The roads in hell!

We're gradually working our way through this golden triangle of northern India. Today we are heading further east to Allahabad but with very slow progress due to the road conditions. We have 340 kilometres to travel but we'll only achieve about 40 km/hour.

We ventured down through a dozen hairpin bends on a section of mountain road this morning that was obstructed by a couple of broken down trucks carrying way in excess of their legal limits. Mr Singh got out and carefully assessed the situation before tentatively proceeding to overtake and negotiate the next hairpin bend that was partly obstructed by one of the trucks. Achieving success involved several manoeuvres of the 45 foot bus and the filling in of a couple of giant pot holes with rocks to avoid the bus chassis from grounding out. Mr Singh was the recipient of hearty applause for his skilful effort conquering the challenge. 

Narrow crappy roads to be bounced around on for 10 hours.

Yesterday was wonderful. After breakfast and checking out of the hotel in Orchha we walked only a couple of hundred meters to two Cenotaphs that had vultures nesting and perched up on the parapets and spires. These large ugly birds are attracted to this place. India has two types of vultures and these were the wooly neck species. We then walked a bit further on and through a market area to a palace. We had a specialist local guide take us through Jahangir Palace. 

Vultures

The zoom lens on at the right time.

Jahangir Palace was built in the 16th century and could best be described as a "renovators delight" as it is in original condition. In a strange way, it was a delight to see it in it's original but somewhat dilapidated condition and made us appreciate the time, effort and rupees that must have been invested in all of the forts, castles and palaces that we've visited that have been renovated and constantly maintained. From the main entrance, we were blessed with some impressive elevated views looking down at the Betwa river in the distance. 

Jahangir Palace

The front entrance to Jahangir Palace

Once back on the bus, we proceeded to Khajuraho for a late buffet lunch. Across from the restaurant stood eleven Hindu temples that make up the western group of temples that tourists like us flock to each year. These sandstone temples display the most ornate and descriptive carvings and statues that you will ever see. Most surprisingly, many are erotic while others reflect the sense of humour of the artists who sculptured them from the 9th to 11th centuries. Thankfully, about 90% of the thousands of carvings here have survived. 

 Khajuraho Temples

Amazing sandstone carvings.

All of the temples in this group sit proudly on acres of beautifully maintained gardens to walk around at your own pace to photograph and take in the serenity of the place.
According to local belief, there once stood 85 temples in Khajuraho of which 25 are still standing today. 

Erotica

Humour. All of the other elephants were looking straight ahead.

Kinky 9^th century Indians!

As we hopped back on the bus to head to our hotel, we stopped and watched in amazement as a cow devoured a cardboard box by actually taking large bites out of it.

It's been a big journey today and we've travelled through some villages and towns that appear to be even more third world than what we've encountered to date, if that's at all possible. We racked up eleven and a half hours with two 20 minute breaks and an hour for lunch. There were plenty of times we would only be doing 5 kilometres an hour on the dusty, broken down road.

Tomorrow we hit Varanasi and a two night stop that we're all looking forward to.
Cheers