I took the night train from Agra to Khajuraho. Luckily, a nice British couple from my hostel (Debbie and Angelo) was taking the same train, so we went together to the station. I don’t know how I would have managed this alone. It was enough that Debbie’s boyfriend left us for 5 minutes on the platform, and already we were surrounded by people who wanted to... introduce themselves to us and shake hands. Well...The train station itself made quite an impression... Lots of people sitting on the ground, sleeping, eating, but not only – also (it’s kind of gross) they were peeing and doing other stuff too on the platform (yes, on the platform, in front of all other people). It was disgusting. Everywhere I go here I see people peeing on the streets. Awkward it is!
The train itself – quite dirty, quite old, with 6 ‘beds’ in every ‘section’, I had luck once again and have in my ‘section’ three Spanish guys which made me feel a little bit more secure ('a little bit' being the operative words). I couldn’t sleep on that train though. It’s not that I was scared, but still it was so unpleasant, so uncomfortable, and open (there was only a curtain) to the corridor, so I could hear everything and was also afraid that someone’s gonna steal my backpack – luckily I remembered that I have a spare locker, so I used it to attach the backpack to the seat. Still, I could not fall asleep there. I took out my survival whistle and had it on me all the time. (now you may start laughing, but you know guys, I’m a solo female traveler, so just in case - I always take a survival whistle on my trips ;)
After about 8 hours I got to Khajuraho where I found a great place to stay – it’s a small hotel called Surya with nice rooms (finally, nice and clean!!) and a garden (with lots of my favorite animals – the geckos :) And for a really nice room they charged me only 500 rupees (which makes like 12 $), and they have beer in here and friendly hotel stuff! And they don’t stare at me and don’t take pictures of me! What a progress!
I started to talk with one guy named Sachin and it turned out he had a friend in Poland, and was not long ago in Warsaw. Moreover, his friend lives close to my place in Warsaw. That did help break the ice, and so I took the invitation to go with him on a motorbike on a small tour to the less popular temples. It was interesting and we had fun. I was still kind of suspicious though - after spending 5 days in India and being constantly annoyed by men (and my new friend didn’t want any money for the tour – so go figure, what I thought ;) He turned out to be a decent guy though, he was just being nice with no second thoughts. Finally, a normal man in India (I’m sorry again, no offence, I know it doesn’t apply to all Indian men, but it’s just my observation).
And so we went to the temples, had a cigarette watching the sunset and talked. He updated me on the history of religions: Hinduism and Jain (Sachin was Jain), as well as on history of India. He also explained the meaning of some of the temple carvings.
Well, the temples of Khajuraho are famous for their sculptures and carvings which present... kama sutra basically. I must say I blush watching them, some of them are really... hmm... how can I explain?... against the law of physics? ;)) I haven’t seen much of them today, but tomorrow I will be exploring the temples for the whole day, so we’ll see. Apparently there are also some rather obscene/ perverse scenes presented. I must say I don’t really get it, why they put such things on a temple, but my friend/ guide explained that the pictures had ‘educational’ character and was put there to teach people how to make love. Hm, interesting theory... I will be exploring the subject (read: continue to blush watching the carvings) tomorrow :D
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