Sunday Oct 16, 2005 - day
17 - Orchha - Kathy: 173 photos, Bob: 149 photos
Today is the first day Kathy and I are on our own
entirely. It’s a little scary because
now we’re used to OAT holding our hands through each day. Now we have cut the tethers and are flying
free.
We got up early and met Duni in the lobby of the
hotel. He took us to the train station
and bid us farewell. We took the train
to
At the
We drove for two hours, passing the time by asking Suresh
question after question. One of the
attractions was a huge collection of seventy-seven Jain temples, so naturally
we started asking him more questions about Jainism. We asked him so many that he probably thought
we were religious fanatics and wanted to convert! So we had to explain that we wanted to know
about all religions, and he relaxed a bit.
Suresh also gave us new Hindi words. The word “Yes” in Hindi sounds like “Han”
pronounced like you’re about to say “Honda.”
The word “No” in Hindi sounds like “Na Hee” but most people slur it into
a simple “Nee.” I’m not sure of the
spelling. I know that our OAT guide,
Sujay, told us these things, but of course we forgot them. We also learned the Hindi word for “Pen” and
it sounds (to me) like “Column.” It’s
probably Kalhem or something like that, but hey, who’s counting?
We arrived at the Jain temples. It turns out that only sixty-six of the
temples are left, because I think some have been destroyed long ago. We were joined by a Jain guy from the temple
who was happy to tell us all about the monastery and answer all our
questions. He wasn’t a monk. Probably just some Jain guy who is the
caretaker of the place. Slowly, the four
of us walked up the hill of the monastery taking photos of all the temples in
the blazing sun. They weren’t all Jain
temples either. It turns out that at
least one is Buddhist, and one is even Tibetan Buddhist, dedicated to the Dalai
Lama.
At the top of the hill, we went inside a big temple and
found a statue that had been carved into solid granite, which is very difficult
to carve, rather than the more common sandstone structures we’ve seen in the
past.
Back down the hill, we saw a woman with a small fleet of
donkeys loaded up with bags of ordinary sand.
She was taking the sand to
the construction site of the new temple that was being built at the top of the
hill, but now she was delayed. It seems
that one of her donkeys did his business on the sidewalk of the monastery and
she was busy scooping up the dung with her bare hands. Kinda makes you want to wash your hands after
shaking hands with somebody, doesn’t it?
As we walked back down the hill, the Jain guy explained
that this monastic order was the branch (discussed earlier in this travelogue)
who walked around completely naked.
Apparently, only the male monks of that order did this. The female monks wore just enough to not
tempt the men, and the normal Jain people still wore clothes, had children
normally, and so on.
As we got closer to the living quarters, the guy gave us
stern warnings that the monks lead a very hard life–by their own choice–and we
shouldn’t get emotional about it.
Apparently some Americans he has done this for have become emotional and
started to cry at the scene. Then the
guy took us into the living area so we could see some completely naked
monks. We walked into the building and
no one was there. The caretaker was
genuinely disappointed. He started
walking up some stairs trying to find us a naked monk, but Kathy and I just
walked away. We insisted that we didn’t
need to see the naked monks, and making a spectacle out of this would be
disrespectful of their faith, and we wanted to respect their beliefs.
Onward we went to a beautiful palace.
This place was absolutely
fantastic, and we took lots of photos in awe.
The palace was
different. The occupants were obviously
Hindu rather than Islamic, and their art showed, even though they tried to copy
the Islamic palaces of the Moghuls we had seen earlier in the trip. This was bigger than most of the forts and
palaces we had seen with OAT, and we wondered why OAT didn’t take us there.
This was actually a complex of forts and palaces and we
went from fort to fort taking lots of photos both inside and out. The surrounding area was absolutely fabulous.
We progressed from the
biggest palace to the smaller ones, all within a small area.
After the fort, we stopped at a small restaurant at the
bottom of the hill. We ordered some
Chicken Makhani, also known as butter chicken, and prepared for our first
Indian meal outside the bland, confining tourist buffets we’ve had in the
past. Much to our dismay, the waiter
arrived carrying a dish of the blandest food imaginable. This was basically tomato soup with some
chicken thrown in. I was so disappointed
that I sent it back and told him to add spices.
He didn’t quite understand my English, so I said, “Add Garam
Masala. Add cinnamon. Add spices!”
He pointed at the pepper shaker and said, “Garam Masala.” I said, “No, this is not garam masala,
this is black pepper” and I sent him away.
After a few minutes, he came back and set the plate down again. This time it was marginally better. They had added some spices, but it was still
baby food to me. Obviously I made a big
mistake: I forgot to tell the guy how spicy I like my food.
We drove down to a nearby river just in time to see the
sunset wash the landscape with a rich golden glow.
There were special markers
across the river that marked the cremation sites of big shots, kinda like a
burial site or mausoleum without the body.
They were very pretty silhouetted against the setting sun.
Nearby, some people were
celebrating and singing songs of praise to Durga, the goddess who was
associated with the festival I mentioned earlier.
Soon the full moon was out
and we could see people relaxing in the river.
We drove three hours in the dark back to
We went back to the hotel for the evening. For dinner, the hotel offered two choices: a
buffet and an up-scale restaurant.
Having had our fill of mediocre buffets, we naturally chose the restaurant. We ordered Chicken Tikka Masala, along with
Kashmiri Naan bread, Special rice, and a special fish dish. This time I told the waiter, “We are not
typical Americans. We like spices. We want this food to be spicy for Americans,
but not spicy for Indians.”
After waiting several minutes, they produced our food,
and it was the best Indian food I have had in my life. It was rich and flavorful, spicy and
tasty. It was spicy enough that our lips
were burning long after we were done, but not so hot that I couldn’t eat
it. It was simply wonderful.