Orccha-Khajuraho

---

It wasn’t the easiest place to get to, but the fort at Orccha is the best we’d seen in India. It also wasn’t the most opulent or the most fascinating historically, but it was the most fun architecturally, with a complicated web of passageways and doorways seemingly randomly leading to different areas of the fort – it would have been the perfect place to play Hide-and-Seek as a kid. Honestly, I think you could hide for days within its walls.

The Fort of Orccha sits on the Betwa River and is actually a conglomerate of several large palaces and buildings built during different times. The ruins and the fort buildings themselves are extremely well kept, while the views from the palace are extraordinary, especially towards the Chaturbuj Temple, built in the 9^th century, across the river. The walls of the fort, which you can follow by walking atop them, span for a good distance and make for a nice stroll. I suppose if you come from a country with castles, as someone from Ireland commented to me, you might find the fort banal; to me, it was great fun. The most noteworthy of the buildings was Jahingar Mahal, completed at the end of the 16^th century and found high above the landscape of the town. I imagined large Mughal cannons being fired from its tall towers and war elephants exiting its gates.

We stayed the night, which was slightly boring in a dead town of less than 9000 people with three restaurants. Also, the town of Orccha itself seemed to us to be somewhat out of a bizarre M. Night Shamalan movie, with boarded up buildings and staring, begging children. During our walk of the fort’s walls, we had an interesting conversation with the groundskeeper, who set the tone.

“Orccha is safe place…” he said after we’d exchanged some pleasantries about the great job he was doing with the grounds: the grass was green, the bushes were trimmed, and there was no trash anywhere.

“Very good. It’s nice here…” Klaudia replied.

“Be careful in India…”

“Yes, we know,” I said.

“Be careful with sex,” he said.

“Huh?” I looked at Klaudia, “Did he just say, ‘Be careful with sex’?” Klaudia nodded in affirmation.

“Yes, be careful with sex. Another tourist made sex by India man…”

“Oh…” We understood what he was talking about now. A Swiss couple, biking cross country towards Delhi, had been attacked by locals while they were camping near the side of the road. Why they decided to camp in India of all places, I cannot say: I do not find the country safe.

“Yes, they take string to man to tree and make sex with woman…” he said, the translation being that, according to the article I’d read, the man had been tied to a tree while they raped the woman.

“Ok, we’ll be careful…” I said.

“Yes, Orccha is safe. No problem with sex…” he told us.

I glanced at Klaudia again: it was time to get the hell away from this guy and his fixation with sex or rape or whatever he was talking about.

We walked across the bridge to the Chaturbuj Temple, which I was looking forward to because, being in the childish mood I was in thanks to a fun fort, you can walk up the old 9^th century stairs to the top of the towers with a lit torch. It was all so Medieval.

We made it to the temple, when Klaudia thought, or possibly noticed, that some teens were following us. We began an ascent up some stairs that led to the temple doors when the teens quickly ran up the stairs before us. When we reached the doors that led to the tower’s winding stairs, Klaudia remarked that it didn’t seem like a good idea. I walked over to the tower’s doors, and the teens moved as if to go with us. I stopped; they stopped.

“Ok, let’s go back to the hotel,” I agreed. I’ve learned you do not ignore a woman’s intuition, especially when safety is concerned. As we walked towards the hotel, we definitively noticed the teens walking behind us. We left for Khajuraho the next morning.

Khajuraho - the place will forever be emblazoned upon my mind. I felt great the first day there, having even sent an email to my brothers saying that, despite a slight fever I’d had off and on for a couple days, I was fine and healthy. We were going to visit the temples there which are famed for their explicit depictions of the Kama Sutra the following morning, but it would be a few more days before we actually visited them.

We ate dinner at what seemed to be a clean restaurant with several tourists sitting at the tables, so I ordered chicken curry, which was only the second time I’d ordered anything other than vegetables since being in India. After dinner, we walked to a general store for some water and toiletries when I felt an extremely robust need to go to the bathroom. I hurried Klaudia along urgently, complaining about how she wasn’t listening to me, and we finally arrived at our guesthouse – I went straight to the bathroom. I won’t disgust you with all the gory details, but I will just say that it was septic.

“Perhaps it’s just a reaction to the chicken…” I thought to myself. I hadn’t eaten anything sentient for about a month.

“Hmm… It’s green…” I noticed. “Klaudia,” I yelled, “did I drink mint tea the last couple of days?”

“How should I remember?”

“Hmm… Maybe that was a week ago…” I said to myself.

Instantly, a chill then enveloped my body while I sweated profusely; I was unable to stop the propulsions. Time passed with exclamations of repugnance from Klaudia outside the bathroom door. I finally exited the bathroom after some time and collapsed on the bed. We checked my temperature: a hot 104 degrees (40 degrees Celsius).

“Maybe it’s malaria,” Klaudia said in jest. I didn’t laugh; the seed had been planted: “Wow,” I wailed desperately, “so this is how I will meet my end – a 105 fever due to malaria in some shabby, 4-dollar guesthouse in some remote village in India. Malaria… I’m dead… That’s it… Do you understand that, if it’s malaria, that’s the end of me? Do you?!”

We grabbed our iPhones and began reading about malaria and its symptoms – the hypochondriac within me awakened: “Yep, I’ve got it… That’s it… The end of me… India has succeeded in killing me… with malaria…”

Klaudia gave me what fever medicine we had and I went back to the bathroom for the long haul. She then applied cold compresses to my head, then quickly exited the bathroom because it smelled like a 3^rd World sewer.

As I sat there on the toilet dying, I found humor in the earlier arrogant comments I’d made to Klaudia when she’d reproach me for eating some new street food, like “How do I know if I’m crossing the limit if I don’t know what the limit is?” or “My stomach’s just as good as theirs”. The limit couldn’t be more clear now; and, sorry, Tonester: you’re stomach isn’t anywhere near as good as theirs.

It was an agonizingly sleepless night as the fever approached 104.5 degrees. “Yep”, I’d repeat intermittently, “India has killed me.” More pills and more compresses later, I fell asleep, only to be awakened at 5 am by revelry in the streets for the start of Holi, or the Hindu Festival of Colors. Holi is celebrated differently in various parts of India, but one thing in common for all parts, as far as I understand it, is the use of colored powder and water to douse each other with, the effect being hundreds of people in the streets dyed - head to toe - in colors of purple, pink, orange and yellow. It looked like great fun, sort of like when I was a teen and used to roam the neighborhood egging other kids during Halloween, except that, in the case of Holi, everyone’s involved – old and young – and everyone’s colorful. It was not to be for us, of course, but I was celebrating the reduction of my fever even though I was still spending a good amount of time in the bathroom.

After Kluadia awakened, the first thing we did was find a medical clinic. We took our bags with us because I honestly wasn’t sure if I’d decide to fly home. Perhaps it would be better to be treated for malaria in India though? More experience?

On our way to the clinic, I thought I would punch every hotel tout and tuk-tuk driver who accosted us: this was not the time. But, good mood or bad mood, healthy or not, there is no reprise from them. In fact, one driver followed us after we’d taken a wrong turn and had asked him where the clinic was.

“30 rupees and I’ll take you there.”

“No, we’ll walk there,” I answered sternly, now knowing that the clinic was just across the street.

“Why walk when I drive you there?”

Because I could see the clinic's sign and I was no more than two minutes away. I would be paying for him to drive me across the street, which we had done once in Delhi when we were looking for the Mahatmi Ghandi Museum. I don’t know why it surprised me, but I was astonished by the audacity: I’m dying, and he’s still trying to swindle a quick rupee out of me. “No,” I answered again.


“Ok, maybe later, when you leave hospital? I wait outside.”

“Yea, ok, maybe later, if I’m still alive.” I know they have to make a living, but are there no barriers? I could be lying in the street like a dying stray dog, gasping my final breath, and they’d still be asking me where I was going, if I needed a hotel and if I wanted any hashish.

We arrived half a minute later, the tuk-tuk driver superfluously pointing it out for us, and entered an empty hallway that echoed our footsteps – no people, no registration, no nurse; the building seemed abandoned and had no resemblance to anything medical. We then heard some voices and walked the hallway towards them. Several women in saris and a man were sitting in blue plastic chairs attached to the wall – a waiting room!

“He’s sick. Is there a doctor here we can see?” Klaudia inquired. We received astonished stares; Klaudia tapped me and I looked over to the right into another room and saw a woman, legs spread, lying on a bare, metallically cold table, surrounded by some more women in saris. I glossily gazed at the congregation before me, searching their faces for an answer. One curtly came from the man: “No doctor.”

“Umm… this is the medical clinic, correct?” I inquired bemusedly.

“Yes.”

“But there is no doctor?” I asked.

“No doctor.”


“Is that woman in that room giving birth?” I received another blank stare…

“Is that woman having a baby?” Klaudia repeated.

“Yes,” the man responded, incredulous at our disbelief.

“And there is no doctor?” I asked, searching for verification.

“No doctor,” he repeated again, now slightly exasperated.

The future mother let out a scream - yes, I suppose a doctor is inessential to the birthing process. We elucidated to him that, although I was not giving birth, I’d had a very bad fever last night with lots of diarrhea and wondered if a doctor was available. Once again: nothing but a blank stare, as vacuous as the white, seemingly cavernous walls that surrounded my sickly frame. “Yes,” I again remarked despondently to Klaudia, “India has killed me,” at which point a pretty woman in a white coat walked up to us. I thought perhaps it was a mirage: “Are you a nurse?!”

“Yes,” she answered, while the future mom screamed some more.

“I’m very sick…” I told her, while Klaudia further explained my symptoms. She told us that the doctor was currently otherwise indisposed, but, she’d call him and he would be in shortly. Klaudia left to buy some water while I sat and waited, listening to the screams of a birthing woman; the women in saris gossiped and cackled, occasionally glancing over at me, which was followed by whispering.

Finally, I could hear a motorcycle pull up (incidentally, I thought it would be funny if my doctor showed up on a Honda Hero, which he did) and two men doused in purple dye appeared. They briskly walked up to me and one of them said abruptly, “Are you sick?”

“Are you the doctor?” I responded.

“Yes. Are you sick?”

“Yes. I had a 40 degree fever and diarrhea and stomach pains.”

“You know today is the first day of Holi?”

“Yes,” I answered.

"Any vomiting?” the doctor asked impatiently.

“No.”

The future mother screamed.

“Come with me.” I followed him into another room; the screams of the future mom echoed in the hallway.

“Today is first day of Holi,” he sighed again as the three of us sat down at a table.

“Yes, I know,” I responded, not certain if he was informing me of this fact because he wasn’t at work or because I’d called him away from his festivities. “I didn’t choose to be sick today,” I added.

He smiled and asked, “Are you traveling today?”

“No, I think I’ll stay here tonight, see how I feel in the morning tomorrow.”

“Yes, it would be best if you stayed.” I then heard Klaudia calling out my name and called out to her. She entered the room and sat down.

“Your friend?” the doctor asked.

“My wife...”

“This happens to tourists all the time; they are sick, have diarrhea, high fever…” He was nicer now that Klaudia was there.

“Could it be malaria?” Klaudia interrupted.

“We’ll do malaria test. Worst case, it is malaria, best case just some bacteria. Could be typhoid fever… Also, I’ll write prescription for some medicine. Have you been taking anything?”

“I took Cipro,” I answered.

“Cipro alone won’t work on Indian sickness. You need something more.” He began writing a prescription the length of a grocery list, then asserted, “This happen to tourist all the time. You don’t have Indian stomach. Take medicine, relax, and Dahl and plain rice is your diet.”

“I’ve been eating everything,” I said tiredly.

“No more food from street. Eat only at clean restaurant. Dahl and plain rice is your diet,” he reaffirmed. “Also,” he added, “no alcohol.” I thought that my lack of alcohol was the crux of the problem: I hadn’t been drinking enough to kill all the germs – I think that at that point in time, I hadn’t had an alcoholic drink in at least two weeks.

He then finally pointed at the accompanying man: “He will take you to the pharmacy. You buy this medicine, take it, eat dhal and rice, and feel better. Medicine here in India is very cheap. Pay for tuk-tuk, buy medicine. In Europe, it would cost you many euros; here, the medicine will be no more than 500-700 rupees.” I wondered how financial constraints affected the people here in town. I was about to pay no more than $25 for a doctor’s visit and a laundry list of medication. He then said: “The woman giving birth…” I nodded in understanding as he spoke…

“The woman giving birth is his wife,” he said pointing at the other man.

“Wow,” Klaudia and I said in unison.

“Congratulations,” Klaudia said, then gave me a glance in that sort of silent communication between couples. I nodded in comprehension: my tuk-tuk driver’s wife was currently in the process of giving birth, while he sat here with me, face dyed purple, with a doctor who’s entire body was also dyed purple, not assisting the woman giving birth.

“Today is first day of Holi,” my doctor said again, as if in tune with our glances. “Take medicine, don’t eat food from street, and you feel better… won’t cost a lot. Now I need to call pharmacist: since first day of Holi, he opens pharmacy only now.”

“Ok, thank you,” I said graciously, genuinely appreciative of the attention I was receiving on the first day of Holi. I felt a guilty suspicion of being a bit of a bother: I was now interrupting the festivities for the pharmacist, not to mention for the doctor and the father whose wife was currently giving birth. I wondered if the kid was lucky for being born on the first day of Holi.

The doctor spoke on the phone for a few minutes, laughed a bit (at what I believed to be at my expense), then told me I was free to leave and that the future father would drive me in his tuk-tuk to the pharmacy.

The other tuk-tuk driver was still there when we’d exited – I waved goodbye to him as we entered the tuk-tuk of the future father. We arrived at a pharmacy, where I paid the driver, wished him well in fatherhood and a happy first day of Holi, and waited for my medicine.

The malaria test was a bit reminiscent of a pregnancy test - not that I’ve ever taken one personally, and not that it’s administered in the same way - just by the fact that I was able to do the test at the pharmacy in a couple minutes. I received a bunch of other medicine, paid about 700 rupees for the whole thing (approximately $14), and we then located a mid-range hotel exactly next door to the pharmacy: if I was going to die, I was going to do it in comfort. Then I lied in bed for basically the next four days… In the meantime, Klaudia Googled some of the medication I’d taken. I don’t recall the names now, but one of the antibiotics had been banned in Europe and the US, while another had been banned in basically the entire world, including India. No matter – it worked, as my fever and the runs were gone. Unfortunately, Klaudia began to feel sick as well, so we got her some medication and she spent a few days in bed too. We were on a diet of dhal, rice and (added) potatoes that the staff would bring us a couple times a day.

Four days… I suppose in the grand scheme of things, four days out of six months is not that bad… Also, Star World cable channel in India was having a superhero movie marathon, so I watched The Avengers, Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Ghost Rider I and II, X-Men I, II, and III, and Fantastic Four. Again, as needs to occur in this balanced Karmic country, I could not watch the movies without interruption because the power and the cable would come in and out.

On day five, although not quite 100%!,(MISSING) I began to feel immensely better. We finally left the room for breakfast and I felt brave enough to order eggs and toast. We went outside and visited the major temples of Khajuraho. The temple areas are large sandstone complexes strewn around the city, mostly built around the 10^th century, many depicting carved scenes of various erotic gymnastics most probably symbolizing tantric sexual practices. One of the depictions on Lakshman Temple shows a man having fun with a horse… Amazing detail… We visited all the main temples, but didn’t have the strength to visit the periphery ones, so went back to the hotel to sleep.

The next day we came down to breakfast; another couple a few tables down also sat themselves for breakfast, and we were soon in conversation. It turned out we were all headed for Varanasi on the next night train at 9pm. Speaking with them lifted our spirits as Klaudia and I lamented our sad, sickly states: they were understanding and encouragingly upbeat, laughing off our silly thoughts of quitting our travels over some stomach problems.

We visited the remainder of the temples with them that afternoon. I took a nap later in our hotel’s courtyard, leaving for the train station in the evening. I fell asleep immediately in our sleeper car. The next morning, feeling absolutely great, I awoke in Varanasi with a new appreciation for life.

---