Mar 27, 2013 - Orchha - Happy Holi

This morning we start later in the morning to avoid many of the Holi Festival that begins very early. On Holi, people "play" with colours and the town, as we walk through, shows the signs ... bright pink powder is spread along the sides of the road ... teenagers, men and women are covered with colours ... hair, clothing ... even cows and horses have been coloured. Perhaps this is where Holi Cow comes from? Our guide and Mansi are careful to avoid any areas of town where we may get into difficulty with Holi ... but we are all adorned with...

Feb 15, 2013 - Train to Orchha

Friday 15th February This morning we left Agra on the 10:30am train going to Orchha. It's quite a big station at Agra, and was quite busy. There were lots of stalls and shops selling food and drink and I bought bananas as we were expecting a late lunch. I decided to have one while we waited, and suddenly a monkey started to approach us, attracted by the smell. I quickly finished mine, but "somebody" decided to throw a piece for the monkey, and in an instant there were dozens of them around. One dashed to our bags, grabbed the rest of the...

Feb 15, 2013 - Postscript to yesterday

Just to say Sally is looking and feeling very much better this morning. Just had a light breakfast and now going to read for a while. We're up well before everyone else - I misread my watch and thought it was 8am, when it was actually 6am. I thought it strange that it was dark! We had torrential rain and thunder and lightning all night long, but it has just started to dry up now thankfully.

Mar 17, 2010 - Orchha

we were all terrified about this day, as tonight we were supposed to sleep in tents! when we arrived in the lovely resort with pool and spa and saw the tents...we were relieved! still tents, but more the ones a sultan would stay in...proper floor, air-condition, bathroom and toilet...of course the occasional bugs around, but hey...used to these ones by now! spend the whole day at the pool and went for a massage ;-) RELAXED! in the evening we went for a prayer in the raga ram temple...interesting, but not my thing ( no mum...not...

Apr 14, 2009 - Orchha

Randy Another driving day. These days I don’t like. I think the roads are really dangerous and our second driver, Akshay, takes more chances than Honey. Amazingly, except for a very low-speed motorcycle to motorcycle bump, I haven’t seen any accidents happen. I have seen several crashed cars on the side of the road. Road rules are not followed on India roads. Thank goodness Indians are not prone to anger because if drivers drove like they do in America, there would be accidents, lawsuits, and road-rage shootings galore. At home, I would...

Dec 5, 2008 - Orchha

Today we had breakfast and checked out of the Lalit. Or tried to check out. It took about 40 minutes for them to figure out how to get their credit card machine to work. As we We are leaving Khajuraho to travel to Orchha, a small village north that has some fairly interesting ruins. On the way to Orchha, Ashok took a detour and we stop off at a small, abandoned palace. I am fairly sure they get few tourists as it is about 2 kilometres up a bumpy dirt road but the “security guard” sure knew how to hang around to wait for a tip. It was pretty...

Jun 24, 2008 - Orchha

From Agra I caught the train to Jhansi, mainly so that I could then get a bus to Khajuraho. I noticed however that the town of Orchha was close by and was meant to contain many impressive ruined palaces and seeing as how my train from Agra arrived quite late into Jhansi, so I would have to stay the night in the area anyway, I decided to go the extra 20km to Orchha and stay there. I came out of Jhansi train station and almost started a fight between the rickshaw drivers. One guy approached me first and I agreed to go with him but then...

Feb 18, 2008 - Orchha

ARRIVING IN ORCHHA A fantastic train journey to Jhansi this morning on a local Indian service. Fully air-conditioned - glass-less windows and open carriage doors! Packed full of locals and a constant stream of chai sellers, snack vendors, local women and children selling odds and ends. The sights of the rural landscape and glimpses of small towns was fascinaating and on every station and on the train we were the usual objects of curiousity. Takes a bit of getting used to, but then I guess we've travelled thousands of miles to stare at...

Feb 17, 2008 - Fathepur Sikri - Orchha

Decidiamo che, con tutta la fatica che ci è costata, questa cittadina dovrà serbarci un bel po' di belle sorprese. In parte è vero, a partire dalla fantastica colazione sul terrazzo di uno degli 'hotel' che abbiamo scartato la sera prima. Fortuna che abbiamo visto solo le camere e non la cucina... Qui conosciamo l'immancabile americano solitario all'avventura - ops, pardon, canadese. Sono tre giorni che sta qui e ha l'aria di uno che ormai conosce tutti per nome ed è super scafato. Ci racconta delle sue giornate alle prese con vecchietti...

Jan 30, 2005 - India - Uttar Pradesh (Agra) & Madhya Pradesh (Orchha)

Namaste!! We've finally visited the famous Taj Mahal. We weren't sure whether it would be worth it to pay 750 rupies to go in, but it was worth it. It's such an amazing mausoleum!!! Emperor Shah Jahan built to show how much he loved his second wife, Mumtaz Mahal. 20000 workers spent 22 years building the Taj Mahal and had their hands or thumbs chopped off so that they wouldn't be able to reproduce such a beautiful building in any other place of the world. It so beautiful!!!! It is 54m. high and entirely carved in marble, with inlaid work...

Nov 24, 2004 - Orchha

Et toujours sur le chemin d Agra... Orccha, une autre merveille de la vallee du Gange meme si notre preference reste de loin pour la ville de Kajuraho. Pour y arriver 4h de piste en bus, a ne pas confondre avec 1h de route en jeep! Puis un rickshaw pour la derniere demi-heure. Nous arrivons dans une petite ville tres calme a cheval sur une riviere. A gauche un palais royal et a droite tous les temples. Nous posons bien vite nos petites fesses meurtries par le transport dans le resto tres classe du palais. Nous prenons un dejeuner rapide (on...

Aug 29, 2004 - The Fairy Tale Town of Orchha

We took the same Shatabdi express to Jhansi and then an 3wheel auto rickshaw for thew bumpy 30min ride into Orchha. Orchha is a wonderful town. Beautiful and quiet with a very laid back mentality and after we managed to get rid of our driver who insisted on follwing us around town to find which hotel we would stay at it was very nice. We did stay in the 400 year old palace wing which has been sort of converted into a hotel. Quite romantic. We spent a lot of time watching the sunset from the palace roof and wandering the peaceful village....