Our train trip lasted five hours. The cabin was comfortable and the knee room generous. We were at the opposite end of the car from the crying child, so all was well. For the first two-thirds of the trip we averaged a speed in the high 70’s mph. The last third was slightly slower with the more familiar clickity-clack we associate with the U.S. rail system. Both breakfast and lunch service were offered, but on the advice of our tour leader we stuck with the box lunches provided to us by the hotel at departure. The landscape for most of the trip was rural, reminding me that much of India remains rural (nearly 2/3rds the population) with most of people dedicated to agriculture. There was no internet unless one wanted to try a movie.
We were on a limited express train with only two stops between Agra and our destination, the small town (by India standards) of Khajuraho. In Khajuraho, we were greeted by eight SUVs with drivers, with two or three of us assigned to each SUV. We had two. This was our transport for the next 24 hours, but the first leg, from the station to our hotel was a short ride.
The hotel is the most modest of our lodging so far, but adequate for the night. The shower worked fine, so we were happy. From our room we could see the top of one of the temples, our reason for this stop. That afternoon we visited the site of many if the temples.
The Temples of Khajuraho
In a word, the temples are spectacular in architecture and detail. A Wikipedia search will give a great overview, but I’ll add a few comments to go along with the photos. Built between 885 and 1029, these Hindu (and a few Jain) temples once numbered 85 structures. Time and destruction have reduced that number to twenty five, or twenty-two by some counts. The saving grace for the temples is that Khajuraho is in a remote area. In the 13th century, the Delhi-based Mughal dynasty conquered the area and destroyed and defaced many of the temples. Yet, thanks to the remoteness of the region, many survived only to be swallowed up by the jungle. Other than by locals, the temples were forgotten and not rediscovered until 1838 by a British engineer.
I’ll show a few more of the temples. Wikipedia has all their names.
Back at the hotel, our dinner was a buffet. Frances took green beans from the salad buffet—except they weren’t green beans, they were hot peppers, very hot peppers. She but a forkful in her mouth and chewed. Let’s just say that this was it for her dinner.
After a quick night’s sleep, it was bags out at 6:00 a.m. We loaded into our respective SUVs and started our wild five and a half hour ride to our next destination, Bandhavgarh National Park. And wild is a a modest term for the experience, a 250 minute long “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride”, with constant games of chicken by the entire convoy with on-coming traffic, passing cattle, goats and people in the middle of the roadway, navigating roads under construction, passing vehicles that were themselves in the act of passing, and, well, you get the point. Nevertheless, we all arrived intact. One novelty? There are no restrooms to stop at in route, so a toilet van followed us and was used by the women during the two stops. The van has the nickname of the Queen Mary. The men, of course, watered a nearby tree.
So here were are at the Taj Safari resort, ready to look for tigers.