March 21st - Friday We left Ranthambore at 9:00am heading for Agra. Along the way we drove on a recently opened privately run expressly, which was quite the experience. Tuk tuks and motorbikes are not allowed and there were no cows. This meant the speed limit on the smooth 4 lane road was 120, quite an improvement on the normal 80. Jeet did say it costs 4 times the Government toll roads, but it was much better. After about 2 hours we stopped at Chand Baori stepwell. I had wanted to see this for many years and wasn't disappointed. It was built around 900BCE and is 30 metres deep with 13 levels of steps, making it one of the oldest and deepest in India. There was fencing around the top stopping you from walking down, but that meant nobody was in our photos so it was probably better. A few more hours down the road we came to Fatehpur Sikri. This group of buildings was originally a city and dates to the 1500's. The red sandstone of the buildings looked quite amazing ...
March 14th - Friday Today is the Holi Festival holiday and there is a special Holi festival site nearby for tourists only. We offered to walk there, as it was only about 12 mins away, but our driver insisted on picking us up. We arrived at the festival around 9:15am and there were already around 150 people there. We had brought white clothes with us from home and Jeet gave us a bag of coloured powder each. Soon people were throwing powder at us and we were throwing it back. Some would walk up and rub it in your face or drop some in your hair. There was music playing and everyone was so happy and joyful. There was food and drink available, and places to sit away from the mayhem, and also a stall where you could go and replenish your powder. The festival itself and extra powder was all free. The music was a mix of Indian and Western and had the crowd pumping. We stayed about 2 hours, then went back to our room for a shower, cause we were covered in color....
March 24th - Monday Picked up at 9:00am - no surprise there. We had the full day in Khajuraho and went first to the 'Western Temple Complex'. This area has 7 major temples and a few minor ones and they were very different to others we had seen. They were Hindu temples dating back to between 800 and 1000 CE (CE means 'common era', the newer way of saying AD and BCE is Before Common Era or BC) The carvings on these temples were extremely intricate - and at times extremely erotic. Aparently the temples were inhabited by bachelors and the sculptures helped to teach them the 'worldly role of housekeeper', so Karma Sutra poses were depicted. They were very detailed! We spent 2 hours here before moving onto the Jain temples. This particular group of temples again date back to the 1st Century but more recently are dedicated to 'Digambara' This religion refuses to eat anything grown underground, so no potatoes, garlic, onion etc. They also reject things f...
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