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Published: October 9th 2008
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As the title suggests we seem to have landed in India in the off-season. There is a distinct lake of white faces, oversized backpacks and slowly softly spoken language. For us this means feeling like rock-stars everytime we leave our hotel, I mean the amount of attention we generate could run a small town for weeks... Disappointingly for me I have to admit that Lisa takes the lions share in this department, I am lucky to get a 'hello sir, what country' if I duck out for a samosa on my own. When you step onto the street as a foreigner you are inundated with stares, shouting, invitations, smells and questions and those are only the ones you pick up on... it truly is madness, it is chaos, it is dirty and boy is it frustrating. I have definately found a couple of extra gears of frustration on this trip.
So we are now in Uttar Pradesh, or not actually cos we have been cheekily back-dating our blogs to confuse any would be indian stalkers or touts. So when you read this we will be in Nepal hahaha... Anyhow we have landed in this place called Agra. Its not in
the guidebooks anywhere and is totally off the tourist trail. We discovered it by chance and have found this amazingly peaceful place with an ancient museoluem built lovingly by a man for his wife... actually his second wife. We have included some pics, its an amazingly tranquil place, I think they call it the Taj Mahal or something??
Gwalior; what fresh hell is this. Our next stop was this nowhere town half a day train from Agra. The guide book pumped it up as brilliant and we were instantly deflated when we arrived. We didn't bother with the sights, instead we checked into the worse hotel of the trip and headed for the 'Indian Coffee House' - probably Gwaliors only saving grace. Lisa knocked back a coffee and masala dosa (worlds biggest pancakes, spilling over the plate large..) I tamely had cheese on toast and a bournevita - both got the thumbs up!
Next day we caught an early train to Jhansi and flagged down an auto-rickshaw to take us the 20km to a small town called Orchha. 400 years ago this place was like Vegas meets Amsterdam, full of famous people, gambling, palaces, flash hotels, contraband and
of course the worlds oldest profession. Orchha may have lost some of its shine over the centuries but most of buildings still remain. Cunning backbackers as we are, we rose early to get to Mahengir palace before the ticket booth opened, so we could wander in peace. This is the main palace complex, set over 5 stories it is like the red light district in Amsterdam. The palace is divided up with booths and baths etc and we were rewarded with the whole place to ourselves, except for a troop of langur monkeys and a scattering of vultures. The rest of the site is contains camel stalls, old hammans (turkish baths - courtesy of the muslims in the 16th century) orchards and temples. We spent 3 days here dodging the daily monsoon and thunder storms and recharging the batteries.
Making our way across Madhya Pradesh by bus, Lisa dragged us off the in Khajuraho. Its another small town, running on tourist dollars and its claim as the home of karma Sutra. While we were here we loaded up a cycle rickshaw with a picnic lunch and our driver took us around a few of the outlying temples in the
area. They are very well preserved and suitably blush-worthy, but they all started looking the same after a while and our necks were getting saw, I'd say you'd have to be a contortionist to appreciate the work completely. Its a strange place, it goes against the general conservative nature of most of the indian lifestyle we have come across so far. We bought a pack of dodgy cards from a 12yo boy who was also selling dodgy key rings. The ultimate in Khajuraho was by far the dining experience had at Agrawal, self proclaimed 'India's best Thali'. Thali means 'all-you-can-eat-stainless-steel-plate-meal' - so they bring out this dog bowl of a dish which was full of indian delicacys, Boiled rice, muttar paneer(cheese and pea curry), curd, lentils, dhal, pickle veg, poppadums, roti bread and about 3 other curried dishes and you just go for it... the waiters come round and top it up if you are bold enough. It certainly lived up to its claim and both of us left with satisfied.
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