The journey continues

 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 from the material world such relationships, property and clothes.  There were many  photos of large groups of men totally naked and all full frontals, as well as statues of naked men.  I guess it makes a difference from the usual naked women statues.

As we left, Jeet asked if we would like some sugarcane juice.  There are carts all over India that squeeze sugarcane between rollers to extract the juice.  Most are petrol powered but the cart we stopped at was hand powered.  It was fascinating seeing how much juice came out of a single piece of sugarcane. After each pass through the rollers the guy would fold the remains in half and run it through again. He ran it through 4 times in total, the last time adding mint. A small squeeze of lemon into the cup and a sprinkle of salt, then the liquid.  Between us we got 5 cups of juice all for around $2 AUD. The drink was very refreshing and not sweet at all.

Next stop was a National Park to see a waterfall.  On arrival a guide came and joined us in the car and we drove around the park, seeing deer and antelope.  There are also hyena, monitor lizard and leopard in the park, though we didn't see any of them.  We stopped at a lookout to see some crocodiles, but being so hot none were on the banks and we couldn't see any in the water, save one small maybe 1 metre long baby.  The waterfall was also a bust as the water level in the river was so low no water was falling.  The canyon formed by the river itself though was fairly impressive and up to 50 metres deep in places.

Lunch at around 2:30 then back to our room for the rest of the day as we'd had enough of the hot sun.


March 25th Tuesday
We were picked up at 10:00am this morning as we had relatively short drive to Rewa, only 3.5hrs away. After an uneventful drive we arrived at our hotel about 1:30.  They seemed to have trouble finding our reservation, but eventually we were shown to our room. We went straight to the restaurant for some lunch and it was quite a nice one, with almost silver service. The waiters were overly attentive, but the food was delicious and cheap.

After lunch, Jeet picked us up at 3:30 and we went to the Rewa Fort.  Initially the ticket counter was unmanned, so we went for a wander around the back to a few small temples.  They were quite interesting and several people were worshipping.

Back around to the Fort and we were able to get tickets. Much to Tracy's dismay though we had to remove our shoes to enter. The floors are always so dirty and she hates having to put shoes on again with dirty feet.  Inside was a museum with many objects on display, including silverware from the 1800's, including a teapot that Trace was keen on. There were also various gun, daggers, items of furniture and some pretty clever pieces of white marble crockery.  These had been treated with chemicals so that if there was poison present in the food or drink, the crockery would turn green.  Probably of most interest to me though were the stuffed White Tigers.  Such a shame to see these magnificient creatures stuffed, but apparently they died of natural causes.  It was interesting seeing them up close though as they were much bigger than the "cubs" we saw in Ranthambore. Hoping to see some more White Tigers tomorrow, but this time alive. No photos were allowed inside the museum. 

Back to the Hotel a bit after 5:00.

March 26th - Wednesday
Picked up at 9:30 this morning and we had about a half hour drive to the White Tiger Safari place.  We were a little in two minds about this as it is a Zoo, but it does sound like a Werribee Zoo type rather than Tigers in cages.  The drive there was interesting as we took a few back roads and drove through some pretty poor villages.  We stopped in one to watch a guy milking his cow, which was interesting - and then it seemed that the whole village came out to look at the white people.
We got to the Safari Park - and it was closed!  Apparently it closes every Wednesday.  So instead we started the 5 hour journey to Varanasi.
The road was the usual mix of really smooth and pretty ordinary.  We did go up over a mountain range and on the descent, there was a 20kph speed limit and speed humps every couple of hundred metres.  I think they are very worried about brake failure, so make sure nobody is going very fast to start with.
We didn't stop for lunch along the way - partly because Jeet couldn't find any suitable candidates, but we did have a banana and an orange in the car from the stash that Jeet has been buying for us.
Arriving in Varanasi was a return to traffic chaos and general rubbish and debris. Along one particular stretch the road had been widened from 2 lanes to  4.  How do they make room in a crowded city you ask?  Simply pay the home owners and then tear down their facade and first room or two, leaving exposed and broken brickwork and a 'new' facade.  it looked pretty terrible, and the rubble was still lying in front of every building.
We stopped for lunch before checking into our hotel and Jeet - who seemed a bit disappointed last time I said a meal wasn't hot enough - had a word to the waiter.  We ordered two dishes, one hot and one medium.  Well the hot was hot and we both had burning tongues and lips.  Having said that I wasn't sweating so I've probably had hotter. Total cost for two dishes, naan and a coke, $9
Arriving at the hotel we found that we had been upgraded to a suite.  It is very large, with a separate sitting room, and should be lovely for two nights. Unfortunately the power has gone off 9 times since we arrived about 3 hours ago. It does come back on within 30 seconds or so but still very annoying.