Vrindavan
My journey to Vrindavan was a little different than i expected it to be. Firstly the busride from Ajmer just outside of Pushkar was yet another cheap crappy seated government deal which saves you money but really really bites in the way of comfort. My ass went so numb it seemed to go beyond numbness into a dull ache that could only be relieved by walking around, which happened twice for 15 minutes over 9 hours.
Close to Delhi and Agra, the birthplace of Krsna turned out to be quite an austere place to visit.. Chaitanya in Mayapur is krsna's merciful incarnation and allows everyone to enjoy his association, regardless of how loosely you may follow. Krsna however demands a little more strictness from his devotees, so the ride to Vrindavan wasnt as comfortable for me.. shrouded in fog for most of the time i was there making the place incredibly cold and damp and muddy, it was hard for Vrindavan to give me a similar spiritual lift. Also being restricted by time, I had decided simply to stop in for 2 days. Pay my obesences to the holiest place on the planet and continue on. The ISKCON temple there was quite amazing, not as big as Mayapur but incredibly beautiful. Especially the huge white marble samadhi (mausoleum) dedicated to A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. I attended some classes, ate delicious food, lots of meditation and singing and packed up ready to move on.
A jeep trip 5 km East took me to the Delhi/Agra highway, where after some difficulty and consequently help from an old Indian man who from what i gather hated most things about India. I hailed down a Delhi-Agra bus and luckily snagged the last available seat aboard the local goverment bus. Fortunately it was only a 1.5 hour journey and relatively painless, apart from the filthy man next to me who was sucking and chewing on this tobacco product that i estimate 3/4 of indian men seem to chew, and despite multiple attempts to convince him otherwise insisted on his right to spit the moise chewed up waste matter all over the floor and occasionally my feet and sandals in front of us. After ignoring this to the best of my ability for the journey, i arrived in Agra, somewhere.
Unfortunately, I somehow lost the few photos I took in Vrindavan.. :(
Agra
After a long rickshaw ride and selecting a hotel in close proximity to the Taj - seemingly the only thing worth being in Agra for. I got in touch with Fanny and met up with her and the tour group she'd decided to part ways with. We'd already booked train tickets to get us to Khajuraho leaving on the 25th so had a couple of days to kill. There really isnt much to say about Agra. The touts/rickshaw drivers etc are all extra annoying, the Taj itself costs 750rp, an extraordinary amount of money, and the place is just loud and dirty like many other Indian cities. That aside, you have to do it. The Taj Mahal is one touristy thing in India that just cannot be missed. Described as "a teardrop on the cheek of eternity" the huge white marble mausoleum built by a grief stricken emperor in memory of his deceased 3rd wife. It took 16 years to build, and is of incredible detail. With inlayed marble and intricate carvings to be seen everywhere. No picture i've seen even remotely captures it's essence (that didnt stop me from taking around 2 gig of photos over two seperate visits). A sight to behold.
After killing time dining in many rooftop restaurants, all with views of the Taj, we headed to the station where our train to Satna was departing, turned out there was actually a direct train to Khajuraho that the friendly travel agent i visited wasnt aware of that departed the night before our train.. very unfortunate as it ended up being quite a mission getting there.. Our train went to satna, which is 4 hours in a bus away from our destination, however i discovered we went through another station, Mahoba which is only an hour train from Khajuraho, so we decided to jump off the train there.. Unfortunately trains dont tell you where you are ever, so it was a long night of interrupted sleep on the cold sleeper class cabin with freezing air blowing in the windows.. probably the most uncomfortable journey to date. The train was 6 hours late, and then the connecting one was also 6 hours late.. so in total it took almost 24 hours to get to the place..
Side-on view.. you've seen a million views over the lawn..
Closeup of the incredible detail inside. Carved white marble. The colour up the top is inlayed marble.
Khajuraho
A unique place on the map in India, Khajuraho's main attraction is the many temples it has surrounding it with thousands of intricately carved figures adorning the exterior that depict various scenes from the kama sutra and other sexually orientated poses. For a culture that is so conservative, this era of worship does present quite a curious contrast to the norm. Some of the carvings are beautiful and tasteful, while others are utterly perverse as you can see in the photos below. There was not a lot more to do in this town, but the place had a great vibe to it and was a wonderful relaxing intermission after Agra. We stayed in a hotel outside of town that was surrounded with mango trees and beautiful gardens, and apart from the ridiculously bad cooking that the two bumbling owners churned out, was basically perfect.
each of the carvings are over a foot tall
lucky these guys invented yoga
pretty much all the temples in Khajuraho had the same basic design, but with LOTS of subtle differences
yeah.. there are no words..
Funny memory from Khajuraho
Fanny and I had stepped into an internet cafe to quickly check up on emails/facebook etc. On entry I had asked the owner how much per hour and he told us it was 30rp - standard. After 10 minutes or so, some Korean girls walked in the door and asked the same question "how much per hour" to which our friendly host replied "40rp" the girls refused and walked out. My ears pricked as i was certain he'd told us 30 and I wanted to clarify. But he ensured us it was 30rp for us, because "Korean people always download too much."
"What?" I replied.
"..and steal, they all steal my things. and burn dvds. One time i had a book of kama sutra on the desk(popular in the town) and when i went out the back, when I returned the Korean guy was gone and so was the book!"
"One time eh?" I confirmed.
"all the time" he corrected himself.
"Well rickshaw drivers try to cheat me all the time, and they're all Indian, so all indians are cheaters? are you cheating me?"
"....." he thought about this very hard, and with a look of surprise responded. "...no."
"you just lost the business of 3 people because they might download more than the usual customers but you really have no idea if they will or not. perhaps a better idea would be to put a sign up that says 'web browsing 30rp, downloading 40rp' and keep an eye on what people are doing rather than assume how a certain race will behave." i suggested
He thought about this for a while, and when we got up to leave, thanked us for the suggestions and told us that "I will accept everybody from now on."
The End
A couple of days in the peaceful town we boarded the 4hr bus heading to Satna where a connecting overnight train would take us on to Varanasi.
My journey to Vrindavan was a little different than i expected it to be. Firstly the busride from Ajmer just outside of Pushkar was yet another cheap crappy seated government deal which saves you money but really really bites in the way of comfort. My ass went so numb it seemed to go beyond numbness into a dull ache that could only be relieved by walking around, which happened twice for 15 minutes over 9 hours.
Close to Delhi and Agra, the birthplace of Krsna turned out to be quite an austere place to visit.. Chaitanya in Mayapur is krsna's merciful incarnation and allows everyone to enjoy his association, regardless of how loosely you may follow. Krsna however demands a little more strictness from his devotees, so the ride to Vrindavan wasnt as comfortable for me.. shrouded in fog for most of the time i was there making the place incredibly cold and damp and muddy, it was hard for Vrindavan to give me a similar spiritual lift. Also being restricted by time, I had decided simply to stop in for 2 days. Pay my obesences to the holiest place on the planet and continue on. The ISKCON temple there was quite amazing, not as big as Mayapur but incredibly beautiful. Especially the huge white marble samadhi (mausoleum) dedicated to A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. I attended some classes, ate delicious food, lots of meditation and singing and packed up ready to move on.
A jeep trip 5 km East took me to the Delhi/Agra highway, where after some difficulty and consequently help from an old Indian man who from what i gather hated most things about India. I hailed down a Delhi-Agra bus and luckily snagged the last available seat aboard the local goverment bus. Fortunately it was only a 1.5 hour journey and relatively painless, apart from the filthy man next to me who was sucking and chewing on this tobacco product that i estimate 3/4 of indian men seem to chew, and despite multiple attempts to convince him otherwise insisted on his right to spit the moise chewed up waste matter all over the floor and occasionally my feet and sandals in front of us. After ignoring this to the best of my ability for the journey, i arrived in Agra, somewhere.
Unfortunately, I somehow lost the few photos I took in Vrindavan.. :(
Agra
After a long rickshaw ride and selecting a hotel in close proximity to the Taj - seemingly the only thing worth being in Agra for. I got in touch with Fanny and met up with her and the tour group she'd decided to part ways with. We'd already booked train tickets to get us to Khajuraho leaving on the 25th so had a couple of days to kill. There really isnt much to say about Agra. The touts/rickshaw drivers etc are all extra annoying, the Taj itself costs 750rp, an extraordinary amount of money, and the place is just loud and dirty like many other Indian cities. That aside, you have to do it. The Taj Mahal is one touristy thing in India that just cannot be missed. Described as "a teardrop on the cheek of eternity" the huge white marble mausoleum built by a grief stricken emperor in memory of his deceased 3rd wife. It took 16 years to build, and is of incredible detail. With inlayed marble and intricate carvings to be seen everywhere. No picture i've seen even remotely captures it's essence (that didnt stop me from taking around 2 gig of photos over two seperate visits). A sight to behold.
After killing time dining in many rooftop restaurants, all with views of the Taj, we headed to the station where our train to Satna was departing, turned out there was actually a direct train to Khajuraho that the friendly travel agent i visited wasnt aware of that departed the night before our train.. very unfortunate as it ended up being quite a mission getting there.. Our train went to satna, which is 4 hours in a bus away from our destination, however i discovered we went through another station, Mahoba which is only an hour train from Khajuraho, so we decided to jump off the train there.. Unfortunately trains dont tell you where you are ever, so it was a long night of interrupted sleep on the cold sleeper class cabin with freezing air blowing in the windows.. probably the most uncomfortable journey to date. The train was 6 hours late, and then the connecting one was also 6 hours late.. so in total it took almost 24 hours to get to the place..
Side-on view.. you've seen a million views over the lawn..
Closeup of the incredible detail inside. Carved white marble. The colour up the top is inlayed marble.
Khajuraho
A unique place on the map in India, Khajuraho's main attraction is the many temples it has surrounding it with thousands of intricately carved figures adorning the exterior that depict various scenes from the kama sutra and other sexually orientated poses. For a culture that is so conservative, this era of worship does present quite a curious contrast to the norm. Some of the carvings are beautiful and tasteful, while others are utterly perverse as you can see in the photos below. There was not a lot more to do in this town, but the place had a great vibe to it and was a wonderful relaxing intermission after Agra. We stayed in a hotel outside of town that was surrounded with mango trees and beautiful gardens, and apart from the ridiculously bad cooking that the two bumbling owners churned out, was basically perfect.
each of the carvings are over a foot tall
lucky these guys invented yoga
pretty much all the temples in Khajuraho had the same basic design, but with LOTS of subtle differences
yeah.. there are no words..
Funny memory from Khajuraho
Fanny and I had stepped into an internet cafe to quickly check up on emails/facebook etc. On entry I had asked the owner how much per hour and he told us it was 30rp - standard. After 10 minutes or so, some Korean girls walked in the door and asked the same question "how much per hour" to which our friendly host replied "40rp" the girls refused and walked out. My ears pricked as i was certain he'd told us 30 and I wanted to clarify. But he ensured us it was 30rp for us, because "Korean people always download too much."
"What?" I replied.
"..and steal, they all steal my things. and burn dvds. One time i had a book of kama sutra on the desk(popular in the town) and when i went out the back, when I returned the Korean guy was gone and so was the book!"
"One time eh?" I confirmed.
"all the time" he corrected himself.
"Well rickshaw drivers try to cheat me all the time, and they're all Indian, so all indians are cheaters? are you cheating me?"
"....." he thought about this very hard, and with a look of surprise responded. "...no."
"you just lost the business of 3 people because they might download more than the usual customers but you really have no idea if they will or not. perhaps a better idea would be to put a sign up that says 'web browsing 30rp, downloading 40rp' and keep an eye on what people are doing rather than assume how a certain race will behave." i suggested
He thought about this for a while, and when we got up to leave, thanked us for the suggestions and told us that "I will accept everybody from now on."
The End
A couple of days in the peaceful town we boarded the 4hr bus heading to Satna where a connecting overnight train would take us on to Varanasi.
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