Day 136 (Mon 20 Nov) - Bhubaneswar

Up early and had a pretty dire breakfast in the hotel restaurant.

We pottered down the road to catch up on our blogging when Jo suddenly realised that she had her friend Neil's mobile number. Neil used to work with Jo back in London and was in Orissa for 2 years doing volutary work.

She phoned him and some half hour later he pitched up on his pushbike. Great to see him. Jo and I followed Neil, who was weaving his way through the heavy traffic on his bike, to his flat.

Turns out that he's staying about 5 minutes away from our hotel.

Had a cup of tea and met Neils flatmate. She is also doing voluntary work and was from the Phillipines.

Luckily the pace of work life in India is quite unlike London so Neil could happily skip work for the next couple of days whilst he showed us round.

We got a rickshaw to an area in Bhubaneswar that is literally littered with temples of varying sizes ( [1], [2], [3], [4] ).

Tiring of the millions of temples we took a rickshaw to a modern part of town that boasted some restaurants and a shopping complex. Had a great lunch.

Jo went off to do a little shopping whilst Neil and Sarb had a beer in a nearby restaurant.

Jo soon returned and we headed back to the hotel for a wash and brush off before meeting up with Neil again and going for dinner at a restaurant on the other side of the train station.