India: Places & People (from the eyes of forum members)
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SaniaFan
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India: Places & People (from the eyes of forum members)
I am starting this thread for forum members to share their experiences while traveling various parts of our country. I would like people to share what they liked about the places they visited as well as what they did not like. Also what made them sad and what made them happy while they were visting the places.
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SaniaFan
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Re: India: Places & People (from the eyes of forum members)
I would like to start these experiences with my recent visit to Orrisa.
I went to orrisa with couple of my colleagues for recruitment of engineering Grads from REC in Rourkela and another engineering college in near by city called Burla. But we planned our trip in such a manner that we visited various places in Orrisa for first few days. The moment we landed in Bhubaneswara airport (which was to my surprise a small but very clean and efficient airport) certain differences from the cities like Delhi were clearly visible. People were far more friendly there and very simple. Imagine waiter running after us to return the money we had forgotten in a restaurant!!
Orrisa (at least the places we visited) is very green. Our journey from Bhubaneswara to Konark was on a highway that was narrow but very smooth unlike many of the highways when we travel from Delhi to UP. It was one of the most scenic drives I have taken in terms of greenery. Probably it has something to do with the season as well (we were traveling there during the rainy season). There were rows of coconut trees on both side of the road and small huts and animal yards made the view more picturesque. The 1 1/2 hour journey, instead of being tiring, was very refreshing.
Konark has temple of God Sun. Originally it had 2 huge temples but one of those was destroyed by an earthquake (that is what we were told by the local guide there) it seems the structure itself is not very strong so the inner part of other temple is now completely filled and tourists can now look at the outside of the temple which has some of the very fine sculptures. Most of it is related to sex. Reason for it is that it was made after Ashoka’s conquest of Kalinga. There was a huge loss of life during that war. These sculptures and paintings were there to encourage people to have more kids (probably much the same way as government in Japan is encouraging people to have kids).
One sad part of the visit was to see the level of poverty in Orrisa. Earlier I had seen poverty in the slums of cities like Delhi but that is nothing compared to what I saw in villages of Orrisa. Now I can see why they still want to come to city like Delhi or Mumbai even though most of the time they end up in the slums there.
Other thing I noticed was that the value for money was much more if Orrisa. People care for even 25 paisa whereas in cities like Delhi now a days denomination really starts from 1 rupee and even for that people don’t care much. You can get a fresh coconut with water and cream (malai) for just 2-3 rupees. You can get decent food for 4 people for less than $5.
More to come (including Jagganath puri and the pathetic pandas there)…..
I went to orrisa with couple of my colleagues for recruitment of engineering Grads from REC in Rourkela and another engineering college in near by city called Burla. But we planned our trip in such a manner that we visited various places in Orrisa for first few days. The moment we landed in Bhubaneswara airport (which was to my surprise a small but very clean and efficient airport) certain differences from the cities like Delhi were clearly visible. People were far more friendly there and very simple. Imagine waiter running after us to return the money we had forgotten in a restaurant!!
Orrisa (at least the places we visited) is very green. Our journey from Bhubaneswara to Konark was on a highway that was narrow but very smooth unlike many of the highways when we travel from Delhi to UP. It was one of the most scenic drives I have taken in terms of greenery. Probably it has something to do with the season as well (we were traveling there during the rainy season). There were rows of coconut trees on both side of the road and small huts and animal yards made the view more picturesque. The 1 1/2 hour journey, instead of being tiring, was very refreshing.
Konark has temple of God Sun. Originally it had 2 huge temples but one of those was destroyed by an earthquake (that is what we were told by the local guide there) it seems the structure itself is not very strong so the inner part of other temple is now completely filled and tourists can now look at the outside of the temple which has some of the very fine sculptures. Most of it is related to sex. Reason for it is that it was made after Ashoka’s conquest of Kalinga. There was a huge loss of life during that war. These sculptures and paintings were there to encourage people to have more kids (probably much the same way as government in Japan is encouraging people to have kids).
One sad part of the visit was to see the level of poverty in Orrisa. Earlier I had seen poverty in the slums of cities like Delhi but that is nothing compared to what I saw in villages of Orrisa. Now I can see why they still want to come to city like Delhi or Mumbai even though most of the time they end up in the slums there.
Other thing I noticed was that the value for money was much more if Orrisa. People care for even 25 paisa whereas in cities like Delhi now a days denomination really starts from 1 rupee and even for that people don’t care much. You can get a fresh coconut with water and cream (malai) for just 2-3 rupees. You can get decent food for 4 people for less than $5.
More to come (including Jagganath puri and the pathetic pandas there)…..
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gbelday
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Re: India: Places & People (from the eyes of forum members)
Thanks SaniaFan. We want to visit Sun Temple during our next desh visit. So, I would love to know more about that from you or other forum members who have been there.
I'll write more later on our trips to Kerala and Rajasthan (took the Palace on Wheels) during our last two India trips.
I'll write more later on our trips to Kerala and Rajasthan (took the Palace on Wheels) during our last two India trips.
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Kumar
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Re: India: Places & People (from the eyes of forum members)
Gautam, we are still waitinggbelday wrote: Thu Sep 13, 2007 8:46 pm Thanks SaniaFan. We want to visit Sun Temple during our next desh visit. So, I would love to know more about that from you or other forum members who have been there.
I'll write more later on our trips to Kerala and Rajasthan (took the Palace on Wheels) during our last two India trips.
Great post, Saniafan. One of my favorite indian trips was to south indian temple town , Ahobilam. There are 8 shrines and for really adventurous u can trek to ugrasthamba, which is pretty arduous. Even though this is pilgrimage, u have treks across rivers, off road ride which can make it exciting for younger generation as well. We made this trip almost 10 years back, so not sure of latest situation