Khajuraho is a large village/small town
with a population of 18,000.
Mukesh, the local guide was proud to say his small town has small
problems. Sanjay the guide at
Orchha said a similar thing. They
are very proud of their small villages.
Indians in general love their country and are a very proud race. It seems we are the only ones that see
the rubbish and pollution.
Anyway, I digress Khajuraho is a world
heritage site with temples dating back to 950-1050 AD. The temples were built by the Chandela
dynasty over a hundred-year period.
Originally there were 85 in total with many lakes. Today there are 22 remaining with only
2 lakes. The temples were
re-discovered in the early 20th century, cleaned and restored. Apparently due to the location of
Khajuraho being difficult to get to, this is the reason the temples were saved
from being desecrated over the centuries.
End of history lesson, just wanted to let you know the background because
the place is interesting.
Mukesh showed us the Eastern area, then
walked with us through the old village and ended with a tour of the Western
area. We used an audio tour for
the Western area because it is so large, took 2.5 hours to walk around. Khajuraho is renown for the erotic
carvings on the temples and there are many but they only account for 10% of the
carvings but make for a good Karma Sutra story. I haven't included any erotic temple photos per se but if you look close enough you might see something.
For dinner we went to a Italian (organic) restaurant for wood fired pizza, couldn't resist. Every day at least one meal we eat Indian fare so when we see something more to our norm we are tempted. Jim and I enjoyed ours, Deepak ordered vegetable fried rice. Deepak had one piece of Jim's Tropicana pizza (chicken and pineapple - no ham in India) he said "tastes like roti" (Indian bread cooked in the tandoor - clay oven). It did actually but yummy all the same.
 |
| You have to look closely (you may need to enlarge the photo) |
No comments:
Post a Comment