Please don't read this post.
Sorry I didn't write in a while. I lost control of the english language but I'm back now. Kinda. So, just a little post to fill you in on where its at. (This was all a long time ago now, so I'll skip through it...)
Varanasi to Khajuraho. A nasty little town with some filthy temples. Deservedly on the Saga bus route. Packs of touts thrusting the same crap under the noses of terrified retired big-shots and their fat wives. There was something rather carnal about it, seeing them speed up, desperately trying to power-walk their way out of the horror. All to no avail. It was messy. Where was I? Ah yes, Khajuraho. Rock porn:
I don't know when India covered up and went from tantric to "embarassed goat-nailers" as a 50somethingamericanhippywomancounsellor I met put it. Maybe it was the muslim influence, maybe the british. Shame. Now pairs of giggling 20-something Indian men get their kicks, and probably their sexual education, there. As you may have gathered, I wasn't overly enamoured by the town, but where else could you be accosted by a manic, greasy-lank-haired german practically dribbling while he blurts out "Excvuse me, do you know ver is zee carving of zee man fucking zee horse?" (OK, maybe in germany...)
That's quite enough of that.
So, in Khajuaraho I went to a guesthouse run by a yogi a few km outside of town, played ma geetar (and I must say I'm currently on fire musically) and did some yoga. Yoga is well good. My back feels like it might be designed to bend.
Hmm... maybe I've been a little harsh on Khajuraho. Nevermind. Next stop Orchha, which was a place I'd been really looking forward to as several people I'd met described it as a haven of tranquility, which was what I wanted after several crazy towns. But I was ill. Oh yes. I won't go into it - suffice to say I immediately reached for the antibiotics for the first time in India, thus annhilating any local resitance I'd developed. But believe me, it was necessary...
Orchha has some very nice old palaces, but I didn't really appreciate them given that I was confined to my room for 2 of my 3 days there. Still, a nice place to recuperate.
Then to Gwalior, site of a huge hill fort which (surprisingly rarely) has a Palace sporting Hindu architecture:
Quite nice, no? Variations on the 3-wheeled rickshaw theme can be found throughout India, but possibly my favourite so far are Gwalior's mad-max tongas:
I rushed through Gwalior, in order to get back to Delhi in time to meet my Mum(!) It was interesting to come full circle, and to see how my impressions of Delhi had changed. Unsurprisingly, I found it much less chaotic than I remembered. Paharganj (grotty backpacker area), which I considered a right-of-passage that I must learn to feel at home in when I arrived in October, I've come to realise is nothing of the sort. Its just a transit area to be endured for the minimum amount of time possible!
I'm actually in Paharganj now, about to go up to Amritsar, having just taken Mum back to the airport (2 weeks later), and will be filling you in on our Rajasthan adventures very soon, as well as explaining how (despite my efforts to make things as stress-free as possible) on her 2nd day in the country her first experience of an Indian train was having to jump onto a moving one!
