Khajuraho 9th May 2006

Another early morning, must be the heat. I was out of the guesthouse by 07:00 and I thought that I’d have to double back on my journey here and go to the town that I broke down in yesterday, as I was told that there is no international cash machine in here. I decided I’d double check the ATM situation with reception before I made the 88km round trip, as you have to take anything that anyone tells you in India with very large pinch of salt. Sure enough, the guy told me that there is an ATM less than five minutes walk away.

I decided to visit the temples before it got too hot and paid my 250 Rupees (£3GBP) and the locals paid their 10 Rupees (8 pence). The temple complex is a World Heritage Site (I’m losing count of the amount of WHS’s that I’ve visited on this trip) and the grounds are absolutely superb. There are about ten main temples in the grounds and many of them have got erotic carvings, and by erotic I mean plain dirty. There are carvings of men shagging horses, orgies and 1-1 sex, and to think that these carvings were made over a thousand years ago. I spent an hour and a half wandering around the temples and even at 09:00 I was sweating due to the heat of the sun.

There are more temples to the East of the town and I decided to visit these by my motorcycle. I found them easily enough and even before I had stopped my bike I was hassled by touts trying to get me to visit their shops. I duly ignored them and spent ¾’s of an hour wandering around the three main temples here. As I was jumping back on my bike one of the touts wanted to get on the back and kindly offered to take be my guide for the day. It was 10:00 by this stage and I’d seen all the main temples so I declined his kind offer and sped away before I got more hassle.

I went to try and track down a copy of the newspaper that interviewed me yesterday, but there is only one shop that sells newspapers in the town so I bought the only newspaper they had. It was the wrong one. The editor told me to give him a ring if I couldn’t get a copy, so I’ll give him a call in the morning and see if he can get me one.

I’d been awake since 04:00, so I had some lunch and crashed out in my room for nearly three hours and didn’t emerge until the heat dropped. I bumped into three Italians who I met briefly in Orchha and we had a walk around the town and had something to eat. I had a mutton curry, which was pants and overpriced. I went back to the guesthouse after that, had a beer and have decided to pack as I want to get out of here tomorrow. As I was having my beer, one of the locals got talking to me (is there no escape) and he started asking me how to chat up a Western women. Now, you won’t get the best advice about chatting up Western women from a single guy! The main ‘secret’ I told him is not to follow them down the street in packs hassling them! I told him I had to ring my brother and eventually got rid of him. I’ll head to Varanassi, which is 410km’s away, hopefully I’ll make it in one go if the roads are decent!