Advertisement
Published: January 11th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Empty Bus?
That could be a first and last in India. Orccha was a really neat little place to stop over for two days. Too bad that the food wasn't better or we may have stayed a little longer. That can ALWAYS make or break a place for us.
The town itself is actually a town, not a large city, like we have been visiting as of late.
The journey to get there turned out to be much more complicated, and longer, than we had imagined.
From Lucknow, we had booked a train ticket that would take us to Jhansi, from which is would be a quick 40 minute auto-rickshaw ride to Orccha.
Well, the first time that we attempted the train we arrived at the station at 6:30 am to learn that our 7am train had been delayed by...6 hours!
We made our way back to the comfy homestay that we had been at before and ended up settling in again and purchasing tickets for the same train on the next morning.
It was disappointing but, finally, gave us a bit of extra time in Lucknow, which was good because we liked it there.
The next morning we got up, plied our way to the train station, again, to find that
our train had been delayed by 6 hours!
Again!?!?
At that moment it was make or break, change plans or possibly be stuck in Lucknow (forever?). We decided to make our way to the bus station and see what options we had there. It was a tough decision though because we had fallen in love with taking the train and just the thought of getting back on a bus was quite offending.
Getting OUT of the train station was quite something into itself. I had never, in my life, been in the center of a giant, moving mass of people like that. Maybe it was due to all the train delays that there were thousands upon thousands of people in, bursting out of and in the streets around the train station. It was something, alright.
And, I do admit, that there were a few panicky moments for me, especially while crossing (more TRYING to cross) the street and getting stuck halfway through while the drivers of the buses trying to pass by had to reach their arms out of the window and push us half an inch out of the way so that they could just barely squeeze by too.
Town of Orccha
Giant crumbling temples, old fort walls and lush green fields. We, somehow, found ourselves at the bus station, quickly to be told, by a friendly man, that we were at the WRONG bus station.
Ahhhh! After all the effort we put into getting there!
BUT WAIT! The friendly man just so happened to be a city bus driver, so he fired up one of the buses parked nearby, called us in and drove us to the RIGHT bus station in a completely empty bus AND charged us the standard bus fare, 3 rupees each!!
Amazing. Never under estimate the kindness of strangers.
As soon as we pulled up to the station there was already a bus waiting to leave for Kanpur, not OUR destination (not even a fraction of a way there), BUT it was giong in the right direction!
In total, the journey took a long 11 hours on the road. That was after a bus change, a few stops for chai and finally cruising in to Orccha in a private auto-rickshaw.
We quickly found our way around town, which was easy since its TEENY, and checked ourselves into a guesthouse.
We spent all of the next day exploring the ruins of palaces, temples and tombs from hundreds of
Just chillin'
In an old palace. Whatevs years ago. We had a great time, there were alot of neat things to check out.
The only problem with Orccha, and this is a reoccuring problem in our travels, is that the food was not so good and the restaurants are utterly filthy. Guillaume and I are well seasoned travellers, I would say, we have seen alot, our standards are...well, lower than they used to be when it comes to restaurant cleanliness. BUT there IS a point when you have to just say
"WHOA! That is GROSS, there is no WAY Im eating here!"
And we did not say that when we should have said it the most. And that is probably why I have been fighting this stomach bug for the past four days now.
Besides all of that, we really liked the town. And the morning that we were leaving we were surprised to find the TEENY town totally overflowing with people.
It turns out that we were there during the monthly pilgrimage when hundreds of people come from surrounding villages to camp out and pray at the temple.
So, we went to check out the scene at the temple and WHAT a scene it was.
It
Daydreaming
of what life could be like as a Mughal Queen. Sigh. was crowded, filled with people, cows, dogs, goats, sounds and MANY, many sadhus. It was an incredible place to be. To just stand aside and watch the happenings.
Oh, the things that we saw!
Dancing stoned out pilgrims, transvestites dressed in saris and armed with big sticks keeping control of the sadhu/beggar donation lines (by beating them, pretty much), gigantic bulls making their way by scaring a partition through the masses of people and finally US in the middle of a jam session with a circle of muscially inclined sadhus.
It was such an incredible feeling, to be there, amongst all of that devotion and action.
But alas, we had another train to catch and needed to be moving on.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.105s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 11; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0519s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb