konark

bowels better today - actually slept pretty well (although the unsolvable problem as always - be too hot with fan off or be annoyed by noise with fan on - persists). Up early, breakfasted, showered (ridiculously large number of mosquitos living in the bathroom today, bitches), off to the train station to buy a ticket to Madras - something of a novelty I appeared to be at the booking office - I suppose most tourists buy their tickets from the travel agents here instead. The train is from a different town, so first I must discover and take a local train to that place. Booking man was a little vague about how to do that - just told me a time to come to the Puri station. wandered some more, to the bus station. overcrowded minibus rides are fun! on the way out, cute chick in red sari was puking out one of the front windows, so on my side we had to batton down the hatches for a while to avoid splashback. On the way back, not enough space inside so ticket conductor was climbing from the roof, down and along the side and into the main cabin whilst the bus is pounding down the toll road, swerving to avoid cows. fucking autorickshaw driver charged me 20Rs to drive me 10 mins walk from bus station to the temple, which I got because I couldn't be bothered to wander round on foot trying to find the way in. then the indian government bitches charged me 250Rs to get in (10x what Indians were charged, and more than I spend in a day normally including hotel). Got a pretty good guide though - round the outside, then up on high stone walkways with no guardrails and plenty of scaffolding (some kind of restoration work?) to get in the way. The sides of the temple are carved with all sorts of carvings of people going about their daily business: elephant processions, giraffe presentations, people sleeping, washing, eating, men fucking women (in a range of positions), men fucking two women, two women fucking each other, women fucking dogs (apparently a cure for syphillis?!). Only two other non-Indians at the temple, so much interest amongst the sightseers to talk to foreigner Ben, look at guide book, practise english, blah blah. Likewise on walk home I took a wrong turn but was still going in approx the right direction so kept on down that road - lots of people there wanting to say "hello" - just a few hundred metres away from the resort/hotels district, but I suppose none of my kind ever goes up there.