A trip to Khajuraho

CBM and I drove down to Khajuraho earlier this week. The temples were magnificent and we were totally awestruck by them. But, in addition to the temples, there were a lot of experiences that we had, which I felt warranted my coming out of blogging hibernation :).
Before embarking on the drive, I spoke to a friend who had driven to Khajuraho last month. He advised against driving without having a second person who could drive, saying that the drive was painful. I also googled driving instructions and found a detailed 7 page travelogue, where the author had written that he felt as if he were driving past golf courses and that there were huts with solitary mango trees for shade! As we drove from Bhopal to Sagar, we did not see any "golf courses," nor did we see a lonely mango tree! We wondered whether there was another road to Bhopal from Sagar, which was more picturesque than this one. Not complaining, because the road till Sagar was great.
The friend who had driven to Khajuraho last month, suggested that we break our journey at "Paradise Hotel," a place en route to Khajuraho (in Sagar, MP) which had good food, but had inimitable interiors, as well as exteriors. He said the place was worth a visit. So, had kept that in mind. As we were driving out of Sagar, I saw a hideous blue building from a distance. As I had guessed, it turned out to be "Paradise." You need to see it to believe it!!

Unfortunately, we chickened out of taking pictures of the interior. The restaurant was circular. It consisted of three concentric circles. The first two had tables. The third was a pond-like structure. It had statues of angels flying in the air, dolphins swimming in the pond and a boy fishing in it!! It also had a huge dragon!! Well, its very difficult to describe. Will take snap next time and post it :). The food was great though.
The drive out of Sagar to Chhatrapur was quite a pain. For nearly 20-25 kms, the road was terrible! That bit was tiring. But there were things en route which created some humour. We came across an old man, who appeared to be taking his pet buffalo for a walk (or so he thought). It was a very funny sight seeing the buffalo running all over the place and the old man running behind it, holding onto the rope for dear life :).
We reached Khajuraho after driving for nearly 8 hours and checked into our hotel. We decided to immediately start exploring the place and see what all can be done in the one and a half days that we had. As we drove out of the hotel, we were flagged down by a man. I stopped for some inexplicable reason. The man turned out to be a guide. For the next ten minutes, he told us how he would take us around Khajuraho, what we should and shouldnt do. He also mentioned that they had a guides association and if threatened to follow me to ensure that we dont take any other guide. I thanked him, took his phone number and bid him goodbye! We then drove the main street where we spotted Raja Cafe, a place that had been recommended by my friend. We had lunch there and also spotted a board which said that the cafe can arrange for guides, as well as for trips to the Panna National Park, which was a half hour drive from Khajuraho. We spoke to the manager and he said that he will be happy to help us. We decided to look around a bit more and then take a call.
The Khajuraho dance festival was also underway, and was one of the reasons we had decided to visit Khajuraho that week. We bought tickets for it, asked Raju the manager of Raja's Cafe :), to arrange for a jeep to visit Panna early next morning and went to watch the dance festival. Having purchased the highest priced tickets (Rs. 100), we believed that we would be in one of the first few rows and would get a good view of the stage. However, the first ten rows were reserved for VIPs!! VIPs consisted of the local bureaucracy and some foreign tourists. Was quite pissed off about this. The dance performances were great and we had a good time. Once the show got over, we quickly had dinner and headed back to the Hotel.
Early next morning, we headed off to Panna in the jeep that we had hired. It was a wonderful experience. We saw various animals (spotted deer, sambar, monkeys, boar, mongoose etc). Unfortunately, we didnt spot the bears, wolves, hyenas, jackals, leopards or the tigers. But, the serene atmosphere of the place and being amidst nature, made the visit a worthwhile and interesting experience.
We returned to Khajuraho and then headed to the temples. Raju had arranged for a very good guide. We began with the western group of temples. The architecture is amazing and so is the engineering (from what our guide told us). One of the temples is definitely astounding.

The various sculptures made us wonder what had led to Indian society (especially of the region of Madhya Pradesh), moving from what it was in the tenth and eleventh century to its ultra-conservative nature in the twenty first. Another interesting thing was the depiction of homosexuality in a couple of sculptures. These sculptures found a prominent place on the wall of the temple, which makes it appear that it was definitely a prevalent practice in the eleventh century. Again, Victorian morality seems to have intervened and made homosexuality an offence in the nineteenth century. The amazing thing about all the sculptures was the details of the expressions on the faces of each statue. The one which I liked the most was Yamaraj holding a ghost in his hand :).

After visiting all the temples (which took nearly 3 hours), we went back to the hotel and decided to see the "light and sound show" in the evening. The narrator for this show was Amitabh Bachchan. Its quite good, but not as good as the other light and sound show that I have been to - the one in Golconda Fort, Hyderabad. The funniest part of the show was when it said that a Colonel Burt had been told of the temples in the mid nineteenth century and he said - "temples eh." The voiceover put on a brit accent and said this, which was ridiculous and quite funny! After the show, we went back to Raja's - we didnt eat anywhere else :), had a good dinner and headed back to the hotel. We returned to Bhopal the next morning, of course, after stopping at Paradise Hotel for breakfast :).

There were two other interesting things we saw at Khajuraho. One was a resteraunt which said that it had an "Italian Cook and Dutch Supervision" - heights of globalisation :). Incidentally, it had opened in 1991.

Another interesting thing was that there were two hotels - a hotel "Sanrise", which I suppose should have read "Sunrise" and a hotel "Sunset", which incidentally were on the same side of the road, around 100 metres apart! I guess in Khajuraho the sun rises and sets on the same side everyday :).
All in all, Khajuraho and Panna were amazing and are definitely worth visiting. The only painful experience were the hundreds of touts and guides, who were always trying to attract your attention outside the temples. But, I guess that cant be helped!