A little bit of Indian art

Next on the hit list were the so called ‘Kamasutra’ temples in Khajuraho, approximately 400 km west and slightly south of Varanasi. The first half of the journey was by train and was supposed to take 5 hours. Unfortunately, it ended up taking 10 hours! The train left on time but seemed to be stationary more than it was moving and contrary to our previous train experiences, only a couple of snack-wallahs and tea-wallahs walked up and down the aisle, so we were pretty hungry and cranky by the time we arrived at our stop! We decided to break the journey up with an overnight stop in a grim little town called Satna, a place known for its cement factories, where we could catch connecting buses to Khajuraho the next day. We found a small hotel near the station which was pretty grim too with its collection of stains on the bedding. The room was justly cheap so we crashed there for the night.

We made our way to the bus station first thing in the morning, bought our tickets, and had some chai and a couple of vegetable samosas for breakfast before leaving. We got talking to the only other foreign couple on the bus, Paget and Phillipe from the States, and as we all got on well over the course of the journey we decided to stay in the same guesthouse and spend the next couple of days together.

On arrival, we got out of the bus we were promptly ‘greeted’ by the usual hotel touts and rickshaw-wallahs who tried to convince us that their hotel was the best and the town was way too big for us to walk through. We decided to walk, against all the advice, and turned down offers of cheaper rickshaws even when it came down to only 5 rupees (it may as well have been free). Lo and behold it only took 15 minutes to get to the first hotel of our choice!

Khajuraho is a village consisting of the usual bunch of hotels, restaurants and shops but it also contains some of the ‘finest temple art in the world’. The three groups of temples surrounding the village are known for their erotic kamasutra carvings by many but, as we later found out from our guide at the temples, they only account for 2% of the total carvings. The remaining stonework depicts a storyboard of life a millennium ago in the Chandela dynasty between AD 950 to 1050.

After a relaxing afternoon of socialising and stuffing our faces with western food, we had a beer and went to bed. After a nice slow start to the day, we went to the main temple and hired a guide in order to make some sense of what we were looking at. He turned out to be very knowledgeable and we could all understand him when he spoke. Brilliant!

He quizzed us on our limited knowledge of the Hindu Gods (looking specifically at me most times but I let him down quite a lot) and then told us all about the three main deities in order, Brahma (the Creator), Vishnu (the Preserver) and Shiva (the Destroyer), all of whom are a manifestation of Brahman (the formless, the eternal and the source of all existence). There are a multitude of other gods and goddesses, all manifestations of Brahman, but thankfully he didn’t attempt to explain them all.

There are bands of artistically carved ‘sensuous’ figures running through quite a variety of kamasutra positions and possibilities. Some quite interesting...


And some quite gross (Matt obviously laughed).

It was at this point he made jokes regarding sheep, the Welsh and the Kiwis! He was a funny guy.

We spent 2 hours looking at the other temples. There were sculptures of gods, goddesses, musicians, warriors, children, servants and real and mythological animals.




We were pleased that we had hired a good guide as we had learned quite a lot from him. He talked us through the many stories and meanings of a few as we walked round which was both interesting and fun. After a while, feeling suitably templed-out, we decided to go for lunch. The rest of our limited time here in Khajuraho has been chilled out and pleasant enough.


Ladies selling tikka powder and other nik naks

Wondering around the local market.

The best vegetarian thali we have had so far

In the local village

It turns out that Phillipe used to be a software engineer and has helped us out with quite a few ‘issues’ that we had with our laptop. This is such a bonus and we thank you Phillipe!

Next stop, Jaipur in Rajasthan. We have booked our train tickets for the overnight journey to Jaipur from Sagar, a 5 hour bus ride away from Khajuraho. We have been assured that the bus WILL be on time and that we WILL catch the train at midnight so we hope what they say is true. Fingers crossed.