Poor cow. This garbage was on the side of the road, not a tip.
Classic Hindustan Motors.
Cows share the road, as do elephants and camels.
To pass the time we sat around drinking rum and coke...
Milk sweets !
Then a tuk tuk ride for a half hour to Orchha.
So Orchha is famous for old castles, or Mahals, and the complicated history of backstabbing and intrigue that goes with each one...
These monkeys are Langurs.
Marketplace.
In the market place, bright colours abound, but all this face paint is so brightly coloured, I cannot help but wonder if it is healthy.
I saw someone here from work !
We had a cookery class... This is our guide's wife.
And we ate what was made..
The town is very old and not really up kept so well. A movie starring Josh Hartman is about to be filmed here at some old relics, and they are changing the appearance greatly. More plants and flowers for one, making the broken fountains work with fibreglass inserts.. It's all lies, damn lies...
The girls were dressed up in some saris...
Green parakeets in this tree above...
About now I was peed off with as they charged me 90 rupees for a diet coke. I don't make Hollywood wages dammit!
So we went out to a farmhouse that night, and the local Thala people, who don't speak Hindi, entertained us with song and dance..
...and then Micael Jackson showed up. A eunuch, which is common here, was the female dancer. Calling him wacko jack might be seen as cruel, but we didn't know what was going on.... The person wouldn't look at us and hid their face all the time. We had to work it out for ourselves, then finally I just asked because the discussion was not ending. The mystery was solved, although the dancer must haves had "issues" as when we left, they sat curled up in a corner with a sheet over them self. See how wrote that in the pleural? Anyway, just to clarify, eunuchs in India are born that way and there seems to be a high rate.
The Raj Mahal:
I just love it when there's no tourists in my pics!
Giant spikes on the door...to repel charges by elephants...
This monkey is quite a size and he is the one who gave us trouble... Whatever happened in his mind, he felt the need to lunge at someone and as the teeth grimaced, and then the fangs bared... Look at the banana to hand size and you can see how big he is.
He lunged forward and threw himself at some one who fortunately had a backpack in front of them.
The silly thing was, there was a family of these monkeys.... and the family all started to move in. So we backed off, then some Indians started wailing and running, and then then the monkeys chased us off their part of the Raj Mahal. No one hurt, thankfully, as rabies shots and who knows what else would be required.
The back pack and owner above was the one hit by flying monkey.
Our hotel in Orchha.
With friendly staff..
And then back to the railway station for another ride, 2.5 hours to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal.
This is Julie, from Norway...
I had to add this picture at the end. I spoke to Jeff quickly by phone and he said there was no pics of me. So here I am! Full of cheer, as ever !
- BlogPressed from my iPad. Click on picture for larger image and gallery.
