Today started with a rude awakening, we got an unwanted early morning wake-up call at 4:45am!! By 5:30 we decided we weren’t going to be sleeping anymore so we got up and went through our photos and got a selection up on the net (our blog and Facebook).
After breakfast we settled our account and were picked up and taken to the airport for our 30 min flight to Khajuraho, a small village (about 15000 people), south west from Varanasi.
We arrived in Khajuraho at about 1:15 and picked up by the A & K rep and taken to our hotel, arriving there around 1:45pm.
After a quick settle in and lunch we were picked up at 3pm for our afternoons tour of the UNESCO World Heritage listed site of Hindu Temples. These historic buildings are famed for their intricate detail, delicate sensuality and forthright eroticism. The temples were built over a period of about 150 years starting from around the 10th century AD by the Chandella dynasty. There were originally 85 Temples, but now there are only 25 left. The carved stone of the temples represents all facits of life at the time. The carvings depict the importance of Hinduism in the life of the ruling classes and the classes below them. From Hindu Gods to Armies and, what were described by the young English Engineer TS Ward who discovered them in 1838, under a jungle, as, “most beautifully and exquisitly carved” but that some images were “extremely indecent and offensive”. There are many carvings depicting all forms of sex from masturbation through oral to homosexuality and beastiality. Not really the proper thing for a Victorian English Officer!
The Western Group of Temples comprises 15 Temples and they are the oldest and best preserved. The main Temple is the Lakshmana Temple, was built around 950 AD and is the oldest in the Western Group. All the carvings tell a story, it was facinating being taken around them by our guide, Rajboot, he knew his stuff off by rote (which at times was hard to concentrate on) and he was able to add life to the stories with interesting and often funny twists to the stories in the carvings. We walked around and looked closely at 5 of the Temples. As we were leaving the Lakshmana, we were given a blessing and red wrist ties by the holyman of the neighbouring Hindu Temple.
From the Western we went to the Eastern Group of Temples. Here there were 4 Temples, the two oldest were of the Jainism faith, an offshoot of Hinduism. The followers of Jainism account for less than 1% of the population of India but had a tremendous effect on the country over the last 2500 years. You may be aware of the Indian Holymen who walk around naked, often covered in white powder, these are very devout followers of Jain, and practice a high respect for all living creatures and nonviolence. Perched about half way up on one of the Temples was a barn owl, a rare sighting during daylight hours here.
The temples are an engineering work of art, amazing what was possible 1000 years ago. Mud platforms and ramps were built up alongside the temples to enable them to move the rock up onto the structure.
We then went back to our hotel, had dinner and then went to a Sound and Light Show in the hotel grounds. The show went for about 20mins and was a dramatisation of the story of the village and the temples. We don’t do cultural shows very well, and this one was no different!
More useless pieces of information
It costs 40 cents to have a shave, there are barbers everywhere on the streets. But the barber uses one blade for many shaves
Bananas cost 80 cents for a dozen, that is what the locals can buy them for
Yeah I think I’d pass on the shave!
more, more, more!!
The detail in that second photo is just amazing!
Those carvings are amazing!