Relaxed morning. Breakfast at Genguram sweets at Ashok Nagar a little distance from the guest house. Some organised sightseeing with Anoop's collegues which included a visit to the Lingaraja temple and a buddhist temple at Dauli giri hills. The Lingaraja temple architechture is beautiful and would have made for some good photography, but unfortunately cameras are not allowed into the temple premises. Of course we had to endure the usual rush and confusion which is unfortunately considered norm at most popular Indian temples and the unscrupulous and greedy priests. Though I have to admit that the old structure with a long history did inspire faith even admist all the cacaphony while the brand new perfectly proportioned buddhist pagoda or shanthi stupa built by the Japanese in the 1970's at the site of the Kalinga war, on the other hand did not inspire any faith, just merely photographic opportunity.
Finally we did get to the 'wedding' which was held at the Mayfair Lagoon. The hotel was quite nice, the ceremony detailed and the food good but neither Anoop nor I are either good at socialising nor are we very good with social graces, so we 'endured' 4 to 5 hours of following the baraat and all the formalities. We decided to retire early. Tomorrow the plan is to visit Puri and Konark.
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