He Said...
Thirteen hours on a train did seem a little daunting especially when boarding we saw it was 6 persons to a non private bunk/cabin and the other 4 didn't speak a word of English.
As we sat eating our Dominoes pizzas, drinking Coca Cola wondering how we could better ingratiate ourselves with the locals...it suddenly dawned on me - use the international language of universal communication....
Crazy Birds!!
And that was it- we we bonded, sharing local and Western foods ( I had Bourbon biscuits) while exploding buildings, dropping bombs and sharing trajectory techniques through mime and finger pointing.
The sun was setting just as we set off, at around 9pm housekeeping distributed freshly pressed linens, pillows and blankets and by 10pm we changed our seats to sleepers and bedded down for a reasonable nights sleep - if that is, you're under 5'8" otherwise your feet stick out the end and are guillotined every time someone passes with a suitcase, but hey ho...mustn't grumble the beds are soft-ish.
We awoke at 6 ish and eventually arrived into Jhansi by 10pm, two hours later than scheduled. We picked up 6 seater 'Executive Tut-Tuts' from the station for the 20 minute ride to Orchha.
Keeping the Executive theme our accommodations are tented but with electricity, hot and cold water a, showers,TV's and all the mod cons you get in India.
Orchha is stunning, it is straight out of an Indiana Jones meets Tomb Raider film set, with 6 enormous palaces and 22 temples within a 3 mile radius.The palaces, although no longer inhabited are opulent to the extreme , one was even built to house a visiting King for a day, and then never used again, it took 22 years to construct for a days use- kind of like the Millennium Dome.
Words won't do this place justice so hopefully we can do a photo dump soon.
The River Betwa runs by our hotel, it is one of the cleanest in India and we managed a sunset dip as the sun ducked beneath the palace cuppolas. You can raft it in the summer when the water levels are less.
I shall run tomorrow morning, then we have a chill day before a short early evening train ride to Agra and the Taj Mahal.
Until then Comrades.
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