Day 138 (Wed 22 Nov) - Bhubaneswar / Puri

Up early to head off to the train station to try and book our tickets to Varanasi and Delhi. Neil had warned us that these trains tend to book up fast. Absolutely baking and it was still just before 10am.

As the queue looked quite tame we went to try and find breakfast. Bad mistake as all we could find was a grotty little cafe. Sarb had a dhosa whilst Jo stuck to water.

Back to the station we queued up. Sarb was feeling in a not too friendly mood this morning. A persistent queue jumping Indian man could well testify to this!

Managed to get our tickets without too much fuss. We were planning to take a bus to Puri this morning but it was so hot that we just decided to get a taxi to take us instead.

Our cabbie took us back to our hotel, where we packed our gear and checked out. Loaded up the car and set off for Puri.

Bhubaneswar soon disappeared and was replaced by lovely wide open countryside. Quite beautiful.

Got to Puri at about 1 ish. Checked into the recommended Z hotel and settled into our big, airy and cool room. Really friendly staff as well.

Took a wander down the dusty main road and had a drink in the Peace restaurant.

We walked to the ATM machine a couple of km's away to get some cash where we met a Dutch couple. They'd been traveling in India about 3 months and were ready to leave. We could only agree. India is a great place to travel but it really begins to grind you down!

Walked back to the main road near our hotel and settled down to have dinner at the Garden restaurant. Very nice music although the food was not up to much.