Khajuraho

Asia » India » Madhya Pradesh » Khajuraho
April 30th 2012

Published: April 30th 2012

The only A/C carriage on the night train from Agra to Khajuraho has 8 foreigners out of maybe 80-something people in the carriage – an unreasonable high proportion, if you think about it. We arrive at 7am, fight our way through rikshas, find the guy sent by our hotel to pick us up, and are driven into the nicest hotel we’ve seen inIndia. For a country with 1 billion people, 19k population of Khajuraho is tiny, the village literally consists of less than 10 roads and still is one of the main tourist attractions of the country because of its Hindu “Kamasutra” and Jain temples. The village feels very calm and quiet after Delhi and Agra, with easy to handle traffic and not-so-insistent vendors.

- Look at my souvenir shop sir!

- No!

- No? – he looks bewildered and stops bothering us.

- Wow, that was easy. They don’t respect us or what?

- No, I think it’s just too hot really, they can’t be bothered.

Our hotel is a bit off the main road, and is called a Jungle Resort, even though there are hardly any trees around it. We got a small bungalow all to ourselves, which basically is one large room plus bathroom plus a nice roofed patio. Roses are growing around the bungalow, some weird bumblebees buzzing around, and to add to the idyll, the bathroom is actually properly clean and the sockets are not falling out of the walls. Incredible.

After a shower and a slow early breakfast we set out to explore the western group of temples, which are hindu and are called the “Kamasutra” ones. The outer walls of the temples are covered with figures of elephants (don’t ask anything) and shapy ladies, sometimes accompanied by guys and in interesting postures. Inside there is usually one large figure and some small ones on the walls, but the outside ones are much better. To get into a temple you need to take your shoes off, leave them at the bottom of the stairs and climb up barefoot. Not a problem, unless it’s about +40C, the sun is shining bright and the stone steps are boiling hot, so in the end we skipped some temples. At about 12pm I can hardly bear the heat any more, we find a tiny spot of shade and sit down there by a temple wall, inspired by another tourist who we saw just a minute ago – we were actually wondering whether she was dead, unwell or just exhausted. She was wearing boots and long trousers, and dragging a backpack with her, I can’t imagine how she managed. Finally we decide that it’s time to sit in front of an AC, and head back to the hotel. A riksha who was “greeting” us on the way to the temples is still at the same spot.

- Sir, you said you will need me on the way back

- Nono, we don’t

- What do you mean? It was a joke?

Walking in Khajuraho is actually pleasant, there is shade from the trees and few cars, so even I could cross the road on my own. On the downside, there are more cows roaming around, and my relationship with alive cows has never been easy.

When we come back to the hotel we find that there is someone’s wedding there same day. We are the only non-wedding guests there, but we are invited too, the receptionist tells me. Hmmm…. I would rather take a bunch of sneaky pictures of this event without actually participating, but as it turns out later, the wedding was happening during the night, so we didn’t see a single bit of it. In the morning all the chairs were piled on one side, the colourful cloth – on the other, and the staff was cleaning up the mess.

For dinner we head to some hotel restaurant, because this was the first place we could identify as a restaurant at all. It’s empty, and the receptionist guy comes to chat with us because he has nothing better to do, and because he’s enthusiastic about having a drink with us afterwards.

- For how long are you in India?

- Two weeks, we are travelling around, been in Delhi and Agra, and now here. Have you travelled much of India yourself?

- I travelled with tourist groups, been to Delhi and Agra too. I learnt to speak English there - his English is good, much better than what we heard before. Then we slip onto talking about drinks

- What do you like to drink? – he asks us

- Now it’s way too hot, so no alcohol, but in general I like beer.

- I like beer, rum and whiskey.

- Whiskey with ice?

- Nono, with water

- Water?? You dilute it with water? – Vanya is truly disgusted

- I.. what? I don’t understand…

- I mean… you shouldn’t add water to it.

- Nono, it’s good, this way I can drink more. It’s nice, do you want to try?

- Emm don’t think so – we laugh, still not appreciating diluted whiskey.

When Vanya leaves us for a minute, the guy asks me

- Is he a good friend of yours?

- Yep, we know each other from school, for more then 10 years

- Ohh, he will be a good husband for you

- Nono, he’s my friend

- Do you have a boyfriend in England?

- Yep I do. What about yourself? Are you married?

- I am, it’s an arranged marriage. – I’m not sure what his facial expression means, but it seems he’s regretting something.

We leave the place not seduced by the whiskey offer, and promise to pop in tomorrow if we need a car to Satna. Oh yes, everyone knows that we are going to Satna tomorrow, and we want to get the tickets for the 3pm bus. We don’t even ask how they know that. We’ve been to the bus station twice today, but the guy who is supposed to be selling tickets is not there. Come tomorrow, tells us the owner of the station shop. The timetable tells you there are buses at 8am, 2pm and 3pm every day, but the shop owner tells you the 2pmbus doesn’t exist any more. Vanya figures out that the ticket guy probably comes right before the bus leaves to sell the tickets, so a good bet is to try at 8am tomorrow. And indeed, this was a success – at 730am or so the guy is there, asking us whether we did come yesterday. I was a bit late, he tells us. We finally get the tickets, and still have half a day to spare. While we are thinking what to do now, two teenage guys start walking along with us, not trying to sell anything and not asking for 2 rupees, so we start talking. One of them has just started going to Uni somewhere nearby, and the other one is last year at school.

- I am from a low cast, my family is not very rich.

- Do you have to pay for the Uni?

- I have to pay for exams.

- A good reason to pass everything from the first try?

- Yes, haha!

They are here in the village now because they’re on holidays, and want to talk to us to practise their English. These two guys were really good guides, they took us to Jain temples on the other side of the village, and, more interestingly, to the Old village, where we would not have wandered into on our own.

- This is the Maharaja house, see it’s nice.

- Aha, so it’s a museum now?

- Why museum? People live there, the Maharaja.

- I thought Maharajas were ruling before, and now they have no power at all? But you are saying they still exist?

- Yes yes, of course they exist. If you want to build a new house, or open a shop, you need to go speak to him.

- And if you don’t speak to him?

- Well, you better do.

So Maharaja is kinda like a local mafia I take it? No official power but all the factual one?

Small kids come up to us and ask for school pens. They guys chase them away

- Do they really need pens, or they just don’t know what else to ask for?

- When they are small, they are not allowed to use a pen at school only pencils, because pencil is easier to correct. And when they learn to write well, they are allowed to use pens.

- A-ha….

We walk along tiny narrow streets of the village and keep talking.

- Are you a hindu?

- Yes I am. If I am a good person in this life, I will be reborn as a man.

- And if not – as a woman? – I know the right answer, but being in India sets me in this mood.

- Haha, no! As a bug or something. But I think we need to enjoy the life now, we have it only once.

- I think so too. So you don’t think you will be reborn? – He’s not quite sure now. Later Vanya tells me – did you notice his approach? If everything is ok, if the karma is good, he believes in it. And if bad, he doesn’t. Good one!

- This is the part of the village where the untouchables live.

It looks worse than the Maharaja house, to put it mildly. Some shacks with missing walls and kids playing in the mud. But we’ve seen something like that already in Delhi and Agra, so this is what they were.

Finally we are being told about some shop that is very famous and sells very good pashminas, but we prefer to just give some money to the guys and avoid the shop. Shop avoiding is brought about by the need to haggle – turns out we both hate doing this, and if you don’t haggle, you feel like an idiot cos you know how much you are overcharged. The second reason is that our backpacks are of very limited size and have very little empty space. And the third one – I don’t need a woollen pashmina at +40C! And to be fair, we did go to two Lucky’s shops in Agra, and carefully looked at the stuff sold there. Haggling aside, I honestly didn’t like anything there because of the terrible uselessness of the things sold. Yeah, it might be a souvenir, but it still may be used somehow? Not just displayed in a dusty cupboard?

I’ll buy a book, says one of the guys, taking the money from Vanya. I wonder whether the money was split equally between the two, says Vanya to me two mins later.

At 230 pm we and our backpacks are waiting at the bus station.

-The bus comes from there and leaves that way, it will be here at 3-15 - says the shop owner.

- How does he know that it will be here at 3-15?

- Well, it’s got to be late, but probably not much, so 15 mins is a good estimate.

While we wait on a bench, a group of kids moves towards us and starts throwing something above our heads. Then the disappear, and come back with an older girl

- These little ones want to give you this – She has two mango candies in her palm.

- Nono, thank you

- If you don’t take the sweets, the kids will be really disappointed, because they like you.

- Ok, thank you!

I take the sweets, the kids leave. I still feel guilty we didn’t give them anything in return. I guess the first thing we expected from the kids was asking for 2 rupees, and the last one – to give us sweets.

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