Day 9--Khajuraho

This morning, I toured the temples at Khajuraho, and they are absolutely amazing. They were built in the 10th century, and the detail work on the temples is incredible--they are even more spectacular than the Taj Mahal (to me, at least--your mileage may vary). In addition, some of the carvings on the temples are, shall we say, "erotic". They have managed to build a nice park around the temples, and they actually have men mowing the lawns (not just trimming the edges) by hand with scissors! It's one of the few places where I've been able to just sit for a long while and look at a spectacular site in a pleasant environment.

                     

Temples in Khajuraho


Don't look at this;
you'll go blind!

          

Cutting the lawn the hard way

My transportation to the temples was in a car with a swastika on the hood. It's not as bad as it sounds--the swastika is a popular religious symbol in India (they thought of it before the Germans), and you see a lot of them on buildings and cars. In some cases you will see them together with six-pointed stars, which makes for a very interesting combination.

They have completely compartmentalized the tourism industry here. I booked my tour through a Canadian travel agent, who then contracted with an Indian company. The Indian company contracts with a tour manager with a local company in each city I visit. The tour manager contracts with an local guide and driver to take me around. This afternoon, the local guide contracted with another guide to take me on a tour to a waterfall. On the way back, the waterfall tour guide stopped at old Khujaraho village and contracted with another guide to take me on a tour of the village. That tour guide then turned me over to another person who gave me a tour of the local school. At this point, I think I was at least 6 degrees of separation from the people I originally booked the tour from. And incredibly enough (not), all of the guides knew of a special shop where I could get great deals on local crafts. Of course the crafts are cheaper in Khujaraho because they don't have local taxes. On the other hand they're cheaper in Agra, because that's where the distributors are. On the third hand, they're cheaper in Jaipur, because that's where the craftspeople are.

                     

Rural life near Khajuraho

 

                     

The "old town" of Khajuraho

On to Day 10....