We arrived in Khajuraho on an overnight train from Agra. It was about a 10 hour ride. It was smooth enough but I froze my bones. I switched sleep compartments with another man as to be closer to Gretchen. This put me next to a very drafty window. I put on my Smartwools- head to toe and slipped into my sleeping bag liner. As I switched from side to side the drafted blasted what ever side was next to the window. We bought a blanket to use as a bed cover and now I can use it on train rides.
Khajuraho is most famous for its erotic kama-sutraesque engravings covering its many sandstone temples. These temples date back over 1000 years. But aside from the erotic, Khajuraho's temples are some of India's finest. Many assume that there were many other temples of this nature in India before the Mughals destroyed them. The consensus of archeologists is also that the Indians' attitude tword sex and sensuality took a 180 at some time after Khajuraho's construction. For what it is worth these temples were built by the Chandela dynasty. Khajuraho was able to survive mostly inscathed due to its backwoods location, far away from trade routes or strategic military positioning.
Gretchen and I really enjoyed our tour of the Western group of temples. There is also an eastern, northern, and southern group. The western is the most significant and the only group that requires a fee. We rented a headset audio tour and really took our time listening, enjoying and absorbing. The sculptures, erotic and not are an amazing and bind baffling accomplishment. Their intricacy and vastness seem an impossibility for the hand tools used over a thousand years ago. Being able to be face to face and actually touch the work was a real treat. I can't imagine being able to come within 20 feet of something of this caliber in the Western World.
We spent two nights at the Hotel Isabella, which was a 15 minute walk to the temples. The hotel was a real treat. Above and beyond my expectations of India for ten dollars a night. We had a marble terrace to lounge on that overlooked a well maintained garden. Everything was marble.
This was my first visit to Khajuraho and well worth it.
Khajuraho is most famous for its erotic kama-sutraesque engravings covering its many sandstone temples. These temples date back over 1000 years. But aside from the erotic, Khajuraho's temples are some of India's finest. Many assume that there were many other temples of this nature in India before the Mughals destroyed them. The consensus of archeologists is also that the Indians' attitude tword sex and sensuality took a 180 at some time after Khajuraho's construction. For what it is worth these temples were built by the Chandela dynasty. Khajuraho was able to survive mostly inscathed due to its backwoods location, far away from trade routes or strategic military positioning.
Gretchen and I really enjoyed our tour of the Western group of temples. There is also an eastern, northern, and southern group. The western is the most significant and the only group that requires a fee. We rented a headset audio tour and really took our time listening, enjoying and absorbing. The sculptures, erotic and not are an amazing and bind baffling accomplishment. Their intricacy and vastness seem an impossibility for the hand tools used over a thousand years ago. Being able to be face to face and actually touch the work was a real treat. I can't imagine being able to come within 20 feet of something of this caliber in the Western World.
We spent two nights at the Hotel Isabella, which was a 15 minute walk to the temples. The hotel was a real treat. Above and beyond my expectations of India for ten dollars a night. We had a marble terrace to lounge on that overlooked a well maintained garden. Everything was marble.
This was my first visit to Khajuraho and well worth it.
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