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Got up early this morning for a train ride from Agra to Jhansi, and then a drive to Orchha and then to Khajuraho. The train ride was uneventful and the temples at Orchha were interesting and very different from what I had seen before.
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The drive from Orchha to Khajuraho was another wild experience, dodging the usual population of trucks, scooters, bicycles, pedestrians, cows, pigs, goats and camels. At one point, we had to stop in a small town and wait for a train to pass through. I think every kid in the town ran up to the car--they had never seen anyone with such a pasty white complexion before. They also got to practice their English on me by incessantly asking for pens, gum, and money
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One of the interesting aspects of India is the communications infrastructure (or lack of same) outside the major cities, and even *in* the major cities. There seems to be no concept of a phone booth. If you want to make a call, you need to go to a hole-in-the wall shop that advertises "STD-ISD-PCO", which basically means they have a phone in the shop. Usually, the shop has a counter with a single phone, and an attendant who helps you dial the call and then listens to your conversation (along with 3 or 4 of his friends who are squeezed into the shop). Internet service is even more frustrating. Many of the STD-ISD-PCO shops also double as Internet Cafes, and I use the term "cafe" very loosely. This means that they have one or two computers that have 24KBPS dial-up lines, which usually arent working. This was especially true in Khajuraho, where I never could get a usable internet connection, and just gave up after about 4 tries.
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