It was very foggy and cold in Allahabad Yamuna River
After about four hours we reached the town of Karhi and from there I took an autorickshaw, called a tempo, to Chitrakut, only about five miles away, and got a room in a hotel right on the ghats on the narrow (maybe a hundred feet wide) Mandakini River in an area called Ram Ghat. Chitrakut is believed to be where Rama and Sita spent eleven of their fourteen years of exile from Ayodhya and is filled with riverside temples. There are ghats on both sides of the river. The river here is the border between Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. I walked along the ghats to watch all the riverside activity, with some bathers and many colorful boats to take pilgrims and others across and up and down the river. After dark, it became quite cold and I put on my fleece at long last, along with my thin windbreaker. Shortly after 6 there was a short aarti (religious ceremony) on the ghat, with only one priest waving a candelabra of flames. I had a not very good noodle and vegetable dinner at a friendly dhaba, a streetside restaurant, and spent an hour or so huddling on the terrace of my hotel next to a fire with several Indians. The electricity was out.
I got up and out before 7 the next morning and it was cold but clear. Quite a few people were bathing in the river and others were floating little flower offerings into the river. Brahmin priests sat on little platforms to perform prayers if requested (and paid for). There were quite a few monkeys around, both macaques and the larger, more shy langurs, and of course cows. I walked up and down the river watching all the activity as the sun rose and began to warm things up. I found a good restaurant and had a delicious breakfast of aloo parantha (a potato filled pancake of sorts), curd, a tomato and potato dish and very sweet pretzel shaped jalebis, all for 40 rupees (80 cents).
I spent some time on the terrace of my hotel watching the activity below on the ghats and the river and a little later took a tempo a mile or so to a hill called Kamadgiri, supposedly an embodiment of Rama. There are temples all around it and I took off my sandals and walked the circuit, which took me an hour or so. There were few pilgrims, but they were friendly. Less friendly were the aggressive macaques and even an aggressive cow that apparently was used to being fed offerings by pilgrims. A woman vendor gave it a small melon and a carrot in an attempt to persuade me to buy some from her to feed the cow. First time I have ever been chased by a cow. (And it was a cow and not a bull.) I had to step behind posts and a bench, but she was persistent. Back at Ram Ghat I sat on the terrace talking to a newly-arrived tourist from Liverpool and then we took a boat a bit up river to see another temple, more for the boat ride than for the temple. We did see an elephant and its mahout along the way. Back at Ram Ghat I walked along the river until dark and watched the aarti before having a very good thali dinner for 70 rupees. They kept bringing me extra portions as I finished them.
It was cold again the next morning and I was up early to watch the activity along the river. About 10:30 I took a tempo with three others on a terribly potholed road to a temple maybe eight miles away honoring Anasuya along a scenic portion of the Mandakini. We walked along the rocky banks of the river and visited the big new temple and the small older one, with part of the older one high up against the rocky cliffs backing the temples. There were lots of pilgrims. Back at Ram Ghat I walked along the ghats, sat on the terrace overlooking the ghats and watched the evening aarti before another good thali dinner. The electricity was off and on in Chitrakut and the cold rooms had no hot water, but it was an interesting and friendly place.
It was cold again the next morning as I walked along the ghats and followed pilgrims into some of the riverside temples, with big groups of macaques here and there. After a final good paratha and curd breakfast, a French guy named Cedric (a captain on a barge hotel plying the canals of Burgundy
When I got out the next morning at 8 it was cold and foggy. I finally substituted shoes for sandals. The famous temples of Khajuraho were barely visible in the dense fog. I had a good breakfast, an “English Breakfast” with eggs, baked beans, a fried tomato, bacon and sausage (I was a little worried about Indian sausages) and it was delicious. I entered the complex containing the western group of temples about 10, just as the fog was clearing, and spent the day there, leaving when they closed at sunset, about 5:30. The temples of Khajuraho were built by the Chandela dynasty in the 10th, 11th and early 12th centuries and are very intricately carved. There are five large temples in the western group and several smaller and they are covered with figures. One temple, a hundred feet high, is said to have over 800 figures. They are famous because many of the carvings are erotic, including depictions of group and oral sex and even a guy being overly friendly with a horse as an onlooker shields her eyes while keeping one eye on what’s going on. Actually, only about ten per cent of the figures are erotic and they are all very well done. The Chandelas abandoned the area under pressure from Muslim invaders about 1200, but Khajuraho was off the major routes of travel and escaped destruction by the Muslims and remained pretty much undisturbed until rediscovered by the British in the 19th century.
I had an excellent audio tour as I went along and into the temples and afterwards I walked around the grassy enclosure among the temples on my own. There were lots of people in the morning, but not many in the afternoon. With the sun out, it was warm and pleasant, with not a cloud in the sky. In fact, I think I may not have seen a cloud since I entered India
In the late afternoon flocks of green, noisy parrots flew past the temples and into the trees in the compound. Just outside the compound were a couple of trees filled with what must have been thousands of very noisy parrots. One guy told me 10,000, but perhaps that is for the whole town. I had dinner with Cedric and a local guy who was quite interesting talking about dowries and other aspects of local life. I had visited Khajuraho in 1979 and it was much less developed. Now it has a Radisson and a Ramada hotel and attracts lots of tourists.
There was little fog the next morning, but it was cold. After my English Breakfast I rented a bike for the day about 10 and headed to a group of three temples called the Eastern Group. They are much less visited and right on the edge of the village. It was quite enjoyable going from temple to temple on my bike passing villagers, water buffalo and the like. People were friendly but constantly asking for pens or money. One kid had his pitch distilled down to its essence. All he uttered was "Give me." I biked through the town to some Jain temples and they were quite interesting, with great figures, including one of a woman applying eye make-up and another of a woman tying bells around her ankles.
I headed south of town past bright green wheat fields, with wheat less than a foot high (higher than I’d seen further north in Uttar Pradesh; Khajuraho is in Madhya Pradesh, which is further south), to the less interesting Southern Group of temples, one of which is newly discovered and in pieces around a mound being excavated. I then biked back to the Eastern Group in the late afternoon as boys from the village played cricket in a dusty area nearby, with water buffalo around. Finally, I headed west to an early, very different temple, from the late 9th century, dedicated to the 64 yoginis, followers of Sati. I stayed there until sunset, with a view of the sunset to the west and the Western Group of temples to the east. I biked back to the hotel just after sunset.
No comments:
Post a Comment