Hot, Hot, Hot!

Tuesday in Puri was hot. We headed out to the beach and decided that today I would check another item off my bucket list and ride a camel. Why there are camels on the beach in Puri, I have no idea, but there are at least a half dozen traveling up and down the beach, offering rides to tourists. How much was the first question to which one camel owner said 1000 rupees. No that was even too rich for my blood. Then another young fellow runs over and offers us a ride for 100 rupees each, and we jumped on. For some reason this camel has two long bamboo poles on top of the saddle. I don't know why and it looks like it will be uncomfortable but we get on anyways. Guess what? It was uncomfortable and I felt completely out of control sitting on top of that camel. CHECK!!Climbing down off the camel I was searching for a chair under the protection of a tarp. No problem runs up a man with a lifeguard hat and he directs us to his tarp. Awe, the shade makes it at least a few degrees cooler. Time for Randy to go play in the waves. Our lifeguard friend quickly grabs a tube and heads into the water with Randy. The waves come pounding into the beach and slowly they make their way out into the water. Jumping the waves, tumbling and getting covered with sand. At one point Randy gets knocked right over and carried onto the beach. Exhausted from fighting the waves, covered with sand he laughs as he makes his way out of the water. CHECK. He has now swam in his fourth ocean.We decide to head back into the hotel and work on the Business Plan for a few hours. Then we will go for a walk. So at 2pm we head out looking for the hotel that offers spas (maybe we will book a massage for tomorrow), and the British pub for a refreshment. A few blocks in we are already sweating from the heat when the toe strap on my thong breaks. I can't go barefoot because the sidewalk is just too hot, so if I squeeze the strap between my toes I can keep it on. Now we are in search of a kiosk that sells sandals. Not so easy to find. As I mentioned before almost every outlet sell textiles/ clothes or snacks, but we keep walking and finally jump into a pull rickshaw to take us to the nearest store. Not a block later and we were there. Lol. To make sure I don't find myself in the same predicament again this trip I got the ugly sturdy pair, two actually but they should last. We start out again to find the hotel and pub. Now only two silly Canadians would be out walking midday on a blistering hot day. Within ten minutes I felt like I had just run a full marathon. It was so hot that somehow we missed both the hotel and the pub. We had walked to the very end of the boardwalk and knew we missed both locations. As we turned back we decided to grab another rickshaw, we were exhausted in the heat. Part way back we spot the Swimmming Hotel, how did we miss it? We get the the driver to drop us off and we go check out the spa and hotel, booked two massages for Wednesday and decided we would move from our Star 1 Puri hotel to the star 4 Swimming hotel for Wednessday night. Then miracle upon miracle we find the British pub. It is in a great hotel and the staff was more than eager to practice their English on us. For the next hour and a half we enjoyed their company and cooled of with a couple of refreshing drinks. The place was so nice we decided to go back there for dinner that evening.Wednesday morning we transfer over to the Swimming hotel, work on the business plan for a few hours and then head over to the spa for our relaxation massages. A male masseuse for Randy and a young lady for me in two separate rooms. It felt great just to relax for an hour, I love massages!Today is the start of Ganesh Chaturthi, a 10 day festival celebrating the birth of Lord Ganesh. Ganesha is widely revered as the Remover of Obstacles and more generally as Lord of Beginnings and Lord of Obstacles. He is worshipped as the god of wisdom, prosperity and good fortune and traditionally invoked at the beginning of any new venture or at the start of travel.All along the beach temporary temples have been erected with tons of lights and a Ganesh at the back center of each upright. About 6pm we head over to the boardwalk with the crowds of Indian tourist taking in the displays and enjoying the music and lights. Even though it is dark there a tons of people on the beach, playing in the waves, flying kites and enjoying the celebrations. We find a spot on the beach and sit down to watch the activities and people. Families, groups of teenagers and couples all appear to be celebrating and enjoying the festivities. It was a great night to be out. We were hoping to leave Puri on Thursday but turns out a national strike had been called for Thursday, which would mean all modes of transportation would be halted for 12 hours and our chances of getting a taxi back to Bhubaneswar would be slim to none. Looking outside Thursday morning it was obvious the strike was being observed as there wasn't a car, taxi or even rickshaw to be seen. The roads were desolate. Back to the hotel for the day. It was blistering hot outside so today will be dedicated to working on the business plan presentation. Friday we would make our way back to Bhubaneswar. While Randy worked on the plan I tried to arrange for a taxi back to Bhubaneswar for Friday. We had the phone number of the young man who brought us to Puri so out I went to find a phone and contact him. Apparently most of the hotels in Puri only have the ability to receive calls but not call out. I guess that is how they keep the staff from talking on the phone all day. Eventually I figured out I would need to go to a phone store to make the call. Fortunatly I found a store where the proprietor spoke English. He actually made the call for me, spoke to the taxi driver giving him directions where to find us and then assured me Manas would be here to pick us up at 8am Friday morning.8am came and went Friday morning and no Manas. At 9am I head back to the phone store to see if we can find out where he is. Turns out he isn't coming. According to his conversation with my friend at the phone store, he had called the hotel to confirm the appointment and was told they didn't know us. A bit surprising and maybe not completely believable as we are the only white people in town and we stand out like sore thumbs or better yet celebrities. Anyways we need to find alternative arrangements. Several minutes later Randy has hired us a taxi and we are on our way back to the Suryansh hotel in Bhubaneswar for 2/3rd of the cost to get to Puri. Hummmm. The driver wastes no time getting us there and we are checked back in, with an upgrade to an Executive Suite. A bit of a waste since we are only going to be there one night and we have no friends to invite over to enjoy the living room.lol. Not to waste time we decided we better try and see some of the sites of India. Where to go? We decided on the State Museum of India. Interesting and we learned lots but an hour looking at sandstone sculptures of Gods etc is enough for us. Back into a rickshaw we headed to the shopping center we visited on our last stay in Bhubaneswar. Randy needed more books. At a book a day he really needs to convert to an ebook. We found a great little book store and then wondered around for a while, grabbed some snacks and headed back to the hotel. Still haven't done any actual shopping other than a few clothing items to keep us going while we are here. The plan is we will take a taxi to Sumbalpar (270km, tomorrow (Satuday) stay the night and then taxi to Jharsaguda on Sunday. Randy emailed Tanmaya to let him know our plans and we settled down for the night. Within minutes Tanmaya phoned us requesting that we change our plans. The road to Sambalpur is in terrible shape and goes through some native tribe villages where foreign tourists had a few problems last year. So not wanting to cause any undue stress for our hosts we cancelled our SUV and driver. Tomorrow we would take the train to Jharsugada if we can get the tickets...