a cool breeze that was blowing which made the whole journey enjoyable. After having spent close to five hours on the lake, we reached the shore. We immediately got into the Sumo and returned to Puri. We were exhausted after the whole journey and had lunch after reaching Puri. I had crashed immediately while the rest of the gang stayed up to cheer India to victory over Australia in the first of the three finals in the Common Wealth Bank series. Sachin scored a century which helped India's cause and that too against Australia!!!

Everybody had a short nap and we refreshed ourselves and left for the Jagannath mandir in the evening. The darshan went off amazingly well and we spent a good amount of time exploring the temple. We came out of the temple and waited while Ravi purchased some memorabilia. We hurriedly returned to our hotel and quickly finished our dinner. We packed our bags, checked out and reached the station at around 10 pm. Our train was scheduled to leave at 10.30 pm but got delayed until 12 midnight. We came across an ISKCON gang while we waited for our train. What pained me most was the fact that these were some of the best brains of the country doing things completely unexpected of them. They set up a microphone and drumset on the railway platform and started conducting a bhajan. It was irritating and depressing to watch my friends do that. Our train finally arrived and we got into our berths. All of us fell asleep as soon as the train left the station and woke up only in the morning. God save us if we had any luggage and somebody decided to relieve us of it. We reached Kharagpur just in time to watch students leaving for their 7.30 classes. We had an amazingly great weekend packed with events. It was a great vacation and the fact that YAK, Raghu and Praveen will be leaving us this year to pursue their jobs makes this trip all the more memorable. That, is the story of 'An awesome weekend'.