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Published: March 23rd 2007
Jagadambi Temple
Women leaving after morning prayer ritualThe day before I left Varanasi for Khajuraho, I was at an internet cafe talking with one of the workers, when a guy asks, "Hey are you American?"
Grace: Yea. Are you?
Him: Yea, from the LA area.
G: Really? Cool! Me too! Where in LA?
H: Redondo Beach.
G: Oh really?!?! I'm from
Torrance!!!
H: Well, I'm from Torrance too, but I went to a school that was between Redondo and Torrance.
G: Really??
ME TOO!!! Oh my gosh.. what high school...?
H: South High
G: Oh my gosh!
ME TOO!!! I went to South! What year did you...?
H: 2000
G: NO WAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!
ME TOO!!! That's SOOOO crazy!! Who
are you?!??!
... well, it turned out that he's Greg Bauer, who was unrecognizable with a mustache, but also taking into consideration that it's been 7 years since I've last seen him. One look at his drivers license and the lightbulb went off. Anyhow, is this not the craziest thing ever??!?! Noa said, "This happens every 10 minutes with Israelis," since there are
so many Israelis traveling India, but to have this happen with an American is
insane! I mean, first of all, the US is so big; and second, not many Americans travel. But to have met a guy from not only my hometown and high school, but
also from the same graduating class... that is way too fun!
Anyhow, so after Vipassana, I'm happy to report that Michael, Noa and I were meeting in the wee hours of the morning (5 a.m.!!!) and at night (5 p.m.) to continue our meditation, because the only way to maintain the technique is to continue it! We would make Goenka proud. It was torture sometimes, but Noa and I woke up each morning and dragged our asses out of bed into Michael's room, for fear he'll condemn us for our laziness and irresponsibility.
Unfortunately when I split from Noa and Michael, I abandoned this discipline like it was last season's jeans. Oh the shame! My Vipassana support group were on their way to Kathmandu, and I was on an overnight train to Satna (Rs157/$4.50 for 2nd class sleeper), which is the nearest town to Khajuraho-- a town famous for it's exquisite Kama
wowsa!
Lakshmana Temple Sutra temples (whoo-whee). Anyhow, I need to either lock myself in my room and do a mini Vipassana course, or sign up for another one somewhere else. I've done the meditation only two times since I got to Khajuraho! And once was for 50 minutes and another for 40 minutes! I didn't even last an hour...boohoohoo... I'm soooo weak! It's terrible. I need to get back on track, or those 100 hours of mediation and 10 days of noble silence were done in vain!
My first train experience in India wasn't so bad. I chained my bag to the bottom, and fell fast asleep. The only complaint I have is that I wish these trains had some sort of speaker system that announces what city we're in. I was lucky b/c a man woke me up in the wee morning hour and said I was in Satna. Knowing me and my deep-sleeping tendencies, I would have woken up in Dehli or something had the man not been so kind to act as my alarm clock.
After the train, I shared a jeep with four other travelers. We paid Rs150/$4 each, which is about Rs50 more than a bus...
Village kids
old Khajuraho village but the plus side is that we get to Khajuraho in half the time, so it's definitely worth it to take a jeep vs. a bus. I checked into Hotel Zen (Rs100/$3), which I would recommend as
the place to stay in Khajuraho. It's way better than the other guest houses that were charging double the price. It's also the cleanest and most spacious rooms/bathrooms I've seen so far in India! Yay! I ended up staying in Khajuraho for 4 nights, and I think it was because I was in love with the room and compounds... which has a zen garden, complete with flowing water, lilies and calming music. It's fantastic. The owner is a little weird I think (he does OSHO! The free love/open sex thing) and treats his workers a little bad, but still, the place is heaven!
The first day, I went to eat at Amy's International Cafe, where the owner, Amy (a guy) is nice but weird. Later on, we found out that he's perhaps a bit schizophrenic and/or bipolar. More on that later.
At the cafe, I met an Israeli named Elad, and he's been traveling for the past 5 months, and half
of that on a motorbike. We've been hanging out around the town, and it's nice to have met someone early on. I realize that Khajuraho is NOT the place to be traveling solo, as a female and as an Asian!
In this town, there is a strip of guest houses, restaurants and shops, which is referred to as the "New Town." Everyone from the town seems to come to this street and just sit around, bothering you, staring at you, or talking about you. No kidding, but aside from my Social Security number and my mom's maiden name, it seems like they know everything about me. I don't know how the news spreads so fast, but I guess that's what you get when you have a touristy town, where the only action/ excitement/ gossip/ entertainment taking place revolve around the lives of the tourists who come by. Well, that also adds to the strangeness of the people here. Like they all come up to you and want to talk, talk, talk!!! I'm just like, "Leave me the f--- alone!" But there is no such thing as privacy here. They've become so used to this lifestyle, of having tourists come
and go... it's natural for them. Some of them speak like 4 languages... all of which they picked up from meeting tourists from the time they were children. The locals call me, "Hey American!" when I walk in the streets, and I wonder, "How do they know?" Once I had a guy say, " Hey... let's talk!! I've seen you three times today!" and skeptically, I challenged, "Yea right.. where?" and he said, "Once you were reading a book under the tree by the bus station, and another time, you were walking with a boy to the old village, and third, I saw you walking into Hotel Zen." And I'm thinking, "WTF? Creepy!" And another time, I was at a shop buying cookies and a man says, "Hey Korean, but born in America." And I said, "Yea, how'd you know?" and he said, "Also, you came to Khajuraho on Tuesday and went to Hotel Surya but it was too expensive, so you went to Hotel Zen. Also, last night, you were walking in the street with Amy and a guitar." And I'm thinking, "Whoa, this is like the Twilight Zone's version of Big Brother."
All of this exposure to
tourists I think have negatively affected some of the locals. Like they live in a facade, where they imagine what it would be like to have our kind of "privileged" life, where we have the luxury to travel, see new things, have fancy digital cameras, spend Rs100 ($2.50) for dinner without a blink of an eye, etc... things we take for granted in our western upbringing. Somehow there is a link between all this and the locals' tendency to lie-- I've heard so many lies from the locals, and I wonder, "Why are they lying about this? It's so insignificant." On one occasion, I had a guy say that he had a wife in Korea, who is pregnant with their first child. I had known him for the entire time I was in Khajuraho, and found him to be such a nice and helpful guy, so imagine my disappointment when he fed me this BS. Maybe the disappointment stemmed from my ego, like, "What do I look like, a chump?" Other times, I've just caught them telling different stories from before. Like Amy (the restaurant owner) once said that he learned to cook in 5 star restaurants from top chefs,
and a couple days later, he said he just taught himself how to cook from eating at different places. Gosh it's just so weird.
One sucky thing about being a solo female traveler is that when guys come up and talk to me say things like, "I'll take you to __(some great place)__ on my motorbike," I have to turn them all down b/c you do not know what these guys are capable of. It's a small town feel, but there is some sort of danger lurking here, and the fact that it just sits in the air is pretty daunting. I felt a lot more at ease at crazy Varanasi than I do here. I'm so glad I met Elad so the people bother me less. Plus, he's great company.
So enough of this creepy talk.
Being the perv that I am, I came here mainly for the stunning medieval Hindu temples bearing erotic art and tantric sexual poses. These groups of temples are deservingly a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and were built between the 9th and 10th centuries by the Chandela dynasty, who dominated Central India during those times. Only about 10% depict erotic kamasutra
Parvati Temple/Shrine
temple dedicated to Vishnu, the preserver of "right action." He protects and sustains all that is good in the world positions, and the others are of everyday scenes, and all this is depicted through gods, goddesses, musicians, warriors, real and mythological animals. They say that the reason for the erotic scenes on the temples is under the tantric belief that this sort of inner liberation is one of the steps that takes you closer in the journey to reach Nirvana/enlightenment. Also, it was a teaching tool for the boys growing up in all boy temples. 😉 I spent about 5 hours at the western temples (Rs250/$6), from sunrise to noon, and it was just such a nice day spent looking at the temples and seeing all the women parade in their colorful saris, to perform rituals in the temples. The temples, to me, were just as, if not more, glorious as the Temples of Angkor. The Khajuraho temples are astonishingly well-preserved, so you can see the temples in its true light of genius. If it weren't so difficult to get to, or if I had $millions, it would be
the place for a wedding.
Another day, I walked in the scorching heat to the nearby old village and checked out some of the eastern group of temples. A guy
Local school
old Khajuraho village started walking with me (you can't avoid it), and offered to show me around the village, as he lives there and is familiar with it. He took me to his house, and I met his sis, mom and grandma, who were making chapatti (similar to tortillas but Indian style). Was nice.. they lived in a humble, Spanish style home. He even shared with me that he's moving to Korea in a few months to teach Yoga (hmmm...).
Then we went to a local village school, where the principal showed me around in their bare bone classrooms. He even had me teach a math class! Ok friends, stop the panic... I didn't ruin any child's math progress or potential... I did pretty okay! After all, they were 4th graders, so it wasn't like I was teaching them Trig or Calculus (which by the way I passed in high school! Pris... hahaha!). Anyone who knows how much I loathe and suck at math could imagine that even though they were only 4th graders, I was a wee bit intimidated! I'm an English teacher, not a math teacher! I thought, "Can I teach subject-verb agreement, or essay writing instead?" At the end
Making chipatti
at the old Khajuraho village my visit to the school, I knew what was coming... the donation time! The principal took me and showed me one thing of how an American teacher donated $130 from fundraising with her students. Being that I was a little skeptical of him, I gave Rs300 ($7.50), and he gave me a "You've got to be kidding me" look, which was quite appalling! I mean, a donation is just that-- a
donation! Also, the LP says to be weary of a popular scam in Khajuraho where visitors are asked to make donations at schools, only to have the money divided by the teacher and the person who brought the visitor there. Anyhow, so the principal goes through his receipt book, and flips through the pages, making sure that I could see it, and shows me the donations of Rs500, Rs1,000 and so on. I wanted to grab my Rs300 from his greedy little hands and walk out of there, but I was civil just played it out in my imagination.
So one night, Elad and I were just chilling at Zen when Amy came and invited us to his cafe. We took Elad's guitar and walked over there. I
Time for a shower
old Khajuraho village was in the kitchen cooking with Amy, and from watching his techniques, it was apparent that he did not study with 5star hotel chefs! Nonetheless, the food
was good. He bought some whisky, and we drank and ate. All was good until Amy got a little weird... he said that we can't leave tomorrow and that we must stay. If we leave, he would wish harm on us and shut down his restaurant. He kept calling Elad his 'brother' and repeatedly said, "If I needed anything, you would do it for me, right?" and Elad would answer, "All you have to do is ask." And then Amy started talking about how rich he is, and how much money and possessions he has, from his 10 motorcycles, "honest, honest" (he ALWAYS says that), to the guesthouse that his parent own, to this amount of money to that amount of money. It was pretty lame hearing him go on and on about it. I believed him at first that he was financially secure, but then he totally went overboard with his lavish details, and I stopped listening and caring. Anyhow, so he said to us that since he's really rich, he doesn't
want any money from us, just friendship. Ok, cool. Never met an Indian here so far that didn't want my money, but there is a first for everything. Never say never...
The next day, when Elad and I came to say goodbye, he asks Elad for Rs500/$13-- that's big bucks here in India. When Elad gave him Rs300, just as a sign of gratitude, Amy turned really weird on us. Like he started looking at us with these hallow, empty eyes... it was really, REALLY creepy. He was just quiet to us, and he wouldn't talk. Elad and I ended up staying in Khajuraho for a few more days (my ticketing got screwed up), and just avoided seeing Amy. Then one night, we were at an internet cafe and Amy just appeared out on nowhere! It was so freaky the way he was just standing there looking at us. Then he took Elad away into the dark and asked him again for money. It was such an awkward situation that left a bad taste in our mouths. I believed that Amy was genuine and a nice guy, but in the end, he was just a cheat.
So on
this night, I met a Korean guy who had two bottles of soju that he brought from Korea (such a typical Korean to do!)... and he was nice enought to share it with Elad and I. Was nice.. drinking soju in India! 😊
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non-member comment
You byun tae!! =) I noticed an Aquafina water bottle in the picture you took of the classroom. Was that yours? or one of the students?? Crazyyy how its a Pepsi product not Coca-Cola because Coca-Cola is EVERYWHERE, especially internationally.