Erotica

Day 416
My train arrived to Satna at 6:15 am, I had 15 minutes to get to the bus station. I wanted a tuk tuk for speed but there seemed to only be cyclos around. I missed the bus by 10 minutes. It was really annoying.

The first person I asked (who seemed to be working at the bus station) told me that I would have to take a cab back at the train station as there was only one bus a day. I knew that this couldn't be true so I went and got in line, the next bus was at 9 am. I got a ticket and waited.

Two young boys whose job seemed to be to clean up the area decided to take a break to see if they could get any money out of me. My patience outlasted theirs.

When the bus was boarding I was told that I would have to put my bag on top. I really didn't want to do that so I sat with it instead. It all worked out. I ended up sitting next to a really nice guy who ran out and got me some water when I didn't want to run out and leave my stuff. I offered to buy him a drink as well, but he gave me all of my change.

In Khajuraho there happened to be a tout from the hotel that I wanted anyway. I was the only tourist around and was just besieged by touts. I got a cyclo and soon I was checked in.

The first thing I had to do was figure out how to get the heck out of this middle of nowhere town. My only option ended up being to get a night train the next night, meaning I would be here one a day longer than expected. I then headed right across the street to the temples that Khajuraho is known for.

The first temple I came to was the Lakshmi Temple. dedicated to Vishnu's boar incarnation. The temple was quite small but had an over sized boar in the middle of it with hundreds of intricately carved people on it.

Up next was the Lakshmana Temple completed in 954. About at the height of my head. Battalions of soldiers were forever at war. Apparently the Chandelas were either at war or carving temples. One side of the temple was covered with the Chandela's peace time pass time, inventing sexual positions. This is where the karmasutra comes from. One carving seemed to suggest that a horse is actually mans best friend while a woman looks on in horror.

The Kandariya Temple, finished in 1050 represented the high point of Chandelen architecture. It also had the largest number of sexual carvings at 872. Most of these are about 3 feet high and much more detailed than the carvings at the other temples. It was basically a huge orgey.

On the same platform was Mahadeva, a small ruined temple with a really nice carving of Sandula, a mythical animal that is part lion and part unknown.

Next door was the Devi Jagadamba Temple finished in 1025. This temple was dedicated to Parvati, Shiva's consort. This one also had a lot of karmasutra carvings. They were just a bit more chipped.

Just north was the Chitragupta Temple. This one is uniquie as it was dedicated to the sund god Surya. The elephant fights were the best carved bits.

Next up was the Parvati Temle, it was quite small and closed up.

The next temples were the Vishuanath Temple and the Nandi shrine. Both of these were built in 1002. Along with the erotic sculptures people were playing music, cuddeling babies and laughing.

At this point I was pretty templed out. it was good timing too because that was all I had to do for the day.

Khajuraho is a pain in the butt to get to and it is off season. This meant that I was just about the only tourist in town. As I walked by people would run out and open up shops. It was really getting annoying. I needed the chemist to get something for a bug bite that seems to have gotten infected on my leg. Eventually I just got so annoyed with everyone that I picked up snacks for dinner and didn't leave my room again.

I spent the rest of the night reading and watching my ipod.