Advertisement
Published: April 29th 2008
Edit Blog Post
A Man and His Horse
Note the woman covering her eyes ... she's peeking! After a six hour journey with our driver Raju, we arrived in Khajuraho. Although we hadn't intended on visiting this area, other travelers at the Tiger Reserve highly recommended stopping in Khajuraho and the neighbouring town of Orchha. They told us that Khajuraho's primary tourist draw are several beautifully carved erotic temples.... ‘Erotic’ was all Chris needed to hear to be sold on this little detour.
The temples were really quite something! It was a complex of about five stone Hindu temples which were built in the early tenth century. Some of the subject matter of the carvings was pretty risqué. We walked through the complex in the late afternoon and hunted out the best of the best carvings. When we heard laughing or embarrassed giggles coming from any direction, we immediately went that way, knowing that there was sure to be something dirty carved into the walls.
The best ones involved orgies, precarious sexual positions, and of course, Chris’ favourite was the man showing his loyal horse how much he really cared. The temples in Khajuraho were undoubtedly erotic, but also incredibly beautiful and impressively intricate. Aside from the entertainment value, it was a lovely place to spend
a few hours because the grass was green, the flowers were in bloom, and the garbage was absent - quite a change from everyday India.
The town of Khajuraho had a nice feel about it, too. As we walked along the streets at night we noticed a little make-shift movie theatre in the town square. Locals would sit on the ground and watch old Indian movies against the white wall of an adjacent building. We stopped to watch for a while and the locals were more than happy to explain the plot of that night's movie. Although we didn't stay for the end, we fell asleep to the music from the movie drifting through our window. A very Indian end to a beautifully Indian day.
After a couple of days in Khaj we decided to catch a local bus to Orchha....this was an experience in itself...Chris had a fat man sit on his shoulder with a cheek on either side...not a pleasant way to spend 4 hours, but we made it. Orchha is a really small town with a large maharaja's palace in a fort, with many 16th century temples. We checked into our hotel with a “fort
view”, although to enjoy the view of the fort you had to sit outside beside the open sewers for the city. Lovely view, terrible smell. So we decided to just visit the fort instead of looking from the outside.
The fort and palace were truly incredible to behold. There was a lot to explore within the fort and we were really taken with the views of the green valley below with many little temples in the distance. I thought it looked like a fairytale land and took about 150 pictures. After leaving the palace we wandered through the surrounding fairytale countryside. Many of the old and abandoned temples were now homes for, bats, birds, cows and other farm animals. At the end of a country lane we were blocked by a stone wall and, as we approached, a dog ran for us barking hysterically - being afraid of 3rd world dogs with rabies (this has turned out to be one of my greater fears in life), I moved quickly behind Chris so that he would take the bite, if it came to that. An old lady made her way to the wall and threatened the dog with a stick
and invited us over the wall. This woman looked to be about 115, but because the rural people seem to look far older than westerners, she was probably in her 60s. She guided us over to the temple in the field next to where she was working. On the way she had us sample the little green chickpeas or “channa” from the crop she was tending. When we arrived at the temple, she showed us the various rooms and we were surprised to discover that she and three generations of her family actually lived in the temple. There were ancient Hindu paintings and carvings in amongst all the worldly possessions of this poor family. It was such an interesting experience to see a family with so little living among the most beautiful ancient art.
We made our way back to visit the cenotaphs and temples on the other side of the town. We explored these massive decrepit buildings and found hidden stairways to the upper levels. Chris encouraged me to climb to the moss covered top of one domed roof. Braving the shaky stones and resulting dirty pants was worth the sunset we watched from the top of the
world.
On our way back to town we met a great couple from Manhattan, Jack and Vered. They explained that they had booked the “Maharaja Suite” in the palace for a night, but had arrived in Orchha one night early, so they checked into another hotel for the first night and decided that they would just stay on there. This meant that the “Maharaja Suite” was available and fully paid for. They kindly offered it to us and went far out of their way to check us in as their “Niece and Nephew”. The four of us went up to the suite and it was indeed fit for a Maharaja. It had two huge private outdoor verandas, a really nice king size bed (Chris and I typically sleep in two twins), a huge marble bathroom and a separate room with wrap around views just for the throne-style toilet. Jack and Vered went home after we checked in, leaving Chris and I to sit around enjoying the much-appreciated luxury. We even ordered our breakfast to be served on the verandah the next morning. We want to give our sincere thanks to Jack and Vered - it was so nice to
live like a Maharaja for a night given that we’ve been roughing it a bit throughout India. It was one of those great experiences that only seem to happen to you when you are travelling.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.115s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 9; qc: 61; dbt: 0.0723s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
SmileyRose
non-member comment
A lovely write up
Thank you for sharing you photographs. I really enjoyed looking at them. Such a lovely write up too. :)