Orchha

Orchha

Overview: Orchha is a quiet town. It is tiny and was built in the 16th century by the Bundela Rajput chieftain Rudra Pratap. He thought the river that runs through it would make it a great capital. Its fame continued when Raja Bur Singh Ju Deo arrived and built a series of chhatries. The architecture is reminiscent of moore palaces Sarita and I visited in Barcelona. It is a religious site because of its Ram Raj Temple, a palace turned temple. It all came about after a dream visitation had by Lord Rama, Madhukar Shah's wife, Ganesh Kuanwari brought a statue of the g-d from Ayodhya to Orchha. It is also interesting because while the king was devoted to Lord Krishna, the queen was devoted to Lord Rama.

My perspective: It is definitely a quiet town (well, quiet for an INDIAN town) and the palace and temple are beautiful. What struck me was the sunset above the buildings, the intensity of the river, the idea that the whole town is basically built around these old and stunning buildings. Also, it was also neat to see how many Indians come to visit it because of the central temple.

I had a nice time there. The first afternoon I decided to go to the two main palaces and found myself amongst a school tour of 110 students that were all between 7-11. It was totally overwhelming as each of them wanted to say hello, ask me where I was from and talk to me to practice English. It is one of those situation where the first 15 were really cute, but then there were 95 more. I mostly walked quickly past them, only to find 12 more hidden in another corner of the palace and screaming "HELLO! HELLO SIR!" When the students were not talking to me the teachers were. They basically asked me the same questions. I had a nice time, albeit an overwhelming one too. At the end of the day I decided to run away from everything at sunset. So I went to the highest point of the palace and set there, totally alone, listening to Laurie Anderson talk about the end of the world, and watching the sun set over Orchha. I need more sunsets like those.

The I had two nite stay there so the next day I took it really easy. I visited the other sites, I walked around the bazzar, and I spend the afternoon talking to a Brazilian couple I met. They are traveling for a year together so it was nice to hear their stories and speak Portuguese. We sat at a restaurant from about 1-4 chatting. Later in the evening the electricity in the city was out (as has happened in MANY CASES on my travels) so I had dinner with a couple of Israeli women in the dark. I think I just swallowed on bug with my meal. It was fun. Since power outages are so common many shops and restaurants have a flashlight and candle system they pull out. So, unlike the NYC black out where things just fell apart (I was there) here the lights go out, folks pull out their candles and life goes on. At 8pm the town was dark, but the crowd continued on.

In Orchha I was met a three guys who invited themselves to sit with me on the bridge over the river to watch the sunset. They did not actually invite themselves, they just stood above me for about 10 minutes until I invited them. This was interesting because it allowed me to do research on the whole male bonding of India. Findings:

-Men are good friends and explore with each other sexually.
-Married men keep their tight friendship with each other.
-The only people that know about the affairs are usually the ones involved in it. Of course, none of the three talking to me ever did anything. They only knew of "friends" who did it.

I also ate a lot of sweets in Orchha and introduced many travelers to the wonders of barfi and many other milk-sugar combinations.

The departure from Orchha was commom. I got on a VikramTaxi. This is the rickshaw that is meant for 5 people and they fit 12. In my case they fit 14 people. It is always exciting, cheap and a bit painful. Upon arrival in the bus station the attendants (the same exact two people that I saw the prior day) told me completely different information. The bus was not at 11am, it was at 1pm. The bus was not government, it was private, and it was not deluxe, it was common. In my Julio voice I said firmly. "I don't care that I have to wait. I care that you could have told me this yesterday. Would that have been so hard?" In usual Indian style they just looked at me and shrugged their shoulders. And, of course, I went across the way and asked about the bus fro another person and was told that in fact it was a 11am and it was goverment deluxe. Don't be fooled by deluxe. It is only important that you know that non-deluxe is worst.

I got on the bus and met Kentoro (Ken) a cool Japanese guy who spents some time in Brasil and speaks pretty good Portuguese. He has been traveling for 2 years. And I met Phillip and Claire, a nice couple from the UK. Together we muscled through the bumpy road to Khajuraho where I am now, and where I will leave in about 2 hours to Satna (4 hr bus) to go to Varanasi (8 hr train).

Will write more about Khajuraho next time. In short, erotica on temples, literally 100 people/hr asking if you want taxi, water, shawl, food, bike, internet, anything, anything. It is totally overwhelming and quite annoying. But, I am learning to live with it more and more. The constant buzz of requests for us travelers to buy just about anything.

"Into the Woods to Find the Giant..."
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