Our day started with what might be one of the highlights of our holiday, our driver, Laxman, took us into the old village in Khajuraho, where he grew-up. He then gave us a walking tour around the streets. It was amazing, so many children around and they were all so very friendly (yes, a few greeted us with “Hello, Rupee 🙂 “), but they were in the minority. It was facinating watching the villagers just going about their normal days activities, from washing at the local standpipe, getting water by bucket from the well, women washing big thick blackets by hand, someone grinding grain to make flour for the villages to buy, and even a real live “Snake Charmer”. There are many public and private temples through-out the village, and they all have some stone work from the ancient temples of the area.
There were lots of cows and goats all through the village. All the houses have a coating of cow dung and mud smeared on the walls, both inside and outside, that we are assured doesn’t smell once it has dried and been painted. Laxman told us that the goats were used for both milking (from which cheese was made) and also for meat to the local hotels, as mutton. Laxman invited us to his mothers house, where we met his mother, sister and brother, and we were offered tea and drinks, which we declined. Laxman then got out some photo albums and shared pictures of his family with us. We felt very priviledged to be welcomed so warmly.
Khajuraho has been amazing, we knew very little about it before we came, “it’s that village with the ruin temples”, but it is so much more. It deserves more than the day we had here. If you go in with the right attitude and lots of smiles, then interact with the locals a whole new world opens up and you get to see the real side of life. Khajuraho is a hidden gem.
We left the hotel at midday and went to the airport to catch our 1:25pm flight to Delhi via Varanasi. The plane was running late, it landed in Khajuraho at 1:50 and we were onboard and had the safety demonstration 30 mins later, when one engine went off. next the Captain says they have an electrical issue with the engine, but luckily, they had an engineer handy to have a look at it and that should only take 10mins or so. (Refer to notes below on IST). The flight evenually left at 3:10pm., we touched down in Varanasi at 3:50pm, and about 75% of the people on board got off. We were going to try and post a blog here in Varanasi, but our wifi modem went flat!! 🙂
Indian Airline security is way over the top from what we are used to at home. At most airports you need to show your eticket just to get into the terminal, often, non-travellers cannot enter, then your check-in luggage is x-ray screened, and your carry on luggage tagged. Then you check-in and go through another sercurity screen, carry-on bags are x-ray screened and then every passenger is subjected to a manual metal detector screen and a patdown, with separate screening areas for men and women. The tag on your carry-on is then stamped. As you board your carry-on is checked for the stamp, and a guard checks your boarding pass then the airline checks the pass. Now in Varanasi, we are transiting through and have to stay on the plane, and security has come on and checked our boarding passes and the tags on our carry-on, putting another security pass sticker on the tags!!
We finally arrived in New Delhi at about 5:45pm and were with the A & K rep and our driver by 6.30pm. We decided to go straight to our cooking class, rather than going to the hotel then back out again. Because of the time, we were right in the middle of New Delhi peak hour, and yes it’s worse than you could imagine. We eventually got there at about 7:30pm, after being lost for a short while. Our class was in the home of a very charming woman, Neha, and her mother in law, Jyodi, in their home kitchen. We cooked up 5 dishes, well they did most of the cooking but we were right there next to them, asking lots of questions and taking in all they were doing. The meals they did were 4 everyday dishes and one special occasion dish. We had a great time and had lots of laughs with them. After all the cooking was done we sat down for a beautiful meal with them, learning how they would eat the meal, a hands on affair. 🙂 I look forward to getting into our kitchen and trying a few of the recipes.
Tomorrow we explore New Delhi.
We also found out that our driver,Munji, who was our driver the day we arrived, is going to be our driver for the rest of our time in Northern India. He is very friendly and has a great sense of humour, and he seemed genuinely happy to be driving us too.
More useless facts:
IST Indian StandardTime –> On time can anything from 30mins to a day later.
Your everyday run of the mill motor cycle costs about $1000, and every house has one.
Small cars, are $8 to 9000.00 and larger cars, which you dont see are more expensive and incur a luxury tax.
Another great blog and photo’s.
Deb did you get your toes in the Ganges?
Hi Mom, no feet in the Ganges, but I did put an offering onto the Ganges 🙂
That is great that you will have the same driver!!