Khajuraho belly
Al (Wednesday) : We should try sell our medical kit when we leave because we haven't used it.
Al (Thursday): It's really hot, I think I need to rest for a while
Al (Friday): errrrgh.....
Poo-ometer readings:
Mich: 5
Alan: 2
5am found us getting off the train at a small town called Khajuraho which appears to exist solely due to the presence the World Heritage site of a large complex of 25 temples built 1,000 years ago and the visitors this attracts.
The main area of temples seems out of context compared to the India we've seen so far. Rather than being left to crumble they have been carefully restored and surrounded with a Western-style manicured garden complete with large lawns, very European.
The reason the temples are so famous is mainly because of the large number of erotic carvings depicting a variety of the more acrobatic karma sutra positions (highlights below). If you can tear your eyes away from these, there are also lots of fantastic carvings of the Hindu gods, elephants and battle scenes.
The reason we will likely remember the town is possibly not for the temples but for where Al was laid up for a day and a half and used a significant portion of the antibiotics and other medications in said medical kit. (Along the lines of Day 1: I think I might die; Day 2: Please let me die; Day 3: Maybe I won't die). I could share with you a picture of the sites he saw the most of, which is the white tiled wall of the loo interspersed with the ceiling fan in the bedroom, but most of us have been there, done that. Onward! Bless you Marie Curie...
The antibiotics seem to being doing the trick and today we're on our way to Agra to see that famous Taj. We had thought we could treat ourselves and fly. Surely it would be a quick flight, it's only 400 km. But the quirks of the Indian airline system means the only way we could fly would be via Varanasi-Delhi-Agra, taking hours longer (and hundreds of dollars more) than the alternative car / train option. So back on the beautifully maintained roads and (less sarcastically) generally wonderful India Rail for us (and so continuing our systematic review of the entire rail system).
The 3 hour drive to the train station was through what looked like the Indian wheat belt. Who knew India grew so much wheat? What was more amazing was that it was all being harvested by hand. The women were out in the fields in their saris cutting and bundling the wheat, while the men took it into the village on the back of bicycles or tuk tuks. In the village women would remove the wheat grain by hand and then the hay was bundled into mini bales. Al meanwhile was staring straight ahead with his legs crossed... We pulled into the train station with minutes to spare before the train we were hoping to catch.
Due to the medical delay in play we didn't have pre-booked tickets for the train trip to Agra. And thus provided us to a first-hand view of the bunfight that passes for a line at a railway station (or anywhere really). Inexplicably, one of the few rights women do have over on the boys is in these 'lines'. Adding to the general mayhem, women are able to waltz right up to the front of the line and push their way to the counter to get priority service. Michelle did so, and pushed an (apparently) exorbitant amount of money under the glass, because most of it came back with the two tickets she managed to procure.
Luckily, or 'as usual' depending on how you look at it, the train was delayed so it was still at the platform. We asked a nice young ticket guy where we should get on and he indicated we push ourselves in to the cattle class section (hence explaining the super cheap tickets...). Given Al's delicate state this didn't seem the wisest idea for either Al or our fellow passengers. So we asked innocently if we could just get onto this carriage in front of us which just happened to be of the air conditioned sleeper variety. He rushed us on and found some friendly guy to sit with. Once the train left there were various conversations between the 8 different ticket inspectors (??) including one where we were pretty sure the young guy that let us on was being told "you can't just let anyone on, even if they are foreign. You'll have to go and ask Captain Stubing". Luckily our fellow passengers appeared to come to our rescue, explaining how yes there were two seats available because this person had swapped with this other person and she wasn't really meant to be there etc ( we may be paraphrasing). Anyway, before we knew it we had two seats and the friendly Punjabi couple were offering us home-made biscuits and salty snacks with not a word of English. Later on they did start talking to us and it turns out a lot of their family lives in Toronto.
True to The Travel Cafe line, the journey is the destination, our train trips continue to add to the experience that is being in India. By the time we leave we may just have figured out how it all works.
The first 12 hour overnight trip in 1AC was a pretty easy one with a bunk bed in a little cabin to ourselves. The second was a little less fun: a 19 hour haul in 2AC where we were separated and then M got stuck up in the top bunk for 16 hours because she graciously offered to sleep up there so a little old lady didn't have to climb up (assuming the next day they could share the 'ground floor' bunk as seats). Turns out it wasn't even the little old lady's bunk to begin with and M was left stuck into cramped upper bunk all day. This was an interesting trip though with a parade of people coming through every 15 minutes or so selling everything from curry, chow mein noodles, snacks and drinks through to children's toys and shampoo. Paradoxically the best service we had was another overnighter in 3AC where we had a window seat in a locked carriage and were each hand served a fresh thali (the Indian version of a mini-buffet on a plate: Dahl, veg curry, potato curry, rice and roti. Yum).
Our next post will cover Agra, home to the famous, fabulous Taj Mahal! Not so many photos today, due to the aforementioned circumstances!
Al (Thursday): It's really hot, I think I need to rest for a while
Al (Friday): errrrgh.....
Poo-ometer readings:
Mich: 5
Alan: 2
5am found us getting off the train at a small town called Khajuraho which appears to exist solely due to the presence the World Heritage site of a large complex of 25 temples built 1,000 years ago and the visitors this attracts.
The main area of temples seems out of context compared to the India we've seen so far. Rather than being left to crumble they have been carefully restored and surrounded with a Western-style manicured garden complete with large lawns, very European.
The reason the temples are so famous is mainly because of the large number of erotic carvings depicting a variety of the more acrobatic karma sutra positions (highlights below). If you can tear your eyes away from these, there are also lots of fantastic carvings of the Hindu gods, elephants and battle scenes.
The reason we will likely remember the town is possibly not for the temples but for where Al was laid up for a day and a half and used a significant portion of the antibiotics and other medications in said medical kit. (Along the lines of Day 1: I think I might die; Day 2: Please let me die; Day 3: Maybe I won't die). I could share with you a picture of the sites he saw the most of, which is the white tiled wall of the loo interspersed with the ceiling fan in the bedroom, but most of us have been there, done that. Onward! Bless you Marie Curie...
The antibiotics seem to being doing the trick and today we're on our way to Agra to see that famous Taj. We had thought we could treat ourselves and fly. Surely it would be a quick flight, it's only 400 km. But the quirks of the Indian airline system means the only way we could fly would be via Varanasi-Delhi-Agra, taking hours longer (and hundreds of dollars more) than the alternative car / train option. So back on the beautifully maintained roads and (less sarcastically) generally wonderful India Rail for us (and so continuing our systematic review of the entire rail system).
The 3 hour drive to the train station was through what looked like the Indian wheat belt. Who knew India grew so much wheat? What was more amazing was that it was all being harvested by hand. The women were out in the fields in their saris cutting and bundling the wheat, while the men took it into the village on the back of bicycles or tuk tuks. In the village women would remove the wheat grain by hand and then the hay was bundled into mini bales. Al meanwhile was staring straight ahead with his legs crossed... We pulled into the train station with minutes to spare before the train we were hoping to catch.
Due to the medical delay in play we didn't have pre-booked tickets for the train trip to Agra. And thus provided us to a first-hand view of the bunfight that passes for a line at a railway station (or anywhere really). Inexplicably, one of the few rights women do have over on the boys is in these 'lines'. Adding to the general mayhem, women are able to waltz right up to the front of the line and push their way to the counter to get priority service. Michelle did so, and pushed an (apparently) exorbitant amount of money under the glass, because most of it came back with the two tickets she managed to procure.
Luckily, or 'as usual' depending on how you look at it, the train was delayed so it was still at the platform. We asked a nice young ticket guy where we should get on and he indicated we push ourselves in to the cattle class section (hence explaining the super cheap tickets...). Given Al's delicate state this didn't seem the wisest idea for either Al or our fellow passengers. So we asked innocently if we could just get onto this carriage in front of us which just happened to be of the air conditioned sleeper variety. He rushed us on and found some friendly guy to sit with. Once the train left there were various conversations between the 8 different ticket inspectors (??) including one where we were pretty sure the young guy that let us on was being told "you can't just let anyone on, even if they are foreign. You'll have to go and ask Captain Stubing". Luckily our fellow passengers appeared to come to our rescue, explaining how yes there were two seats available because this person had swapped with this other person and she wasn't really meant to be there etc ( we may be paraphrasing). Anyway, before we knew it we had two seats and the friendly Punjabi couple were offering us home-made biscuits and salty snacks with not a word of English. Later on they did start talking to us and it turns out a lot of their family lives in Toronto.
True to The Travel Cafe line, the journey is the destination, our train trips continue to add to the experience that is being in India. By the time we leave we may just have figured out how it all works.
The first 12 hour overnight trip in 1AC was a pretty easy one with a bunk bed in a little cabin to ourselves. The second was a little less fun: a 19 hour haul in 2AC where we were separated and then M got stuck up in the top bunk for 16 hours because she graciously offered to sleep up there so a little old lady didn't have to climb up (assuming the next day they could share the 'ground floor' bunk as seats). Turns out it wasn't even the little old lady's bunk to begin with and M was left stuck into cramped upper bunk all day. This was an interesting trip though with a parade of people coming through every 15 minutes or so selling everything from curry, chow mein noodles, snacks and drinks through to children's toys and shampoo. Paradoxically the best service we had was another overnighter in 3AC where we had a window seat in a locked carriage and were each hand served a fresh thali (the Indian version of a mini-buffet on a plate: Dahl, veg curry, potato curry, rice and roti. Yum).
Our next post will cover Agra, home to the famous, fabulous Taj Mahal! Not so many photos today, due to the aforementioned circumstances!
Comments
Post a Comment