25-26/jan puri

Puri is a small city, but it feels more like a big town. It's the holiest city in india, for the hindus, with many temples, and pilgrims. But it's also a very turistic place. The turistic and the holly part, are quite separed. The turistic part with agancies, restaurants, internet cafes, shops, is by the beach, a very very long beach. You can't see the end. We spent a while updating the blog, sending mails, reading news... After that, we decided to rent a bicycle. Bicycle here a so beautiful!!! City bikes, quite big, with huge wheels and a very old-fashioned seat (not very comfortable). They are Atlas. The same brand that rafa had in lund! So we started cycling around, passing through a market, and then sand, and then the library, and then sand, and then a boys residence, for students of sanskrit. They were playing volleyball, but they stoped to come to talk with us. After being with them for a while, and on our way back, I bought a 'baldufa'. I don't know the name of this name in english. Zac didn't know it either. So, a child, 10 years old, tough me how to use it. I totally forgot how to do it, even if I have been playing with it for years!!! That was a nostalgic moment for me!
And the slums of puri, start very close to the center of the turistic area. I don't really know if they are slums or not. Maybe shantitowns. I still wanna ask the difference. And all the houses were made by palms and clay, in both sides of the market. And the ground, sand. Sand all around. Every once in a while, palmtrees, but everything very dry. Someone said it's because there was sea-water there before. After the sand limit, the jungle!

The day after, we walk along the beach, similar to the sant pere pescador beach, but wider, and more dirty. We founf several dead tourtls, 60 or 70 cm long, devoured by the dogs and the crows I'd guess. And between this area of the beach and the hotels, rubish, with 'holly' cows eating all the possible leftovers. On the other side of the beach, there's a fisherman's village, with thousands of boats, that seems to be very heavy. It also look a very dirty area. After that, we decided to take our bikes (RS15 a day, less than 0,3 euro), a cycle to jaganath mandir (temple), the holliest one. But we can only see it from the outside, because only hindus are allowed. Not even the former president of india (I think), indira ghandi (that merry one of the sons of the former president) was allowed to go in, because she is originally from italy. That's what they told us. My stomach is still like this... After that, we took a road, and started cycling for hours, just to see the city. It was full of cows, but everywhere!!! In the middle of the main roads, on the sidewalks, everywhere. And the traffic is already crazy. So all that made the conduccion of the bike very interesting!!! Risking our lives every second, because no one respects the lines, the signs... nothing!!!
We went back home when it was already dark, following the sea shore, in the beach, half meter from the water, and with a full moon. It was very nice. Long but nice.

30/1/05