We manage quite well without earplugs until somebody starts breaking up furniture in the corridor outside our room. At least that is what it sounds like. We have the same again for breakfast minus the lime pickle, before settling our modest bill and setting out for the Bus Stand. A tall man enquires as to our destination, corrects D's pronunciation of Bhubaneswar and points to an empty parked conveyance. The crew are reading newspapers but when we arrive at the door they signal us to wait as they sweep the floor. Once this is done we are invited to occupy the seats behind the driver that are marked for MPs, MLAs and VIPs. D asks about stowing our luggage and one of the team climbs onto the roof as D passes up the big bags. Hopefully gravity will keep them in place.
Our seats are on the sunny side of the bus so we leave hats as placeholders and stand on the shady side of the bus waiting for something to happen. We have been told that the buses leave every half hour but we are not holding our breath. A few people board and some of them get off again. After about 45 minutes people appear from all points of the compass to board the bus, a driver appears and we are off. Passing through Konark town we seem to stop every 20 yards and the bus is soon packed with passengers. One of the chaps reaches through the crowd to collect the fare - Rs 45 each. The road surfaces and standard of driving are quite good and our driver is not one of those heavy booted hornblowers that one usually associates with Indian buses.
R is getting the worst of the deal as she is sitting next to the crush of bodies in the aisle. The countryside is flat and mainly given over to rice paddies, with countless kingfishers and drongos perched on the wires and a few storks in the fields. The crush thins out very slightly at a town around the midway point but we remain unconverted. About 20 km out of Bhubaneswar we join the main east coast toll road and made faster progress. The last stretch into the city is through heavy traffic. The boys tell us when the station is coming up and seem pleased to get a small tip for recovering the bags from the roof.
The bus stop could hardly have been more convenient for our hotel and we are soon checked in. R took a travel sickness pill before boarding the bus which has worked extremely well as a sleep inducer so a cool room in the midday heat is very welcome. Later in the afternoon we take a stroll to see what we could see. Mainly engineering suppliers and car accessory shops. A share auto returns us to our road end for 5 rupees each. We remember that a small shop opposite the hotel sells Orange Bites, a small boiled sweet that R hands out to small children and D. She purchases the entire stock - twenty rupees worth. Back at the hotel it is time to to get smartened up. The Grand Central blots its copybook by having no hot water so tepid showers for us.
The first auto walla that approaches us knows the place we want to go. It is a swanky hotel complex called the Mayfair Lagoon with several bars and restaurants. They have a restaurant called Kanika which specialises in Odishan food and gets good write ups. First a beer. We see a 'Scottish Bar'. By the entrance is a bear in a Beefeater costume, inside a portrait of the Butcher Cumberland. However it must be Scottish as there is a gallon bottle of Chivas Regal behind the bar. To begin we are the only customers but then a party in formal Indian dress, including Kismet style curly toed shoes, appear. Some are obviously non- Indian, others look local but speak with North American accents. It must be a wedding party as the groom appears in full fig to down a quick drink before he is missed.
The complex is huge and we get lost looking for the restaurant. A member of staff leads us down a service corridor, through the wedding party and another restaurant to Kanika, small but beautifully furnished. We have delicious lemon drinks while we study the menu. We opt for thalis, veg for R, non veg for D. It is all excellent and we recognise a couple of dishes from Gajlaxmi. The dessert with the thali is a sweet but thin rice pudding - OK if you like that sort of thing but we specifically want to try a local delicacy called Chenna Poda, a kind of roasted sweet cheesecake. We were tipped off about this dish by one of our secret sources and are very pleased to have made the effort. We enjoyed the meal so much that D barely looked at the credit card machine as he authorised payment. As we left a deputation came to chase us. The first digit had been missed off the input and we had been under charged by 2000 rupees. Even at £22 including drinks this was a feast for the cost of a pub lunch.
We hover at the gate in search of an auto. One stops with an Indian chap already on board. We ask for the station and get quoted a price 50 rupees less than the outward trip. What we didn't realise that this fare involved a round tour of Bhubaneswar's pharmacies as our cotraveller needed some specific medicine. We were dropped off on the north (wrong) side of the station and enrolled in India's criminal classes by taking a short cut over the footbridge without buying platform tickets. Still no hot water at the GC. We turn in as we have an early train down the coast to go birdwatching.
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