Lucknow to Varanasi

The train to Varanasi had come from the west of Lucknow and was travelling on for a further 24 hours to Kolkata. You have to admire Indian travellers: we sat next to a family with young children who had to be washed, fed, entertained for days on a few bunk beds.  Actually, I think the work gets left to the mothers! I would love to see the stats for these train journeys; how many meals are served, how much tea and coffee is ordered, how many chefs, how many waiters. How do they know to bring new sheets for us? There must have been an equal number of people living in Varanasi station as were on that train...

Varanasi on the Ganges 

Cows have an especially good life in Varanasi. They loved our banana skins.

A walk around Lucknow

We were the only two people who turned up for the guided walk around old Lucknow. Apart from the mosque and the city gate, and the Bara Imambara, real life goes on in the chowk (market) and the living quarters off the main lane. A maze, which we could never  have negotiated on our own, took us to see the original kebab 'restaurant', the kulcha (bread) makers, the house where Gandhi stayed, the stencil cloth printer ( for chikan cloth embroidery)  the boys who pan the drains for gold coming from the jewellers. We stopped for tea and to taste the kulcha. No welfare state here; everyone is trying to earn a living.

These are unani medicines in the treatment centre. I could smell fennel and cumin but the rest were ??

Lucknow

Our two days travel break in Delhi was mainly spent playing sardines on the metro: a new meaning to 'personal space'. Of course on one train we got the special seats. Francis got 'old' and I got 'disabled'. Then we pensioners got separated from our young ladies. Jayshree quickly held up one finger before we sped away. I understood.

Today we flew to Lucknow with many workers returning from Oman. Their suitcases/ boxes were wrapped in cloth, sealed with masking tape, tied up with rope and then wrapped in that cling film for good measure. Made our small padlock lock a 'walkover' for a potential thief...

Lucknow is a small city of about 3million. They all seems to be on the road when our cycle rickshaw was taking us back to our hotel. There is great dilemma about taking a cycle rickshaw. Should one very thin man be pulling two large tourists? Should we bypass him for motorised transport and deny him a living? Should we go for the non-polluting form of transport? Should we suffer the jolts to our backs? Anyway, he had no idea where our hotel was, cycled double the distance, and we gave double the asking price!  Duty done.
We went to the residency where cannons shelled the British army and their families in the siege of Lucknow. The grandure was there but the remains have been preserved with walls pot-marked with bullet and cannon holes.  I understand there are a couple of versions as to the beginnings of the mutiny. Were both the Hindu and Muslim soldiers asked to bite the bullets greased with a mixture of beef and pork fat? The uprising was stirring before this incident.

Chasing tigers

The sign, as you return to the Bhandavgarh national park exit,  says " sorry if you did not see us, but we saw you!". Bhandavgarh is the best organised of the tiger parks. Only 50 jeeps in total are allowed  into sections of the park. Each tiger needs its own territory so 65 tigers occupy a lot of territory and it is somewhat like looking for a needle in a haystack. Tourists can only enter 20% of the park. Forest guards ride elephants through the forest.

Safari 1( 6am - 11 am): we saw paw tracks
Safari 2 (2:30pm to 6 pm): we saw the long grass in the distance in which a tiger was relaxing. Two forest workers cycled in (we were not allowed any nearer) on push bikes, chatted and took some photos and then went home. Alas, we had to leave the park as the fine for the guides and drivers, if late out, is to lose their jobs for a week or two.
Safari 3 (another early morning start): we saw where she had sat down on the roadside.  An elephant honked, a tiger roared and then we saw her walking in the long grass. She was so clear and huge and amazing. No photos but such memories of those stripes moving so fast.

Despite only one sighting, a safari, in itself, is interesting. Rising before sunrise, we rugged up in blankets to check in with the parks' authority and collect our guide. The gates opened at 6:40 and then it was 'all systems go'.  Guides are like well-informed trackers. They look for signs of tigers on the roads as tigers like to walk the roads- it being soft on the pads! Being solitary, we went from one territory to another with the guide knowing the occupant's life history. They have stories of all the others sightings which is not much consolation! What safaris lack in tigers are made up in bird life: twitchers heaven is India.

Khajuraho

We met up with Jayshree and her American cousin, Heena, in this small tidier-than-most town. How good to meet up with jayshree again so that she could do all the negotiation with the tuktuk drivers. When we might give in, she sticks to her price and so our first venture out to see the eastern set of temples was negotiated down from 200 to 150 rupees round trip. And the bantering continued with our tuktuk driver saying he owned 6 tuktuks, he was 16, spoke 6 languages, and was off to Germany and jayshree was very unfair not to give him 200rupees!.

Tourists come to Khajuraho to see the erotic carvings on the temples and we had an excellent guide who explained where the carvings fitted into Hinduism. No embarrassment in pointing out the various karma sutra positions!

Every temple has a steep flight of steps and Heena, Jayshree and Francis  pulled me up and guided me  down pyramid-like  stairways.  Travelling with young people keeps you young. Our (females only) afternoon was spent having a back and neck Ayurvedic massage.  We set off tomorrow for our safaris having stocked up on nibbles for the 5 hour journey to Bhandavgarh.

The cenataphs

The only cenataph I know of is in London and is a memorial to the soldiers who died in the wars. A group of cenataphs in Orchha are grand memorials to the kings of the 17 & 18 centuries. Appropriately, they soar into the heavens like the vultures which have taken up residence on the roofs. The ticket collector was delighted to talk about the vultures of India of which there are 6. As vultures go, these were quite presentable!

India is full of contradictions. Haggling with autorickshaw drivers is a pain and then you stop at a cafe with signs in Spanish, order a cup of tea and then the owner says it is free.

Orchha

we are staying in the maharani suite of the hotel Sheesh Mahal which is situated in the Jehangir Palace. It has a bar, open from 1100- 1500h and 1900-2230. Unfortunately 'happy hour' (20% discount) is from 1530-1900! This does exist but most of the cocktails are 'off'!

Peanuts, pakora, beer and a gimlet. Note the peanut bag made from newspaper and glue.

The Sheesh Mahal hotel is part of the Jehangir mahal which must have been awe-inspiring in its heyday. And the view from afar is certainly impressive. Viewing the inside is not for the feint-hearted with steep steps and stairways with no railings. And you come out onto walkways with parapets as high as your knees. Better to be one of the many monkeys which own the roofs.