in the forest of the day
it was with a pretty groggy head that i fell out of bed at 5am this morning to go and wait out on the pitch black street for the jeep which was to take me to the panna nature reserve in the hope of getting a glimpse of a tiger. my unnervingly cheery driver jilal duly pulled up, oblivious to the ungodly hour, and we set off on the 30km road to the park. i was largely pessimistic about the chances of seeing a tiger; even the touts on the streets, so given to stretching the truth, had all continually noted that a sighting was 'luck dependent'. still in a forever bright corner of my slowly waking heart a thin sliver of optimism remained that luck would be on my side.
this was arguably the most crucial ticket office to dupe and i was once more successful; obviously the bureaucrats of the madhya pradesh tourism council aren't as rigorous as their brethren in mumbai, where i remember having had particular trouble, and my reward for their disinterest was a ticket costing 600 rupees as opposed to a whopping 2,200 rupees.
put bluntly, i didn't get to see a tiger; there had been no sightings for the last couple of days, and none by the time we pulled back into the lodge. it was slightly frustrating because, as the sun rose, numerous deer came out to graze, even little baby ones which would have been easy pickings. but no tiger came; it was like walking into a mcdonalds in new york that had stacks of free burgers on the tables, only to find not one fat american in sight. to be fair, the speed with which the sun went from being totally absent to blazingly hot meant that the chances of seeing a tiger had always been slim at best. the simple reason that blake's tyger burnt so brightly in the forest of the night was that it would have been burning a little too uncomfortably once the day encroached. the tigers had apparently all bedded down well before day break, and i went home with my tail between my legs.
jilal did try and enliven the journey back by driving the final 10km back to khajuraho down the wrong side of the road for no discernible reason other than to antagonise motorcyclists but the morning was, in truth, a bit of a flush. it is hard to be too disappointed though because the chances of seeing a tiger had always been so low but for a few moments at least as we drove through the arid scrub i had subconsciously convinced myself that a big cat lay sunning itself around the corner; the hope, the knowledge that you are so close, should be enough with any actual sighting a bonus of pre credit crunch in the city extravagance.
off to see the final group of temples tomorrow before checking in for two days of luxury dossing and staying out of the sun. burnt face, big hair and nascent beard, a cacophony of auntly scoldings is surely close at hand.
tenth century fruitiness
the ornate temples of khajuraho have spawned a village around them typical of the overly crowded and agressively promoted settlements which spring forth around otherwise isolated tourist spots in south asia. the shabby streets are lined with guesthouses and trinket stands, all spewing out their cloying human detritus; slicked down hair, glistening moustaches and an oily persistence in the face of ostensibly definitive rejection. in india in particular trying to exist in a place like this is particularly tiring. it's the sheer number of people, the insistence borne of desperation and arguably the ready fodder profferred to the touts and salesman by most travellers playing at being stand offish but (not so) secretly loving the cut and thrust of apparent negotiation, usually happy to eventually buy that statue or book that tour as the price of the oh so authentic indian experience.
when you go and visit the temples you do at least see why the village was born, and for me at least it certainly validated the whole experience. a bit of a temple buff in general as i am i spent a very happy morning (for 10 and not 250 rupees again, huzzah) wandering around the seven or eight temples. the carvings for which they are rightly famous really are amazing; the genuine sensuality bursting forth from the stone apsaras is remarkable. it does bring me back to something which i have thought before, how india has made the journey over 5,000 years from societies which celebrated and valorised sexuality to one which seeks to constantly repress it. probably blame the british i say, ruddy victorians.
i should probably add that i can't claim to have been completely high brow. although i did, i like to think, experience khajuraho and its carvings on some form of cultural and historical level it would be a flagrant lie to say that there weren't times when i wasn't moved to a childish snigger. show me a tenth century carving of a man doing a horse and i am going to laugh; no amount of birthdays and experience are ever going to change that.
i also couldn't but help chuckle at the various young newly married indian couples floating around and giggling at the sculptures. my amusement was tinged with a tinge of concern because if they are planning on using the carvings as some kind of inspiration en route to marital bliss they may well end up with some fairly painful sprains. and probably lifetime bans from any livestock fairs.
off to try and spot a tiger tomorrow, more in hope than expectation. then a final look at the temples, a weekend of 5 star relaxation and into the maelstrom that is cal...
temples, palaces and angry dogs
orccha's place on the travelling map of india is well deserved. although the guesthouses springing up by the side of the road are an indication of its popularity, it still retains an unhurried, slightly sleepy, air. the big draws are the massive temples perched squatly in the main square, the heart of the village pumping shuffling pilgrims and grinning bead wearing backpackers through the arteries into and out of them, and the palace complex across the flawed emerald green of the betwa river. as with the pyramids in giza, the pace of development has not offered these edifices the luxury of space or splendid isolation. rather stalls and shopkeepers fronting guesthouses and samosa restaurants crowd right up to the very base of the buildings choking them with that mad rush of people and activity which is india. still when viewed from above, and there are plenty of rooftops and temples spires to clamber up, it makes for a peculiarly attractive vista, the low level debris of the banalities of modern survival scrabbling around below whilst the temples, tombs and palaces rise serenely above the mire to look regally over the mundanity below.
i went for a proper mooch around the palace yesterday and, having once again got in for indian price, found it completely empty. in my two or so hours there, i only ran into three other small groups of people. walking the streets of orccha, the cafes and guesthouses are full of backpackers but obviously people are fed up of paying massively inflated prices at each of their stops in india so are happy just to peer from the outside. which means that whilst footfall into the absolute must sees like the taj are probably unaffected, the lower tier attractions are failing to justify the 25 time mark up to foreigners. rendering it a completely counter productive policy, as i think was always going to be the case. between no visa on entry and stunts like this it seems as though the indian authorities are deliberately trying to antagonise potential visitors for reasons best known to themselves.
anyway, their short sighted policy worked out well for me as i had free run of the entire palace. it was like a child's fantasy vision of an indian palace, full of precipitious stairs and little balconies from which to peer out across the plain dotted with temples on all sides. the temples themselves were a little less impressive; or perhaps it is fairer to say that they were more impressive from a distance where their sheer size and bulk had greater effect.
the most negative thing about orccha is the lack of electricity between 1 and 6 every day, and for most of the evening thereafter. the planned power cut is a particular killer as all you want to do in the middle of the day as the sun blazes down and the mercury nudges towards 40 is find a fan to sit under. still a little discomfort cannot undo the inherent charm of the place and i am going to have a final day mooching around here before spending tomorrow rattling my way across to khajuraho.
oh, after a brief pause in hostilities in south america, my running war with stray dogs has resumed with a jolt. not all of them but one in particular has taken a particular dislike to me and goes absolutely mental whenever i approach. honestly the cows and goats are fine; get rid of all stray animals that can bite, that's what i say.
plus ca change
everything is different; everything is the same. no matter how gleamingly the costa signs and golden arches dominate delhi airport india still retains more than a hangover from its idiosyncratic immediate past. in fact from the hacking coughs of the taxi driver bundling his octagenarian toy car through the early morning delhi mist to the chaos at the domestic terminal even at 6.30am when passenger numbers were low this is still a country happy to be binging on its particular brand of chaos with no last orders in sight.
the flight to delhi and then on to gwalior was painless enough. gwalior is a grubby, frankly charmless, little place not even saved by the fort overlooking it because the parapets and buttresses above are hidden from view until you climb up out of the all consuming smog to the very gates. the fort does make it worth it though; slightly more dilapidated than its more feted rajasthani counterparts, the jutting torrets, mottled with gaudy blue paintwork, provide a suitable air of grandeur, with startling jain figurines etched into the rock all around. its major failing is the views that it offers; unlike the spectacular rajasthani towns cloaked in their technicolor liveries, the view of gwalior below is an accurate representation of the unappealing little town below. because of this, gwalior fort has a tenth of the visitors of jodhpur or jaisalmer, and virtually no staff to police people scrabbling through its hidden places. it's very much everything you would expect an indian fort to be, imposing stonework and structures with goats, dogs and, bizarrely, a tracksuited indian sports team all broad smiles and the beginnings of moustaches wandering out of unexpected corners. still, having had a good meander, unrestricted by hordes and officious staff (and having also managed to swing the 5 rupee indian ticket, as opposed to the 250 rupees reserved for unsuspecting foreigners) gwalior itself retained no more hold on me, so i set off to orccha at the first opportunity the following morning (pausing only to gulp in a certain 4 1 thrashing...)
the train from gwalior to jhansi threatened to be a disaster. even though it was only an hour's journey, the fact that one of the two second class carriages had been commandeered by defence personnel meant there were a lot of people angrily banging on some firmly closed doors. this is india; fortunately i have past experience of impossible to board indian trains so i snuck onto the ac carriage, bribed the chap 50 rupees and had a very comfortable 90 minutes. one of my more fruitful 60p investments.
and so on to orccha. further impressions to follow, but initially at least the beauty of the place cannot be denied, temples and palaces rising out of the small village which has encroached entirely on their boundaries. negatives? the fact that in the ten hours i've been here we've had one hour's worth of electricity. plus the temples attract a certain kind of traveller; the dull, regurgitate my lonely planet history section and wear beads type. team, filthy hastily thrown together dreadlocks and baggy trousers do not an indian make. deal with it; and fast please.
