Khajuraho to Kathmandu...

... and so much in between.

The relative calm of Nepal and the comparative coolness of Kathmandu is a stark contrast to the place from which I came here from. The magical Varanasi.

I could talk for days about the enchantment of that crazy place. But that would have to wait as it would be unfair not to tell some tales of my time in Khajuraho...

The plethora of temples with intricate, explicit carvings of all manner of sexual antics (including a man sodomising a horse), were absolutely fascinating. Set in lovely, open and manicured gardens, we spent a slow few hours making our way around the six or so temples in the Western group. Stopping to seek refuge from the midday sun (only mad dogs and Englishmen) in the shady cooler interiors of the temples or revisiting the cafe to have yet another ice cream, the one advantage of going in the soaring heat of the day was the lack of other people foolish enough to be wandering around in it.

Aside from the relentless attention from nearly every single shopkeeper you walked past, Khajuraho was a relaxed place. Clean, wide streets, lots of trees, there was a central market that was a bustle of activity in the morning and early evening with carts selling sugar cane juice (so tasty and fascinating to watch them squeeze the canes through a small mangle) and all manner of things, though mainly fruit and veg.


I think due to the many tour groups that come through, Khajuraho has a more sanitised feel than I have come across so far on my travels. Restaurants catering to foreigners offering pizza cooked in proper wood-fired ovens, pasta and the usual array of Chinese as well as Indian fare. So many tourist shops, it really is totally geared at the masses of tour groups that come to see the magnificent temples that surround it.



I really enjoyed my time in Khajuraho - the hotel we were in, Hotel Harmony was by far the nicest place I had stayed so far and the cheapest at about Rs 350 (about 5 pounds). There was a lovely courtyard and even though no air conditioning, it was surprisingly cool in my room with just the fan.



I befriended some locals , Aashtosh and Guddu, who took me to old Khajuraho village and introduced me to Banarshi Babu, whose real name was Rajendra. An old man who does amazing carvings out of the roots of trees. Almost African in style, carvings of the usual gods etc but completely different from anything else you would normally find in India. We sat on his rooftop under the stars and had chai. I could have stayed there for hours, it was so peaceful -just the occasional sounds of nighttime village life from the alley below.



Another notable incident was the card game. There was a shop adjacent to the hotel and one evening, I came across a group of men sitting in a circle animated in this lively game. It was mailnly the guys that worked at the hotel so I felt at ease and at first I sat and watched as I couldn't figure out for the life of me what was going on. It seemed that cards and Rs100 notes were flying all over the place. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to it until they explained it. And it was so simple. Really almost just a game of snap. Once I felt like I understood, I thought why not just throw in for one round and I fished out a Rs100 note. I guess my luck was in as I ended up winning Rs 1100! I felt bad at swooping in like some kind of hustler - although not possible as it's purely a game of luck - so I spent Rs 500 on a bottle of rum which I shared with the group as a gesture of goodwill.

Some places you go and just have good luck, and I would say that for me Khajuraho was one. I would have stayed another night, but the direct overnight train to Varanasi (which had only just started running about a week or so before) didn't run on Saturday, so I ended up leaving a night earlier.

Tom and Amy, who I was still travelling with, had tickets to go back to Agra and then get the overnight train, but upon a bit of investigation found they could refund their tickets and change them for the direct train rather than a ridiculously convoluted journey that would have taken them on two trains and a bus. So it turned out, yet again, that we were travelling not only on the same train, but in the same compartment - our bunks all next to each other. Next stop Varanasi...