March 7, 2010

What a week!
On Tuesday we caught a morning train to Jhansi and from there we drove to Orchha. We stayed in the nicest hotel called Hotel Anar Mahal and it was truly a palace. My room looked like a honeymoon suite and it even had a WORKING SHOWER! It was the 1st time I got to use a shower in India and boy was it glorious. I never thought water pressure could feel so good.
We had a lecture as a palace that was turned into a hotel and from there we split into small groups for a “drop off.” Our mission was to find the specific temple given to us but my group just wondered area and literally stumbled upon a handful of ancient temples (probably from around 11th cent A.D). They were placed along a river running through the town and were completely untouched with their original architecture still intact. I love India for this- you go for a stroll and stumble upon thousand year old architecture like it was no big deal.
After our walk we went inside the hotel palace where some musicians were playing local folk music and a dancer was dancing along. The dancer turned out to be a hiraj- a cross-dresser dancer commonly found in India. He was an amazing dancer and I definitely wouldn’t have known it was a male if someone hadn’t pointed it out. It is so crazy to see the stuff I learned about in all of my Indian culture classes back at school up close and personal. It all changes when it’s not in a book but in your face. It makes it all so real.
Wednesday we left for Kujaraho to visit the Hindu temples. The actual village of Kujaraho was so cute, I definitely want to go back. Everyone was so friendly and welcoming. We rented bikes and some of the girls and I biked into the village to try to find some temples to sketch. It was such a scene, five white girls riding bikes from the 70’s that were twice our size, riding into the village with laughing naked children running after us, swerving around cows, and old Indian women just staring. At one point I fell off my bike (swerving from hitting a goat) and a little boy ran after me to help, resulting in his cow running after him, his dad running after the cow, and the entire village laughing hysterically. I have a black stain battle wound on my kurta do remember the scene by.
After biking we met a few teenage boys who knew every kind of language possible from just all the tourism that came through their town. It was incredible how smart they were! One of the boys was obsessed with Michael Jackson and we sang Michael Jackson songs for a good two hours.
The Kujaraho Temples were absolutely stunning. They had erotic carvings all over them, some of the positions I had never even heard of! We were told that the images were supposed to represent being in union with someone, much like how you are supposed to feel when you pray to God. I guess that’s one way of depicting it… It just made me realize how humans have been naughty and sexual from the beginning; I guess it’s just in our nature.
On Friday we went to Bandhavgarh to the tiger reserve. It was a little ridiculous, we drove around for about 4 hours in the hot sun looking for tigers and when we found them they were sleeping so we just stared at them for a solid half an hour. I don’t even want to know how much that cost the program. Some groups didn’t even get to see them. It was all worth it in the end because on the 2nd day I got to see an elephant- my first one in India!!! It just made me so excited for my ISP. I want to live with the elephants, eat with them, bathe with them, and become one with them. I don’t know why but they just have a magical spell over me.