Khajuraho - place of sculptural exuberance

Oh i forgot i had been blogging for a while, quite busy with my TT @ office, so no time before the system. For many days it had been my pending travel wish, that is to visit Khajuraho, mainly to know why it is famous. Those who may read it feel that this guy must be stupid for not knowing what is famous there. But really there is much more.

How it started - One of my old pal had visited NOIDA for official work. I dont know what work he did, because there wasnt much required for a person to fly from Hyderabad to do a work(????) in my company. May be his work was to while away time and future honeymoon locations nearby Delhi. We decided to go for a weekend getaway. The place planned was Khajuraho.

How we went: This was a well planned trip, we took a night train to Jhansi and return was by Shatabdi from the same place. Khajuraho is located 175 KM from jhansi, so overall it comes to around 750 KM from Delhi. The bus we took from Jhansi to Khajuraho was the most memorable. It had seats only for the driver and the conductor(since it was off season we had to take Madhya Pradesh Road Corpn bus). The sound was that of a MIG roaring across the road while sitting inside the bus, Unfortunately it was speeding only @ 40 KM per hour.

Where we stayed: We reached Khajuraho by 10:00 AM and we took a double bedroom with cooler and a TV for mere 250 bugs. During the season it may go upto Rs. 450 per 12 hours. We had a crazy Auto driver who took us for a ride around the bus stand to locate a Hotel just besides the bus stand and took 20 Rs for the same( i compared to that of the Auto drivers of chennai and felt the amount to be petite for a similar cause there). The auto driver then asked 250 Rs. to show all the temples(counting 22), so we thought lets book it.

What we saw: When me and my friend thought of taking a walk near the hotel we saw that nearly 15 temples were located in the Western side(they are called Western end temples), just besides the hotel. I had my Inde(french version of Lonely planet) which helped me a lot in determining places. We then decided to get into the World Heritage site and started catching the architectural marvel on the digital Cam. Not to forget the good food from a small mess which we ate for a mere 30 Bugs.

Khajuraho has 3 main sections of temples they call it Western, Eastern, & Southern. The western has the maximum number of temples and has the sculptures of Kamasutra in them. The Western and southern comprise mainly HIndu temples and Eastern is for Jains. The temples belong to the Candella architecture built in 950 AD. The theme behind the sculpture depicts the daily life of common man(that includes one aspect that is Sex). There is a light show which one has to really dont miss for the Western temples in the night. We covered all the temples of the Western by foot and went to the southern and eastern temples by Auto the next day, though they are only 2/3 KM far off. I would recommend instead of relying on Autos one can cover entire khajuraho by foot during the season(as the weather would be fine in the forest).

Now unfortunately for the return trip we were forced to take the same bus on which we came so our spines were rattled enough, there were two foreigners who compared the bus driver to that of a Ferari driver. They were from France and were astonished to find that melons costed only 5 Rs. per piece there(as we bought them during the bus journey). In france a melon costs 5Euros it seems. We shared with them one of the melons. After returnign to Jhansi after the splendid bus journey, we found relaxation both the back and for the stomach in Shatabdi express.

Ah .....Quite a lot of blog this time!!!