We had a good start in Gwalior, we were at the train station early and had seats for the trip to Orchha! Yay!
I gave him polvoron, a gift from Atha and Rodel (which traveled from Bulacan to Paris), and Henri gave him a fanny pack that turns into a backpack. He walked away so amazed.
We stayed at the All Orchha View, which is cheap and has new bathrooms. The boys were very helpful, but our first morning was ruined by the bad breakfast. I don' know why they leave the teenagers to do the cooking, and for the whole day all they could say to me was, 'madam didn't like breakfast.'
It was a portent of things to come because after that we had one heavy experience after another. There was a saddhu wo tied wish bands on our arms and a guy who was telling us stuff about the Ram Raja temple that we already knew - then he asked for money. Goddamnit.
But we were here for some peace and quiet, so we tried harder to attract good vibes.
We walked past the market, to the Chaturburj temple, which was supposed to be closed in the afternoon, but we went up just to sniff around. We were in no hurry to do anything because we knew we were going to stay a while.
A man came running past us at the entrance saying he had the keys to the tower so we followed him. Within the temple is a maze of steep passages that give you a nice view of the main street. Henri: the previous pic is a goat that found a way there on the wall!!! hahaha...
And the palace.
It was quiet and breezy, and we wanted to stay a while, but the guy who invited us up talked too much and was dictating which pictures we should take, and at what angles. Really pesky. And on our way out, he asked Henri for 10 or 20 rupees for each of us. Henri said he can give him a ten rupee tip, but the guy was insulted. He said we have money - THE HELL DOES HE KNOW? - and we are holding back. That's what's wrong with Indians in touristic areas, they tend to think that we foreigners OWE them money by our sheer existence. So they charge us more, they try to cheat us more, they annoy us more.
So he let us go if we would come by his bar and buy beers at 150 rupees (fair price: 90 - 110), which is odd because Orchha is a holy city, and people are not supposed to drink alcohol or eat meat.
Our next stop was the river, where people regularly take a dip or do their laundry; a raft full of foreigners passed us once.
We ended our walk at the natural reserve and went back because we were starting to get hungry.
It was so hot, we had melted.
But all the bad vibes of the day were washed away in the evening, on our way back to town. We saw one of the boys from the guest house, Chinku, and he was about to walk us back to the guest house so he could sleep early (it was his duty to close all the doors and lights) but I saw that the Ram Raja temple was open (it's closed from 12nn - 8pm) so we fancied a visit.
We were quite lucky because we were there just moments before the main altar was opened for devotees of Rama, and we were able to join in on the ceremony. Chinku was a big help, although he was still struggling with English. He learned the language on his own, by sticking with tourists all the time, but by now it had morphed into a very particular way of speaking, which I call Chinku English.
When we got out, there were some old saddhus playing music. They saw us enjoying the music so they invited us over. By this time, Chinku had tired of trying to get us to the guest house at a reasonable time so he left us with the beggars.
It was an amazing moment. As they upped the tempo of their song, I felt the rhythm lifting me to another time, before the wire fences around the temple, before the concrete roads, before the mud flats. I found myself crying through the songs, because I felt like I had glimpsed the path that would lead me to my hazy, confusing heritage.
The visions were very powerful, but also very short. I could imagine us under lamplights in old Orchha, then by the flickering bonfire in the cold desert, before the Bundelkhands decided to build their palaces. It was not something all travellers get to see, so I felt like Orchha was trying to make up for the day we had, and rewarding us with a night we would remember for the rest of our lives.
The following morning, we got pizzas at Ramrajah, a restaurant once featured on Indian television. We met a guy from Mumbai who said he came to Orchha especially for the pizza, so we thought we should give it a try. It could give 3M Pizza a run for its money :-p
After brunch, we looked for a place to watch the rugby match between France and the NZ All Blacks. We ended up watching it inside a mud flat in the market. We interrupted a guy watching the India vs UK cricket match, who turned out to be Chinku's brother. The two girls making samosas on the floor turned out to be his cousins. Small world, this Orchha.
The following day was action-packed. We had to start early because the palace ticket is also the entrance ticket to the restricted temples, so we had one day to do everything.
This time, we travelled with Florian and Melanie -
The palace attracts a lot of day tourists, and not all of them foreigners.
Finding our way through the maze of stairs and terraces was fun.
The big rewards were the occasional sighting of these marvelous wall paintings in Raj Mahal.
The second palace, Jehangir Mahal, was built and used for a rajah's one day visit. Taray!
Tha Lakshmi temple was our last stop for the day. It was getting dark and the creepy vultures soared over us.
But the transfer through Jhansi was like descending into hell. It was hot, noisy, smelly, sticky, and finding an honest person proved next to impossible. For an hour we were harassed by autorickshaw drivers and bus wallahs, and at every turn there were people saying one thing and then another thing a split second later - all because of the bullying drivers who would shout at people to make them take back what they said or run away scared. At one point, even I was screaming at them because they just oozed evil. One scary dude said he was calling the police, I screamed for the police harder than he did, then he got worried. The thing is, some autorickshaws charge 150 for the 18 km ride, others try to charge 300 (like I saw one trying to do with a bunch of Korean girls), but for Indians, the real price is ten rupees per person... and they did not want us to find out other ways to get to Orchha, they just wanted us to pay whatever amount popped into their heads, depending on how much they think we can afford.
Eventually, we found a guy who would take us for ten rupees each, but the other drivers scolded him and pulled him out of his rickshaw and told us he was not a driver. They were shouting at him and we shouted back to protect him, and Henri used his size to intimidate the others into setting the poor boy free. By pure grit, we got out of there barely holding on to our sanity. The rickshaw boy played Hindi dance tunes, and we felt the pressure of Jhansi being swept away by the cool breeze.
Upon arrival at Orchha, we were amazed that we were not hassled for pens, chocolates or money by the kids. (It may not seem like it, but the children of India have a traumatizing effect on travelers. Many of the people we met on the way had harrowing stories; so the wise thing is always to avoid them like tiyanaks, or be very zen, because they will wear your patience down to stubs.) We were convinced that to reach Orchha by Jhansi, you really have to deserve it. It was paradise compared to that hell hole.
A kid followed us around at the Lakshmi Temple, trying to sell his paintings but I explained that we didn't have anything to give him and we couldn't carry around his painting for the rest of the trip, so he just walked with us, asking questions until we reached what seemed like an ruins on another hill, which turned out to be a hidden temple for locals. From here, we saw the sunset, and were prepped for a good stay in Orchha.
I gave him polvoron, a gift from Atha and Rodel (which traveled from Bulacan to Paris), and Henri gave him a fanny pack that turns into a backpack. He walked away so amazed.
We stayed at the All Orchha View, which is cheap and has new bathrooms. The boys were very helpful, but our first morning was ruined by the bad breakfast. I don' know why they leave the teenagers to do the cooking, and for the whole day all they could say to me was, 'madam didn't like breakfast.'
It was a portent of things to come because after that we had one heavy experience after another. There was a saddhu wo tied wish bands on our arms and a guy who was telling us stuff about the Ram Raja temple that we already knew - then he asked for money. Goddamnit.
But we were here for some peace and quiet, so we tried harder to attract good vibes.
We walked past the market, to the Chaturburj temple, which was supposed to be closed in the afternoon, but we went up just to sniff around. We were in no hurry to do anything because we knew we were going to stay a while.
 |
| This is a goat that found a way there on the wall!!! hahaha...(henri) |
A man came running past us at the entrance saying he had the keys to the tower so we followed him. Within the temple is a maze of steep passages that give you a nice view of the main street. Henri: the previous pic is a goat that found a way there on the wall!!! hahaha...
And the palace.
It was quiet and breezy, and we wanted to stay a while, but the guy who invited us up talked too much and was dictating which pictures we should take, and at what angles. Really pesky. And on our way out, he asked Henri for 10 or 20 rupees for each of us. Henri said he can give him a ten rupee tip, but the guy was insulted. He said we have money - THE HELL DOES HE KNOW? - and we are holding back. That's what's wrong with Indians in touristic areas, they tend to think that we foreigners OWE them money by our sheer existence. So they charge us more, they try to cheat us more, they annoy us more.
So he let us go if we would come by his bar and buy beers at 150 rupees (fair price: 90 - 110), which is odd because Orchha is a holy city, and people are not supposed to drink alcohol or eat meat.
 |
| Passed by a snack stall because the others wanted chai. |
 |
| It was muddy and full of flies. I was scared. Even in the Philippines, I would know better not to ingest anything from places like this. |
 |
| But Lau and Leo were confident all will be well. |
Our next stop was the river, where people regularly take a dip or do their laundry; a raft full of foreigners passed us once.
We ended our walk at the natural reserve and went back because we were starting to get hungry.
It was so hot, we had melted.
But all the bad vibes of the day were washed away in the evening, on our way back to town. We saw one of the boys from the guest house, Chinku, and he was about to walk us back to the guest house so he could sleep early (it was his duty to close all the doors and lights) but I saw that the Ram Raja temple was open (it's closed from 12nn - 8pm) so we fancied a visit.
We were quite lucky because we were there just moments before the main altar was opened for devotees of Rama, and we were able to join in on the ceremony. Chinku was a big help, although he was still struggling with English. He learned the language on his own, by sticking with tourists all the time, but by now it had morphed into a very particular way of speaking, which I call Chinku English.
When we got out, there were some old saddhus playing music. They saw us enjoying the music so they invited us over. By this time, Chinku had tired of trying to get us to the guest house at a reasonable time so he left us with the beggars.
It was an amazing moment. As they upped the tempo of their song, I felt the rhythm lifting me to another time, before the wire fences around the temple, before the concrete roads, before the mud flats. I found myself crying through the songs, because I felt like I had glimpsed the path that would lead me to my hazy, confusing heritage.
The visions were very powerful, but also very short. I could imagine us under lamplights in old Orchha, then by the flickering bonfire in the cold desert, before the Bundelkhands decided to build their palaces. It was not something all travellers get to see, so I felt like Orchha was trying to make up for the day we had, and rewarding us with a night we would remember for the rest of our lives.
The following morning, we got pizzas at Ramrajah, a restaurant once featured on Indian television. We met a guy from Mumbai who said he came to Orchha especially for the pizza, so we thought we should give it a try. It could give 3M Pizza a run for its money :-p
After brunch, we looked for a place to watch the rugby match between France and the NZ All Blacks. We ended up watching it inside a mud flat in the market. We interrupted a guy watching the India vs UK cricket match, who turned out to be Chinku's brother. The two girls making samosas on the floor turned out to be his cousins. Small world, this Orchha.
The following day was action-packed. We had to start early because the palace ticket is also the entrance ticket to the restricted temples, so we had one day to do everything.
This time, we travelled with Florian and Melanie -
and Kieran, whom we all met at the guest house.
The palace attracts a lot of day tourists, and not all of them foreigners.
Finding our way through the maze of stairs and terraces was fun.
The big rewards were the occasional sighting of these marvelous wall paintings in Raj Mahal.
The second palace, Jehangir Mahal, was built and used for a rajah's one day visit. Taray!
Tha Lakshmi temple was our last stop for the day. It was getting dark and the creepy vultures soared over us.
I climbed inside the Rapunzel tower to try and see one up close, but the stairs don't go all the way up anymore.
