Khajuraho

Mmm Internet. How rare of a resource it is in India.

The road to Khajuraho turns off the main "highway" and becomes a 4 lane divided road, with the outside lane mostly containing potholes or trees (yes, they built the road around the trees...). Along this road you pass by the new train station and the new airport. At the new airport however a car infront of me suddenly stopped in the lane and as I went to go around I saw a policeman walk in front with his hand out. OK we had to stop here, but why? Well, I still have no idea, we asked but got nothing decipherable in the reply. We were stopped for about half an hour as more and more cars lined up behind, and then bikes filtered through to the front, and then after a while bikes, then cars, tractors, and busses started to use the opposite direction lanes to try and get past. But this one policeman was having none of it, and just stopping anyone that tried to go past. The crowd started to join in too, yelling for people to stop, and then laughing when people tried to ignore the policeman. We tried asking a few people around why we were actually stopped here but none of them spoke English. Everyone wanted to look at the bikes so we had a crowd around us for a while like usual.

Eventually, something happened, no idea what, but some of the bikes took off, so I started mine and I raced off, only to be stopped in the middle of a lane by a cow further up. After my cow detour I raced on ahead again. Once you get close to Khajuraho the touts start appearing by the roadside, I stopped away from some to wait for the little red vespa to catch up and I noticed one of the touts running towards my bike. He got up to me and started his spiel about the hotel he wanted me to go to, I told him I didn't want a hotel but he kept going... So I started my bike and moved forward another 20 meters or so. Eventually drew caught up, but then this tout had also casually walked up beside me and started his spiel again (wow, I rode away to stop you, yet you come back? Nice sales tactic...).

Once we got into the centre of the cheap hotels we had a look at one the lonely planet had mentioned: Hotel Suyra. It sounded OK, we went and saw a room, negotiated a price down, but then when we asked about wifi apparently they didn't have the password, or the boss was the only one with it and he was away. Well that was the deal breaker so Drew went off to look at another one while I hung around the bikes to fend off the crowd of touts that had gathered. While Drew was off looking at Hotel Harmony the army of Hotel Suyra touts tried again and again to get us to stay. They gave more offers like 600R with free breakfast or some such, I wasn't listening to a lot of it. Then the best sales tactic they used was ask if I was the wife because I couldn't make the decision to stay at their hotel... Awesome work there Hotel Suyra, aiming for insults to get me to stay. Is there something they don't understand about marketing here?

Hotel Harmony turned out to be the winner, 400R for a very clean fan room with bathroom, and they "had wifi". The rooms felt cool after a days riding, and they were cooler than outside, but they stayed that temperature through the night so it was quite hot. The fan only seemed to have two settings: hurricane, and butterfly wings. Then we found out the wifi didn't work in the rooms or even at all. And it was 50R/hour to use and if no one was using it they would turn it off. Some times I would be up in the restaurant using it for about 5 minutes and then someone downstairs would come and turn the wifi off, I gave up most of the time. On leaving they tried to charge me for 10 hours of use, I told them I may have attempted to use it 10 times but it only worked very minimally during the 7 days in total we spent there.

So onto the 7 days! The first, or second, I can't remember now, we went out to see some of the eastern group of temples. We needed some transport out there so we went out to find some... Well after we expressed interest in using their services we were mobbed by touts, there were three of us (we roped in someone else we met) so there was a group of touts each offering different deals to each of us. In all the mass confusion we managed to get an air conditioned taxi to take us around for a dollar more than spine crushing tuk tuks were offering.

First up the eastern temples, which are the Jain temples I believe. I'm not the expert on this though.

Patchwork tiles inside one of the temples.

These were all painted white. I didn't get a photo of the outside.

It was a shoe free zone of course, so you had to dart across the hot stone floor of this temple to the shadows. Most of this temple was painted too.

Indian power safety.

Painted nude statue.

Well... This is an interesting exhibit.

The next temple in this group.

Some of the carvings on this temple. The figure on the left holding her leg is Parvati I believe.

Showing the two rows of carvings, and the top of the temple.

The next temple, this one was in the south. some of the top is unrestored. Makes me suspicious of how much of this is actually restored...

The carvings along one side.

One side with carvings.

The view from the front.

The southernmost temple on this loop.

The northern temple. The light bricks on the top are clearly restored...

Cow faces!

Inside one temple these were shiney from everyone touching them.

Carvings on the outside.

Inside the last temple!

And that's it for this day... It was a Saturday and the Formula 1 was on this weekend so we asked around to see if there was a bar somewhere with a TV where we could watch the qualifing and drink. We'd gathered one extra person, Peter from London who was also a Formula 1 fan. We took a tuk tuk round to the Raddison which was the only place that was suggested and drank very expensive beer (yes, I've forgotten how much it is in Australia) and watched a storm gather outside. Right as the qualifying was starting the cable TV dropped out, and it wasn't until an hour later that it was turned back on and of course that was when the qualifying was over. We missed the entire thing...

Oh well. We would all attempt to gather the next day to watch the race at the same place.

However... Here's were Drew and I got sick. Bad food poisoning. I could hardly move the next day, and the day after. I kept drinking water but couldn't eat anything. I didn't eat for 48 hours, and then only had one small meal the day after. It took many more days to recover to a point were it might be possible to ride out of here. Nepal has been beaten.

On the last night there I went over to actually have a look at the temples which were just down the road, still feeling unwell though. I managed to last around an hour and then felt too sick and had to get our of there and back to the hotel room to lie down.

Here's what I managed to see anyway...

Panorama view of one temple!

The tall temple sort of in proportion, but stretched out from how it was processed I guess...

Another panorama view, but squished...

Some of the old temple blocks are used to make the bases around these temples.

Temple.

Boar temple. There was a Nandi temple too but I didn't go in because I started to feel sick.

The explicit carvings...

It's like a fractal!

So that was the Khajuraho temples... They were OK but nothing too impressive (you know, after Ankor Wat). A lot of it has been restored/replaced, and most of the outside looks brand new which is odd given that it is supposed to be over 1000 years old and was apparently in ruins when found. I wonder how many of these carvings are authentic, or even if the whole Karma Sutra thing is authentic and the intended use for the temples or added on as a tourist attraction...

Chittrakut

Finally getting around to posting this up. Spent most of the past week being sick by various means into various objects after eating various meals in Khajuraho. The internet access has been intermittent so I haven't had the chance to upload the photos, or the energy to get out of bed to go somewhere where I can...

So Chittrakut was a small town which was our stop after Allahabad to break up the trip to Khajuraho. It turned out to be a rather nice town, no pushy touts just locals who want to practice English. Not too crowded either.

The road there however was... Interesting. At one point the air got hotter, the trees got shorter or disappeared and the brown dirt turned red. A small patch of desert in this otherwise mostly hot part of northern India. There were a lot of roadworks on this stretch of road too which made for slow progress. It's not the main highway towards Delhi and it only seems to link up the tourist spots (and of course for the locals to use). 

In Chittrakut we stayed at the Tourist bungalow, a state run (I think?) series of hotels in the bit tourist spots. They had air conditioned rooms at least and it was one of those hot 40+ degree riding days after which it was required. And of course, this being a hotel in India they had grumpy staff working there. And they were overstaffed too. I think there were around 10 guests staying that night, but around 20 staff all wandering round doing nothing.

There were ghats in this town which are supposed to make it a smaller version of Varanasi. I've also since learnt that Ghat just means steps into water, or maybe just holy water.

Pig munchin on some garbage...

Brightly coloured dyes for your... Head dots (still don't know the name yet)

This guy just wanted us to take photos of his family, so we obliged. 

The Ghats! and boats, and people.

There are touts along here of course, trying to sell boat rides. But it seemed if one tried and failed to get business only one or two more might try, not everyone like in Varinasi.

People swimming in the murky water.

Chained up rabbit kept on deck of one of the boats. Most of them had rabbits.

Boats all lined up, rabbits in view.

 We were talking to a few locals for about an hour, they just wanted to practice English of course. One of them was at university doing and IT degree and wanted to get a high paid programming job here, which means about $500/month for them. He also wanted to move to Australia to get paid more but almost right out of uni. I told him to wait and try to specialize in something before trying to do that. Something like Oracle...

Boats at night.

In the morning we set off with about three different versions of the directions to Khajuraho. We crossed the river which was wrong, but we ended up at the Lord Rama hill.

The temple in the side of the hill.

 And then the rest of the day was spent riding through landscapes like this...

Dry and hot.

Look at all that dry.

Near Panna National Park, there were bits of green here.

See, some green, but still a lot of dry.

There was a lot of money spent on drinking water that day. I think I went through 5-6 Liters just in the time we spent riding.

Once I get through my photos from Khajuraho, then I can describe all the non-awesome touts that plague that city.

Allahabad

After the nice cold air-conditioned rooms in Varanasi we reluctantly headed out of the city to get to Allahabad. There's a fort in Allahabad and some tombs, but not much else of interest to tourists, but it was conveniently one third of the way to Khajuraho, the next third being a stop in Chitakroot.

At the Hotel in Varanasi I asked for directions to get to Allahabad. I could see on the map that there were two major highways heading west but we needed to go south through the city to get on the correct one. The people at the hotel said to go north but none of the roads on the GPS seemed to join up with with correct highway in the south to Allahabad. I made the executive decision to head south where the GPS had told us to go. And then we hit our first problem.

The road went through a military area, the guard at the gate didn't want to let us pass, but when asking which way to go to Allahabad he pointed down the way we weren't allowed to go. Eventually he directed us to a sign that said we must show ID to pass through the military area but we needed the help of a passer by to translate for us. There was lots of discussion about which way to actually go but when we showed passports all was good and we were allowed to go through. But then at the other end of this small military area we ran into a railway crossing. The gates were automatic, and while no one on a motorbike was going through everyone who was walking or cycling just ducked under the barrier and crossed over. There were only two trains through here but it was closed for at least 10 minutes. As soon as the gate started lifting there was a mad rush by all the bikes to be the first one across. And then once we got past that railway, we found ourselves trapped yet again by another railway line. This time the wait was closer to 5 minutes in the hot sun. I was dying in all my gear. Again once the gate opened there was a mad scramble across the tracks (and me, frustrated with the slow speeds on a bike that could go much faster). Once we were through the railways it was another 10km or so of mad Varanasi traffic to less mad traffic towards the main highways. I'm of the opinion that Varinasi has the worst traffic we've hit so far, other opinions may differ.

The road was bumpy and bad for a long time, but then an overpass came into view which was part of the national highway 2. Of course there was a detour so we couldn't go under it to turn right and head down the highway, instead we had to go up the exit ramp for eastbound traffic and then dash across to the other side of the highway. Luckily traffic was light, and less nuts and less bikes on this highway. It was very smooth outside of towns and we were able to sit at speeds closer to 80km/h for a while. Every now and then there was a town on the road it turned to crap momentarily. And then it turned to crap completely around 50km out of Allahabad. We did manage to cover distance a lot quicker than we had been doing elsewhere though.

We got to Allahabad around 2pm and went to check out the fort on the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna about 5pm from the city.

Inside the Akbar fort is a tree from which people used to jump from to kill themselves to end the cycle of rebirth. This was stopped long ago by someone though (I forget what the sign said). We were talking to some locals outside and they said they only wanted a one rupee donation to enter, so we went in to take a look.

Of course once you get in there's some guy wanted to bless you or whatever with his broom and put the dot on your forehead (I don't know the technical terms yet...). He wanted 10 rupees of course, possibly the colour of the skin jacked up the price.

This is that tree. Behind it is the working military area, we were told not to take photos after that.

Below the tree is a temple. Since I was there I decided to go down and look, and wouldn't you know it, 10 rupee donation to go down (where did the guys outside get 1 rupee from?). Once inside there are statues of all the important Hindu gods and in front of each is someone willing to bless/something you for that god. And of course, each one wants a donation for doing so. There was a guy who had seen us at the gate and he was down here at the first statue, he started doing his thing much to my objection and then finally he said that the gods have said I must donate 100 rupees. I refused to pay him because he had a tray of 10's and 1's all on display, there were no 100's in sight. I believe the gods had told him to apply the white skin tax for their blessing and I refused to donate to a god that would do that. I think drew coughed up some money eventually but then we walked around all the statues avoiding any more blessings/taxes and then got out of there, myself feeling rather annoyed that they would do that just because we're foreigners.

Tree growing out of the fort wall. Taken after we were told not to take photos.

Parked right outside the fort.

We were sitting there for a bit just researching hotel options and then a family walked past holding a pantsless baby. They spotted us and handed the pantsless baby to me to get a photo of him with the white guy.

We found a Hotel Tepso after battling the traffic in the city, they had OK rooms with loud airconditioning and a loud fan, and a wet bathroom. They also had unsecured wifi which we made use of. All for only 900rupees a night ($18).

We unpacked and then set out towards the tombs of Khusro Barg. The weirdest part about walking through this city was the lack of touts no one cared that we were there. Very refreshing, that would all change soon though.

The path to the main gate.

Some kids (possibly homeless) had followed us off the street into the park that surrounds Khusro Barg, a few passer bys had told them off, but they kept at it, just slightly further away. Once we got inside the main gate around the tombs we heard a lot of kids yelling and then suddenly we were mobbed by about 30 kids. they all wanted to be in a photo, but it was very annoying to try and take a photo of one of the buildings and have them run into the shot. They followed us everywhere in the park, all the adults turning to look at what all the fuss was about but there were only two or three people to tell them off. I think they were just as interested in us as the kids but just couldn't be bothered following us around. Some of the uni-student aged people came over to practice English, but I think they understood our frustration and mostly kept a distance after we gave short one word answers. Our rent-a-crowd persisted for about an hour, slowly decreasing in numbers as all the families starting leaving after sunset. Some of them backed off after I went to hit one for touching my bag too...

Pretty much the only photo I got that wasn't filled with kids.

Drew battling the kids.

After that nonsense we headed back towards the train station to try find someone to take us to Dominos (we have to try it while we're here!). We found a rickshaw and it was slow progress but we made it. Pizza! I missed you again (it's been like weeks!).

We skipped this place. 

KITTY PARTIES! These aren't for cats though, they're a once a month gossiping party for Indian women.

The next morning we tried to find a tuk tuk driver to take us to a park which was were the British Raj had ended. And wouldn't you know it, you can never find a tuk tuk when you need one. Eventually one turned up and said it would be 300rupees, but that was too much so we left him. Then he dropped it to 250. Still too much for me. Finally we got him down to 200, but we had to go back to the hotel first. He was very persistent with his following so obviously 200 rupees was a massive fair for him still.

This is the park we ended up at:

No idea what it says. It's not been well kept either if the park is supposed to be significant.

No idea what this says. Who can translate?

The only English sign in the park.

The replica of the symbol of India (I think).

Another view.

After reading some more about this ending of the British Raj it sounds like it was actually Chandra Shekhar Azad Park where it ended and not this one. I'm not sure which it actually is because information is limited here.

The new bridge next to this park.

After all this it was midday before we got back to the Hotel, and since I was feeling like crap we stayed another day to abuse the very rare hotel wireless. In the afternoon we went down to the All Saints Cathedral.

The largest church in Asia (source unverified!)

Inside.

Power connectivity inside the church.

And then finally it was time to find some beer.

Which we found here.

The next morning it was off to Chitakroot which I'm yet to get at the photos of. But here's a selection of clips of leaving Allahabad. This is pretty typical of the cities we've been through so far. Varinasi was a bit worse with the crazy road directions though.

The kind of landscape we were riding through for the rest of the day.