Orchha 4th May 2006

I finally got around to visiting the biggest temple in the town yesterday. The Raj Mahal really dominates the town and I’ve a great view of it from my guesthouse, as I knew I was staying in town for a while I saved going there until near the end of my time here.

It’s a wonderful abandoned temple / royal palace and it’s full of nooks, crannies and hard to find staircases. I virtually had the place to myself for the three hours I explored there. I ended up sitting in one of the look out towers at the very top of the palace, which gave excellent views out over the town and surrounding countryside. I sat there for over an hour watching over a dozen eagles (gid) gliding on the thermals and listening to the singing from a nearby temple as a warm sirocco blew.

I got back to the guesthouse in the early afternoon to give Rishi a computer lesson and he then went through the Hindi numbers with me. I met up with Andy, Will and Liz in the early evening and had something to eat before saying farewell to Will and Liz. They are making their way to Diu in South Gudgerat.

Thursday was spent playing cricket and chess with the kids from the guesthouse. The little girl here (7 years old), whose name I can never remember, told me that I am now here Uncle. She hasn’t got much English, so she always speaks to me in Hindi and Rishi (10 years old) translates. Rishi and his sister wanted to bring me to the Laxmi temple, which is 1km from the guesthouse, they brought me there yesterday and we had a really good time. Rishi is really confident for a 10 year old and when I went to buy water, the guy in the shop tried to charge me 15 Rupees and I told him that it was normally 12 Rupees. Rishi then starts giving out to the guy in the shop for overcharging me! It was really funny watching a 10 year old arguing with a shopkeeper and winning!

There is a hill leading up to the temple and I huffed and puffed my way up it, the two kids sprinted up! We were stopped at the door by someone asking to see my ticket, when I told him I hadn’t got one he offered to take 50 Rupees off me and let me in – he didn’t have a paper ticket to give me though, so we didn’t go in. We hung around there for ten minutes or so and Rishi pointed out all the local landmarks and was really good with all the temple names. On the way back I bought them some crisps, Sprite and some sweets. Rishi had a go at the guy in the shop (who tried to scam me out of 5 Rupees {about 6 pence}) and the guy sheepishly gave me the correct change. Rishi was concerned that everyone was trying to charge me extra, I had to explain to him that this happens all the time because everyone thinks that we have loads of money. He then brought me to see a couple of the new hotels in the town and I hadn’t got the heart to tell him that I’d already been in them.

I had a couple of Sadu’s (Holy Men) hand out their hands for money as we passed them on the road and Rishi wanted to know why they were all making funny gestures with their hands!

In the evening I went down to the main square to give some photographs to some children. They had asked me to take photos of them a couple of days earlier, so I thought that it would be nice to give them copies. Their parents were there when I got there and they were delighted with the photos and the kids asked me take some more of them! I was running a bit late to get to the temple to meet Andy, so I told them that I’d come back tomorrow and take some then.

Andy and I had something to eat, I ordered chips and bread and had my first chip buttie since Sapa, Vietnam and it was lovely. We got talking to a couple, she is Japanese and he is Italian and they were really nice. Turns out that he has lived in London for twelve years and has spent the last three months in Japan with his girlfriend. She’s a student in Toyko and he helps teach autistic kids in London