Temples in Orissa

We reached Bhubaneswar by 10:00 AM and first went to Lord Lingaraja Temple. 

Lord Lingaraja Temple

We had a lot of advice from locals and social websites about the Pandas who shall be hunting tourists from hotels to parking areas and all around the temple. So, we asked the drive how to go about it. He suggested that you tell the Panda that you want to do just Darshan and not any special poojas in the beginning itself and maximum give 100 bucks. We also said if we don't go with a panda, we will be constantly chased by various pandas until we have one, and the occasion would be horrible. 

We took a panda from the parking area and told clearly like the driver-assisted. Do not expect pandas to be too religious and special; they would be having a pan-filled mouth and talking to you as if they know everything. Beware that you do not get engaged in any poojas/involved discussions. Pandas too explain the history quite well and some of them ask you whether you like to perform any pooja; some of them just make you do special poojas. So, be aware.

The Lingaraja temple is quite old and involves history of Lord Harihar - Shiva and Vishnu togather. Of the Linga, the bottom part is available as like the Linga and the top half represents Lord Vishnu. The temple also has 2 flags - representing the symbols of Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu. There are lots of other deity temples around the main temple and they all symbolize revolving around the main deity.

The Orissa triangle represents - Bhubaneswar (dedicated for Lord Shiva), Puri (Lord Jagannath (Vishnu)) and Konark - the Sun God. We could understand the history better when we visited Sun temple, Konark the next day.

After the darshan of Lingaraja temple with the pands, we paid him 100 bucks and sent him; we continued one more round of darshan by our own at ease now. The Sun was soaring at 40+ Celsius !!

Puri

We reached Puri by evening and visit Lord Jagannath temple! We took an auto for Rs.80!! - strictly drivers are not ready for bargaining and dropped us closer to the temple through narrow streets - about 1 km from the temple. Vehicles are not allowed on the roads near the temple. The whole of narrow streets see lots of hot-hot snacks and sweets - be ready to taste them!! 

Lord Jagannath temple - after having safely done with Lingaraj temple in the morning, was waiting to see whats in store at this temple with experience with Pandas! We are not allowed to carry mobiles, cameras, bags into the temple. We need to make use of the cloakrooms and chappal stands to park these. I had deliberately left them in the hotel room to save time; and in 45 minutes, we were able to leave our chappals at the stand ... UFFFF !! What an experience. the whole place looks like a festival - very crowded, people shouting all around and moving in all directions!

After a police security check, we managed to get into the temple; the hunting of pandas was quite less here compared to the Lingaraja temple, maybe, because the crowd was big :)! We had sailed by the crowd and got some good darshan in 20 minutes. The temple is prone to woe the tourists by its popularity and so are the pandas; almost was put into a trap, but realized and just got out! We were out of the temple in an hour after satisfactory darshan. Do not miss to see all the deities around and one can spot Konark Sun God as well here. We returned to the room by 8:30 PM, had decent dinner at Jamindars palace, and rested.

Konark

After a long Day-1, for day-2, we had booked a cab for visiting the Sun temple and Chandrabaga beach for Rs.1050, which was okay, from the lodge. We checked-out and reached the Sun temple around 10 AM. Konark is 37 kms from Puri. We took a guide for Rs.200, which was important for a temple of such huge history and popularity, and for us to understand all these. One needs to walk 500m to reach the place, The place is now with the Department of Archaeology and a regular temple for prayers. The guide explained us the history so well on the need of building the temple, the Chandrabaga river, and now the beach, the destruction and restoration attempts. All made a lot of sense after having visited the other two temples of the Orissa golden triangle.

Sun dial

One gets to know about this temple on youtube - very detailed. Do see this if you are planning to visit Konark. Also, the Sundial was more than impressive. The way the temple was built considering so many things, by astronomy, by philosophy, by medicine, by spirituality is more than amazing.