Visits to the temples of Khajuraho and Sanchi in Madhya Pradesh

Written: Oct 07, 2002
Location: Madhya Pradesh, Central India.

This entry describes two weeks travelling in Madhya Pradesh in Central India.

My first destination in Madhya Pradesh was the small village of Orchha. I took an overnight train from Delhi to the city of Jhansi and from there a shared taxi the 10km to Orchha.

Orchha was the capital of a powerful Rajput kingdom in the 17th century and has a couple of impressive palaces in the Jehangir Mahal and the Raj Mahal. The palaces are on an island in the middle of the Betwa River and you have to cross a bridge to reach them. Orchha is a very small village and a very relaxing place to wander around.

Palace mosaic, Orchha

I had breakfast at the hotel Sheesh Mahal, which is actually part of the Jehangir Mahal palace. The hotel is very colonial and has a high ceiling supported by white columns. It was great to relax in; I had the dining room pretty much to myself. I explored the palaces in the late afternoon. There were great views from the tops of them. The surrounding countryside was very green, a few small hills in the distance.

Sadhu, Orchha

In the evening I visited one of the temples, it was the festival of Ganesh and many people were singing very melodically outside the altar.

The next day I explored the grounds of the palaces and climbed onto the huge city walls that completely circle the palaces. The city gates were long gone but I could see the holes where the door hinges would have been. I imagined what the palaces must have been like when in use.

I walked down to the river and many people were there for the Ganesh festival. Statues of Ganesh and other deities were being transported down to the river on the backs of trucks. As part of the festival the statues are immersed in the river.

I attracted quite a lot of attention being one of the very few tourists in the village. People were saying hello, laughing and smiling, which was great. On the walk back to my guesthouse I passed a procession of young men completely covered in purple tikka powder dancing wildly, a very colourful sight. A couple of young men ran up to me quickly and daubed green tikka powder on my head.

Ganesh festival celebrations, Orchha

My next destination was Khajuraho home to some of the most impressive temples in India.

I arrived at Khajuraho bus station to a sea of touts. I was persuaded to take a room in a hotel but later found I was the only person staying there, so I moved the next night to a really great room with a marble bathroom and a TV! The first room I’ve had with a television in India. I got the room at a knock down price because of the lack of tourists due to the conflict between India and Pakistan.

Many of the guides in town had no work and would approach tourists just to speak English with them and offer to show them around. This happened to me quite a bit and I found it quite frustrating, as I like to see things myself.

I visited the Jain temples first. The carvings on the outside of the temples were amazing. One of the Jain temples was not so old and was still used for worship. Inside was a photographic display of Jain sculptures found throughout India. The sculptures were between 2000 and 1000 years old. I thought they were artistically very strong and wondered why these advanced skills have disappeared.

Temple, Khajuraho

The next day I got up at 6am to see the Western Temples, the main temples at Khajuraho. The Chandela tribe built the temples in the 9th and 10th Century AD. The grass was covered in dew and no one was around at 6.15am when I entered the temple garden. The garden had many trees and lawns and was kept impeccably. At that time it was not too hot and the sun bathed the temples in a warm glow. I sat down on a bench in the shade and made a sketch of the Jagadamba temple, which was one of three on a high platform.

Temple wall carving, Khajuraho

Afterwards I took the audio tour and looked at a couple of the main temples in greater detail. The sculptures on the temples gave a fascinating insight into the life of the Chandelas. Scenes depicted included the Chandelas at war, making music, dancing, hunting and of course the erotic scenes that the temples are famous for. I stayed in the gardens until 1.30pm and then rushed to a restaurant, as I had not eaten all day. I hired a bicycle in the afternoon and had a pleasant ride to one of the outlying temples in the open countryside.

My next destination was Sanchi, a small village in Southern Madhya Pradesh famous for its ancient Buddhist monuments from the Ashoka period.

The journey to Sanchi the next day was long. I was up at 4.40am to catch a 5.30am bus to Jhansi. The rickshaw driver I had arranged to pick me up and take me to the bus stand had obviously slept in, as he never arrived. So a Japanese guy and I started walking. Luckily a truck driver gave us a lift, as I don’t think we would have made the bus in time. Travel in India is often like that. Things usually work out. At the train station the other side of travel in India was evident as a man tried to buy my ticket for me and make a nice little commission for himself. I questioned the price and he walked off. I saw him later and he laughed saying 100 Rupees, which was the price he had quoted me. The tickets were actually only 78 Rupees.

On the train from Jhansi to Sanchi an Indian guy called Ali kept me engaged in conversation for most of the journey though I had to struggle to stay awake. He was going to Mumbai for a job interview to work for a travel agency in Malaysia. I wished him the best of luck as I left the train.

Outside the station I was besieged by rickshaw wallahs. They wanted 70 or 80 rupees for the 10km to Sanchi village but I only wanted to pay 40. It was quite funny playing one against the other as the price came down. One man would say 60 but then I would say “but this man has offered 50” and so on. No one would take me for 40 until a man said ok and bundled me into his rickshaw. I queried the price and he agreed but there were shouts of “he is cheat” and “no” from the crowd as we drove off.

I was very pleased with myself as we drove along the quiet county road in the warm breeze. Things had been going too well however and when we reached my guesthouse the driver kicked up a stink when I offered him the 40 rupees and demanded 60. A few people gathered round and a man from the guesthouse interpreted, as the driver spoke no English. In the end I paid him 50 rupees to end the matter.

The next day I was very tired from the long journey and spent most of the afternoon in bed. In the evening I passed a crowd of men gathered around a black and white television watching the India Vs England Champions trophy cricket match. I watched a few overs, then walked back to my guesthouse, which was a Dharamsala run by the Mahabodi society of Sri Lanka. There I watched some more of the match in the manager’s room on a large full colour TV. He also had a CD player, not bad for a monk.

England were getting hammered so I invited the only other tourist in the village, a Korean man, for a beer at the travellers lodge. Beer is quite hard to get hold of in some parts of India and I had noticed that the travellers lodge had some bottles in the fridge when I ate breakfast there that morning.

We sat in the garden of the lodge with the moon almost full and the sound of express trains going past as the line was only about 100 metres away. The beer was good; it was my first since Ladakh some two months earlier. In the end a group of drunken Indian men joined us and we made a swift exit.

The next day I was sick and had to put off plans to visit the Buddhist monuments until the following day.

The next morning I paid my 100 rupees and entered the enclosure at 8.30am. It was getting hot and there were quite a few other tourists around, mainly Indian tour groups, religious pilgrims and schoolchildren.

Great Stupa, Sanchi

The monuments consist of stupas, which are dome like structures made of brick and the remains of monasteries and temples. There are many stupas at Sanchi, some small in size, the largest, built by emperor Ashoka in the 2nd century BC. The main stupa later had a balustrade built around it with four gateways facing North, South, East and West. The gateways are elaborately carved with scenes from the Buddha’s life and stories about his previous incarnations.

For me one of the most interesting things was the strange language the people of this time used. On many of the paving stones and slabs for the balustrades the person donating the stone had carved their name in a strange script unlike any modern language I have seen. The carvings themselves were more basic than those at Khajuraho but they are a lot older. The main stupa at Sanchi is the oldest stone building in India.

Buddha statue, Sanchi

Also at Sanchi are the remains of Ashoka’s pillar. Only part of the polished chunar sandstone pillar is still standing. Several large chunks are housed in a nearby shed. The Indian commentary proudly describes how a local miller in the 19th Century had taken parts of the pillar to ground his flour. On the pillar Ashoka had inscribed a warning to those that would try to split the Buddhist religion. In the museum nearby is the capital that stood on top of the pillar. It is a sculpture of four lions in a circle facing outwards. An image of this is on every Indian banknote.

Crowds of schoolchildren bugged me for autographs, it was very strange. One of the teachers grabbed my hand and drew a cartoon picture of me on it. I liked it so much I asked him to draw it again in my book.

After Sanchi I spent all day on a bus to get to Mandu. The choice of accommodation was abysmal. I paid 100 Rs. for a room in a Dharamsala crawling with insects, no shower, awful smelling bathroom and the walls a depressing shade of green. I escaped to a restaurant and after eating, the owners invited me to watch the end of the India Vs South Africa Champions Trophy cricket match. I was supporting India and enjoyed the victory almost as much as my hosts.

At 6am the next morning music was blasting out of the Dharamsala and I decided I must move out immediately. I moved into the Maharaja Hotel which was not much better but at least it was quiet, did not smell so bad and had few insects. I rented a bicycle and cycled along a quiet country road to the best hotel around and had breakfast in the garden.

Mandu is essentially a small village with the remains of a large number of palaces from the 15th Century scattered about the village and the surrounding countryside. The palaces are not particularly interesting as little of the original decoration remains. However it is a pleasant place to relax for a few days. Mandu is situated on a raised shelf of land that falls away to the plains below on several sides.

Simon is given corn, Mandu

I cycled out of the village and came across a sign for someone’s tomb. I climbed to the top of the building and walked around the edge which had no railing to prevent one falling to the ground below. Vertigo gripped me and I had to sit down away from the edge. Here I could see a group of villagers harvesting corn. They were sat at the edge of the field stripping the husks from the corncobs. I went down to them and said hello, took a couple of photos and one of the men gave me four cobs.

Simon eating corn, Mandu

Back at the village I stopped at a Dhaba, or roadside café. I asked the owner to cook me the cobs. It seemed to take ages but eventually he brought them too me. I was expecting wonderful soft corn like that at home but the corn was tough and half-cooked and I could not finish it.

The next day I had a long walk in the heat to Rupmati’s pavilion, which took most of the day. Rupmati was the wife of Baz Bahadur a ruler of Mandu from the 16th Century. Legend has it that Rupmati was a beautiful Hindu singer and that Baz Bahadur persuaded her to leave her home on the plains by building her this pavilion.

The view from the pavilion down to the plains far below was excellent. In the haze I could just make out small villages and country roads. On the way back I wolfed down mutton Rogan Josh as I was absolutely starving. It tasted delicious, better than those I’ve had at home.

In the evening I ate Thali in the only restaurant in town. Thali is an Indian set dinner and usually includes rice, dhal, vegetables and chapatti as a minimum. I had a special Thali, which included a sweet. When this didn’t arrive I asked the waiter about it. Absent-mindedly I noticed a guy walk out of the restaurant and then the sound of a scooter being fired up. Ten minutes later the scooter returned and the man handed the waiter a paper package. The waiter then proceeded to unpack two sweets in view of me and place them on a tray, which he then placed on the table. Only in India I thought.

On my final day in Mandu I decided to take it easy as I had a long journey to Varanasi ahead of me. I walked along the road towards the ancient gates of Mandu. I passed a village hut with a large pile of cucumbers outside that had been recently harvested. I greeted the villagers and the women of the house cut me pieces of cucumber, which were very juicy. A boy then pulled out a handful of ancient coins from the time of the palace's c1500. They must have dug them up in the fields. After some bargaining I bought two square coins with an ancient language carved on them. They brought out a huge handful of the coins but two was enough for me. Afterwards I wondered whether I should have bought the coins, but then thought I would much rather give money to villagers than to rich shopkeepers in the cities.