Puri, Konark, & Cuttack

See also my posts on Bhubaneswar, Bhubaneswar’s food, and recommendations for books, music, and films from Odisha. The latter includes some good reads on the folklore of Puri.

During my two week stay in Bhubaneswar, I did a full day trip to Puri and Konark and two quick trips to Cuttack (once to meet a friend, once to explore on our own). I don’t have enough to say about any of them to justify a dedicated post, but I also felt my Bhubaneswar post was too long, so I put these all here. Even if you aren’t spending time in Bhubaneswar (though you definitely should…), check out the introduction to that post as it contains interesting cultural and historical information about Odisha.

The short version of this post is that Konark is incredible and a must visit. Puri I’m more mixed on, especially as a non-Hindu who isn’t allowed inside, but it has great food and fun places to visit nearby. Cuttack has its charms and a few interesting things (I particularly liked the maritime museum) but probably isn’t worth setting aside time for, for most people. All were worthwhile, though. We made some fun stops on the way to Puri, getting great food and visiting an artist village.

There are other day/weekend trip opportunities from Bhubaneswar, such as Chilika Lake and the old Buddhist sites Lalitgiri, Ratnagiri and Udayagiri. 

I do think people underrate Bhubaneswar relative to the places outside of the city though, so read my Bhubaneswar post too.

Puri

I’ll start with Puri, where we went first. It’s a roughly 90 minute drive from Bhubaneswar, and we went by Uber for something like 1500 inr. We thought about going by train or bus but it would have wasted too much time. There are places of interest in Bhubaneswar that are pretty much on the way, such as Dhauli and the Chausath Yogini temple (see my Bhubaneswar post for more info on these places).

Instead of going straight to Puri, we stopped for breakfast in a small town called Chandanpur, about 20 minutes from Puri, and then went to the nearby art village Raghurajpur. I’d say I liked this stop more than Puri.

Chandanpur is famous for a sweet breakfast dish called Chuda Kadamba. I planned to get it at the highly renowned Krishna Hotel, with the ram out front. I love rams. To be honest, I was more excited to pet the ram than to eat the food, which didn’t sound that exciting. Unfortunately the restaurant wasn’t where it appeared to be on google maps. We asked some street vendors and shopkeepers who said the restaurant closed and reopened under a new name a minute away, and they directed us to the new location, Hotel Chakaakhi (ହୋଟେଲ ଚକାଆଖି). I think this is correct. Sadly there was no ram. The people at the restaurant said that they had two rams, but one died in a ram fight at a festival (?!?!) and the other they had to sell.

I was bummed, and also a bit uncertain if I should be eating here instead of the place next door called Padmalaya which had way more google reviews and is where the Delhi Food Walks guy ate. This place I was at was mostly empty and had lots of flies. This seemed like a bad idea.

But the food was amazing (and the staff was very nice too, explaining the dishes to my wife in Hindi and showing us how they make the sweets). Chuda kadamba is sort of like a sheera made with poha powder, and then it is mixed with rabdi and chenna (condensed milk and cottage cheese, to translate). It is served with spicy dalma (the Odia staple vegetable lentil stew) and people love this combo and even mix them together. I’m not a fan of mixing. I’d rather eat the dalma on its own, then cool off with the chuda kadamba. Or just eat chuda kadamba. It’s ridiculously good. Regular readers will know I’m not the biggest dessert lover and find most Indian sweets to be grossly sweet, but this was sensational. 

I guess you get savory versions too, and every recipe I looked at is different (some even have banana). The story behind it is consistent, though (paraphrasing): “A long time ago, a devotee from Chandanpur made chuda kadamba and secretly took it to the Jagannath Temple to offer it to the Lord. Once he was caught by some priests and taken to the Puri king. At the king’s palace, he was forced to prepare the delicacy in front of everyone. The king found it so ‘pure’ that he allowed the devotee to offer it to Lord Jagannath whenever he wanted to.” I believe the version given to the god to this day is the laddoo shaped one, which sounds less fun because it doesn’t have rabdi and chenna.

In addition to the chuda kadamba dalma combo, we got a sweet called rasabali, which is fried chenna soaked in rabdi. I’ve had this at a few places and it’s great and not very sweet. They have a lot of other sweets and a few savories, but we needed to save room to eat at Puri.

Highly recommended! (If you don’t mind the hygiene concerns, that is, but I expect it’s the same at any place in the area.)

From here we headed over to the artists’ village Raghurajpur. It’s a five minute drive or ~20 minute walk. We started to walk and thought we’d get an auto near the train station, but after a few minutes of walking, a guy on a bike, who also happened to be an artist with a shop, offered to take us (not sure if we got lucky or if people generally hang around in Chandanpur looking for tourists to take to the village). We went even though I’m scared of bikes. Though it was a short ride, it was lovely, especially once we got past the train station. This was sadly my only taste of rural Odisha.

Artists in Raghurajpur specialize in Pattachitra, and the main stretch in the village has a long line of shops on both sides of the road selling these and several other local arts and crafts. The art is amazing, and there are also great murals that the locals have painted. Plus, according to Wiki: “It also has the distinction of being the only place where the traditional decoration called Patas is made, used under the throne of Lord Jagannath and on the three chariots during the annual Rath Yatra festival that takes place at pilgrimage town of Puri.”

I definitely recommend going if you like art and/or want souvenirs, but It was a bit awkward as I had no intention to buy anything. I feel bad about this. I’m a minimalist and live out of a suitcase. I’ve never bought a souvenir and I have never decorated any place I’ve ever lived. I don’t have anyone to buy things for. It’s all true but I’m just making excuses. I regret not buying something to support them though. I feel like an asshole. So go buy something. It’s great stuff! 

You can see some old footage of Raghurajpur in a 1976 Films Division documentary on the art of Odisha.

From there we went back to Chandanpur and then got a shared auto to Puri. The cab dropped us about a 20 minute walk from the Jagannath temple, of course the main attraction here. I like to walk but it was pretty hot so we got a cycle rickshaw and enjoyed the smattering of nice old buildings on the way.

Jagannath Puri is one of India’s most famous and important temples, being one of the Char Dham. It is even, some say, the rightful claimant of the Kohinoor. But should you care? I don’t know. For the non-spiritually inclined, it’s just another temple.

To be clear, the temple is massive and is one of the grandest temples I’ve ever seen. It might actually be the tallest I’ve seen. It’s awesome. It’s even where the word juggernaut comes from! (Though that refers to the chariots rather than the temple.) 

Unfortunately it's less beautiful than it would be if it weren’t painted in parts. Who painted it white and why? A crime of aesthetics. 

Also, only Hindus are allowed into the complex so I could only see it from outside the walls, and there’s not even a viewing platform. 

I enjoyed my visit here but honestly got much more out of my repeated visits to the old town in Bhubaneswar, which had countless wonderful smaller temples to go to, and where I got more “quaint temple town” vibes, as opposed to big temple town with tens of thousands of visitors a day and the infrastructure to accommodate them. I kinda like that vibe too, but I found old town Bhubaneswar to be more charming.

To be fair, I was only in the area for a few hours, and I was there in the middle of the day, which is the worst time to come. I think I would have enjoyed it much more in the evening. Also, a heritage walk (or better yet, a food walk!) would have made the area more interesting. There’s a maze of back lanes full of old sweet shops and ashrams, and this is the Puri I wanted to get to know.

I’m probably underselling Puri a bit. I had fun. And I think if I had a full day here I would have liked it even more. 

While my wife went into the Jagannath temple, I walked fully around it. This is worthwhile (at least if you aren’t allowed in). Each side has excellent gateways, and there are fun smaller temples along the way. My favorites were the Bateswari temple (not seeing it on google maps), guarded by adorably fierce lion women statues, and the wonderfully cartoony Sri Sri Satyanarayan temple. I want an entire city with whatever this architecture is. There are some cool old dharamshala buildings in the area as well, including the Debidutt Doodwawala Dharamshala, built by the same guy who built the dharamshala in old town Bhubaneswar. One other thing to keep an eye out for is the pillar in front of the main gateway. The pillar itself doesn’t stand out, but it was exciting to learn that this was actually originally at the Konark temple and was brought here by the Marathas. 

Beyond that, just people watch. You’ll see some weird stuff. It’s a genuinely emotional experience for a lot of people. Inside, my wife saw people rolling down the stairways. She said she was pretty scared for the old ladies doing it.

The area around the temple was recently redeveloped. Before this it was said to be very congested, but now they have nice new wide pedestrianized pathways and surprisingly decent bathrooms. It takes away from the character of the place and makes it feel more like a modern tourist site than an ancient pilgrimage spot, but it can’t stay that way forever and it’s ultimately good to make things more comfortable for visitors. I just wish there were more shade, and more places to sit in the shade. When my wife came out of the temple with food it took us a while to find a place to sit that wasn’t in the sun, and we had to squeeze in with a bunch of other people under a pavilion. 

Oh that reminds me, food! I was excited to come to Puri for the food. The mahaprasad, sold in the temple’s “Ananda Bazaar”, has been on my must-try list forever. No garlic, no onions, no post-Columbian exchange ingredients, Jai Jagannath!

Since I wasn’t allowed into the temple complex, my wife got it and brought it out. I guess it will soon be available to get outside of the temple too, though some sources say there are already “authorized outlets” selling it. I have no information about this. I read some people say they got to see the kitchen inside, that would have been awesome. Phones aren’t allowed into the temple complex so not a lot of photos exist of this.

I was a little bit bummed that it’s a fairly small spread. 56 dishes are made for the gods every day, but only a few make it out to the public. Which is fine, I don’t want to sound too entitled here. It was a much smaller spread than the food at Ananta Vasudeva in Bhubaneswar, though (see my Bhubaneswar post for more info). 

I’m surprised they don’t try to monetize this more. Some of us would pay good money for more dishes. If I were a Jagannath devotee and wanted to spread the gospel I’d fundraise and proselytize by opening restaurants by chefs trained in the temple. But no such thing exists. (BalwooGongyang, anyone?) Unlike Udupi, there’s been no culinary movement spurred on by the migration of former Jagannath temple chefs, as far as I know, though there are claims that temple chefs did find work in kitchens of wealthy Bengalis in the 19th century which has left an impact on Bengali cuisine. (There definitely were many Odia cooks that found work in Bengal at the time, but I’m unable to find evidence that some significant amount of them came from Puri.)

Anyway, the food was excellent and I wish I could eat it every day. There was plain rice, sweet rice, and two vegetable dishes (dalma and I think besara). The food was light but very flavorful with coconut, mustard, and a touch of sweetness. I’ve seen a few pictures and videos with one more dish and/or a chutney, so it depends when you go. For dessert we got a delicious malpua, heavy with fennel seeds and not too sweet, and a good wheat laddoo.

There is a fun article in Goya about the food, cooking process, and the many religious rules they must abide by. Some excerpts, but you should read the whole thing, it’s full of interesting details:

“The food’s transformation into Mahaprasad is a process overseen by three gods. Lakshmi hovers in the kitchen as 700 cooks chop vegetables, and do the cooking. The cooks must wear a tied cloth over their mouths; talking is not permitted because spit must be all avoided at all costs. If saliva were to enter the food, the food would not be fit for the gods. Every member of the kitchen staff must be a vegetarian. Some days, they must fast before cooking. If the food is not prepared in strict adherence with these rules, Lakshmi sends a dog into the temple premises. And if a dog is sighted within the temple, all the food must be thrown away and prepared again.

[...]

The food is cooked over a wood fire. The logs are arranged in a triangle with an opening on each side to add more firewood. Three or more mud pots are piled one on top of the other. The utensils on top have holes at the bottom to allow for free movement of steam, allowing the food in all pots to cook, even though only the pot at the bottom is directly in contact with the fire.”

(A lot of sources say that the pot on top cooks first. I think that’s just a temple legend though.)

I do wish I could have gone inside but nonetheless eating this food was a special experience. (Ananta Vasudeva in Bhubaneswar was better though.)

Some of the sweet dishes they serve to the gods can also be found at small shops in the winding lanes around the temple. What are the stories behind these shops? Are they run by multigenerational families whose ancestors worked in the temple kitchen? 

After eating we headed south to look for some of these while walking off our meal and hopefully finding some hidden architectural gems, of which I’m sure there are many. We didn’t see anything super noteworthy, but there were some cute old buildings, mixing European and Indian styles, and there was a large spiritually significant water tank.

As for the food, we got a freshly fried malpua from a random corner shop which was good. Then we got the best Indians sweets I’ve ever had at an unnamed, not on google maps place with yellow walls, somewhere around here, and here’s a video of the place so you can see what it looks like. They are known for malai puri, which looks amazing, and they were preparing it when we walked by but said it wouldn’t be ready for another hour. We got a few other things, including rabdi and steamed chenna, and it was all exceptional, super fresh and creamy, and barely sweet. Highly recommended. But also, we walked by a dozen other places that looked great too.

Then we went to the famous Nrusingha Sweets (a bunch of places have the same name, I went to the one with around 4k google reviews), known for their khaja, also given at the temple. They sell both ghee and oil versions, of course ask for the ghee one. It’s sweet and crispy, but to me it's boring and too sweet. Also, there are a million bees here. (Obligatory note that the hygiene standards are lacking at probably every place here.)

There’s quite a bit more to eat around here in the categories of street food and sweet shops. Nighttime seems to be the time to do this. I wish I could have stuck around. Here’s the Delhi Food Walks Puri tour. Chef Thomas Zacharias liked the aloo chana chaat. And there’s much else.

It was very hot out in the afternoon, and we had an hour or so to kill before going to Konark, so we thought about going to sit at the Honey Bee cafe which looked like a nice place to relax, use the bathroom, and get some cold drinks, but they close from 2pm to 6pm. I kinda think the whole point of cafes in touristy areas is to have a place to chill in at odd hours when we don’t want to do anything else, so I found that to be weird. There was nowhere else that looked nice to hang at. AC is in short supply around here.

I guess people go to the beach here. It didn’t seem interesting. We did go to the Sudarshan Crafts Museum, set up by the renowned artist Sudarshan Sahoo, but it wasn’t really a museum. There’s a temple, and you can see some artists at work, and there’s a shop that was closed. I didn’t find it that interesting though the sculptures were cool. The same artist also has a workshop in Bhubaneswar you can visit. 

Here is some great footage of the chariot festival from 1961, and some even older footage from 1932! And old photos. 

Konark

It takes less than an hour to get to Konark from Puri, and we went by Uber. The drive was nice and we briefly saw the water. 

If you are going to Konark from Bhubaneswar or going back that way, you can stop at the famous Arta Bandhu Sweets in Nimapada. They invented chenna jhilli, but the chenna rabdi looks even better. Sadly we went back to Bhubaneswar by bus so weren’t able to stop.

We were hungry when we got to Konark, so we ate at Kamat, which is across from the entrance to the temple. Not special or anything but it’s solid food in a clean enough place with a decent bathroom.

We entered the Konark temple at around 4:30pm, which gave us around an hour before sunset (this was mid-Jan). I wouldn’t have minded an extra 20 minutes of good sunlight, but overall this was a great time to go and I recommend sunset here, unless you want the morning light and are capable of getting here very early. There’s not much shade to be had so mid-day doesn’t sound fun. 

Konark is amazing. I don’t have anything to say about it that’s not very basic. It’s massive and just decked out with wonderful carvings. The “chariot” wheels are insane. This was built about a century after the Jagannath Puri temple (by the same Eastern Ganga dynasty), and it really is the apotheosis of Kalinga style architecture.

We spent 90 minutes here in total and did two full rounds around the temple just admiring all of the details, seeing many new things the second time around. It’s worth seeing everything up close, including the elephant and horse sculptures on the sides, and the temples in the back where you can see the sculpture of a crocodile or something with a fish in its mouth. 

I looked for everything mentioned in my Blue Guide book, but it’s fine looking randomly on your own. If there’s one thing I definitely recommend seeking out, though, it's the image of the giraffe, which suggests trade with Africa (this is on the south side). I didn’t notice these, but there are also images that seem to depict African and Chinese people. There are many other interesting images, including some that tell mini stories like a man leaving his family and going off on a pilgrimage, and a woman holding a dog by its tail. And there are a lot of images that made me thankful I wasn’t visiting with my in-laws. I don’t know how parents explain those to their kids. If you want a more detailed writeup, Kevin Standage’s blog is good. The close-up photos actually give you a better look at many of the carvings than your eyes can get when you’re there.

By the way, it took me a while to notice that this follows the architectural style of other Kalinga style temples, it just doesn’t look that way because it is partially destroyed. The tall building that we see is actually just the smaller building, the jagamohan, while the broken tower in the back would have been ever taller. There’s a sketch going around that people claim is from a 1610 palm leaf showing how the temple originally looked. I can’t figure out if it’s a real sketch or not, but it does give you an idea of the structure of the original temple, as do some recent sketches. Note that pillar in front of the assembly hall and behind the dancing hall. As I mentioned above, the pillar stands today outside the main gate at Jagannath Puri. Another interesting thing to note is that when this was built, the shoreline was much closer, and it would have been visible from the water.

When you leave, check out the Navagraha temple on the way out. If you have visited some of the old temples in Bhubaneswar, you would have seen the navagraha panels above the entrance or on the inside of the temple. I didn’t realize this when I was at Konark, but the Navagraha temple, though a modern building, has images that were found inside of the Konark temple.

After the temple I went to the Konark Interpretation Center, which was across from the entrance (where Kamat is). It’s not a must do if you’re short on time but it was nicely put together (and air conditioned!). It had some good information on the history, mythology, and architecture, plus recreations of sculptures where I was able to pick up on details I couldn’t pick up on at the temple, either because I wasn’t allowed to get so close or because the finer details had faded. I didn’t go to the Konark museum, which has some sculptures that were dug up around here.

I would love to go for the Konark Dance Festival which happens at the temple and the sand art festival on the beach.

And here’s an old Films Division documentary about Konark. Too slow and uninformative to watch all the way through, but nice to skim through or have on in the background. I like the vibe of these old docs, they speak to me.

Cuttack

Cuttack, roughly an hour away from Bhubaneswar, was the capital of much of present-day Odisha for around a thousand years, spanning numerous very different rulers, up until the new planned capital Bhubaneswar came after independence. To be honest, that makes it sound more exciting than it is. Still, it’s a potentially worthwhile day trip, if you have a lot of time to spend in Bhubaneswar. I wouldn’t say going there is a must-do experience, though, unless you have some special interest in the history or just feel some need to cross a famous place off your list. You’re probably better off just spending more time in Bhubaneswar. The maritime museum is really cool, though, and I would love to come to Cuttack one day for Bali Jatra (see the introduction to my Bhubaneswar post for more info). A lot of people love the street food here, too.

If you come to/from Bhubaneswar, you can stop in Pahala where both sides of the road are lined with shops making chenna poda and rasgula. A lot of people say these are the best you can get. We stopped here in the evening, when they make them fresh. I liked the chenna poda. Like anywhere else, the rasgula is still grossly sweet, sorry. But if you like rasgula people say this is the world’s greatest. On a different road to Cuttack we stopped at the flagship location of Kruti Coffee, this was very nice.

Compared to Bhubaneswar, Cuttack feels like a typical old Indian colonial era town, for better or worse. It’s much more congested than the present-day capital, but it also has more old world charm. It’s pretty carelessly overdeveloped, but around 3% of buildings are grandiose or beautiful or quaint. Lots of shops have old handmade sign boards. It’s a bit livelier and more cosmopolitan than Bhubaneswar (81.5% Odia and 89.6% Hindu, compared to Bhubaneswar’s 88.4% Odia and 95.2% Hindu). It’s full of stuff that’s around 100-200 years old, whereas everything in Bhubaneswar is like over 1000 years old or less than 80 years old. There are old institutions such as the Ravenshaw College and an old theatre company, and a lot of old elite families still live here. There’s also the old wholesale market which remains the largest in the state (nice writeup and great photos here). 

Subhas Chandra Bose is from here, and you can visit the museum at his ancestral home (it was shut the day I was there, but I saw it from the gate). That’s probably the most exciting thing here for the average Indian, though it doesn’t look that great and I’ve already been to the Bose museum at his home in Calcutta. There’s also a museum dedicated to Biju Patnaik, set in his home. Probably anyone who cares has already been. Sounded like a good opportunity to learn a bit about him, but I didn’t have time to make it there before it closed. There’s also the old fort, the seat of power of the dynasties that built the great temples of Odisha, and it’s nice to visit the ruins at sunset and walk through the green fort lanes, but really there’s very little to see here. (It’s more interesting to look at it on the map and be like “ooh, that’s a cool place to set a fortress!”)

For me, the most interesting thing was the Maritime Museum. Like a lot of Indian museums it could be nicer, but there’s plenty of cool things to see and interesting material on offer. It’s set in an old boat workshop and has a lot of old machinery which is pretty cool. There’s a lot of info about the cultural connections between Odisha and Southeast Asia, and you get side by side comparisons of Odia and Balinese clothing and masks. There’s good information about traditional boat building and there are displays of cultural traditions relating to Odisha’s maritime history. In the outdoor courtyard are some canons and examples of boats from around India, plus it’s a decent park area which gives you some old world colonial port town charm. Recommended! 

Also, I loved the board about the engineer George Faulkner, who ran the workshop the museum is set in:

“Faulkner was a man of a type perhaps little known in England, but far from uncommon in India; the Englishman to whom India has become a second mother-country and who would be unhappy and totally misunderstood and out of place in England. George Faulkner was a tall, stout, powerfully-built man with a ruddy face, a huge shock of flaxen hair turning white, and an immense white beard which hung down over his broad chest and floated all round his face. He looked like an old lion, a grand, jovial coarse, hard-drinking old Viking, full of songs and jokes and highly improper stories. Utterly reckless and wild about money matters, always full of wild schemes and yet this rough old creature had the most exquisitely delicate taste as a designer and the greatest skill and fineness of touch as an artisan. He painted, he carved, he moulded; designed buildings, boats, bridges; he grew the most beautiful flowers, planned and laid out the loveliest gardens and he could use a chisel or any other tool as well as his best workman.” Not your typical Indian museum board! (I relate to that first sentence.)

We also went kayaking at Odisha Maritime. I didn’t know about this and wouldn’t have done it on my own, but we met up with my wife’s friend’s friend who lived here and that’s his favorite activity. It was really lovely! It was great to be on the river and see a lot of birds. This was (regrettably) the only nature activity I did in Odisha, so I’m glad I had the opportunity. 

The other thing to do in Cuttack is eat. Cuttack is known for its street food culture, having been home to migrants from across India who brought their traditions with them and adapted it to local tastes and ingredients. The great Chef Thomas Zacharias even said “With a myriad of chaats, mithai shops, street food experiences and restaurants, Cuttack has made it into my list of favorite food cities in India.” (See recommendations from him here.) Personally I enjoyed my Odia food exploration in Bhubaneswar more than my street food escapade here, but that’s me and I’m not as into street food as most people and prefer interesting vegetable dishes. But maybe I just didn’t try enough of what Cuttack had to offer.

Unsurprisingly my favorite food in Cuttack was lunch at the Raghunath Jew Mandir. Not amazing like my temple meals in Bhubaneswar and Puri, but still good. It isn’t a noteworthy temple but I had fun walking around, there are some fun murals and it was nice to see Jagannath and co, being unable to see them at Puri. They are so cute.

As for street food, we tried the very popular Ishwara Dahibara Aloodum (near Anand Bhawan on the west side of the fort, some nice houses around here), which was pretty good (we had it once in Bhubaneswar as well… pretty good, just not one of my favorites). 

We also went to Chintamani Mistan Bhandar (at Buxi Bazaar Circle, fun old town area, on gmaps as Chintamani Bhandaar Mixture) and got their special mixture. I’m not a namkeen connoisseur but it was good. I enjoyed watching them make gathiya and pack the mixture, taking a tiny bit from several containers. On the road right outside of it was a rabdi kulfi cart called Jay Jagannath. I’m not a big kulfi fan but I guess I like it with rabdi. Around the corner was Dilbahar Lassi but they aren’t open in the winter.

We went to Munu Bhai Tea Stall (on the east side of the fort, in a small lane just south of Ring Road) which was good and very popular. It was fun to watch them make it, with a massive milk boiling pot which the guy would replenish by opening a handful of milk pouches at a time by slicing them all at once with a razor blade. I called him Sweeney Chaiwalla but my wife didn’t laugh.

We also got chai from a busy place across from the Fire Station at Buxar Bazaar. I recommend a short stroll in Buxar Bazaar, maybe from Fire Station to the Chintamani shop, you get the character of the old town around here. Lots of old shops.  

For further recommendations (including some meat stuff), here’s a video and list from Kalyan Karmakar’s Cuttack food walk, and here’s the Delhi Food Walks guy. I really wanted to eat at Mausi Chakuli but it was only open for breakfast.