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INDIA 5

We found our way out of Agra quite easily, which was quite a result in India, though this was more to do with the GPS then the road signs which are only occasionally in English, we were riding to a place called Orchha, which according to the Lonely Planet had an old Maharajahs Palace that is now converted into a hotel and lots of Temples and shrines. On route to Orchha we spotted an interesting looking old palace on our left and then a quite hotel, so we decided to stop for lunch.

Lunch break at Datia, There is a lake between the hotel and this old Palace.

If we had not already decided on staying in Orchha we would have been very tempted to stay here and have a look around, but instead we just had lunch and learned a little about Datia. We continued on our way to Orchha, the roads proving to be better than most of the roads we had ridden in India, even though according to the map we were on minor roads. We rode into Orchha and crossed the bridge and up the road into the palace, unfortunately (thankfully- 3000 rupees per night) the best rooms were already taken, so we settled on an ordinary room for 590 rupees (about £8) then off we went for a look around.

It made a nice change to have a little luxury and some peace and quite.

We walk into the centre of Orchha and the first temple that we walked up to we were told that we could not enter, so we walked to another one nearby, this we could not only enter but were escorted up onto the roof for a good view and ''sunset photo'', this was very interesting as it not only gave us a good view but also allowed us to get fairly close to a Vulture, though the photo of the Vulture did not come out very well as it was a little to dark.

One of the many temples in Orchha, this is actually a good representation of India, as you have an excellant old Temple which is surrounded by rubbish and shit.

Having watched the sunset, and taken several photos we climbed back down the dark stairs and passageways by the light of a match !! and then continued our tour of this small town before returning to the hotel to eat and relax. During the evening we chatted with a couple of English girls who had only been in India for about a week, I think they were already glad of the opportunity to chat with some fellow Brits, If you fly into a country like India the culture shock is going to be considerable, where as for us the change has been progressive, though at times it has still been difficult to cope with.

On the road from Orchha to Khajuraho, not an everyday site back home !!!

The next morning after a leisurely breakfast we headed off for Khajuraho to see the temples that are famous for their erotic images, as we were riding out of a small town we spot a couple of Elephants walking up the road towards us, so we stopped to take a photo, then the man on the first elephant rode it over to Jenny (who had the camera) , he rode it so close that Jenny was worried that if the elephant touched the bike it would be on its side and the elephant might tread on her, also it was so close that a photo would have been pointless, this was one of those moments when we wished that we had two cameras.