Khajuraho

Khajuraho may be famous for its erotic temple sculptures, but for me it means only sickness. Just to give fair warning, this post might be considered gross on both accounts.

It had a bad start. When we arrived at the bus station in Jhansi, we were immediately rushed to a bus that was leaving 'right now.' We hurriedly paid our fare and gave our luggage to the trunk-man, and climber onto the bus, where we sat and waited for two whole hours. About two hours after we finally started moving, I realized I was having motion sickness for the first time in my life. I tried looking out the window, and taking deep breaths of fresh air, but to no avail. I managed to limit myself to choking and gagging until we got to the half-way stop.

I got off and went in search of a bathroom in the crowded bus station, unsure how long I had before the bus would leave again. I didn't make it, though, and that was the first time I have vomited in public since a particularly embarrassing moment in first-grade PE class. I am used to being stared at in India, but standing right in the middle of the dirt-floored station area with a slightly soiled shirt front and a puddle in front of me, I wasn't sure whether it was pity or condemnation they were feeling for the poor weak white girl. I have since seen an Indian traveller surrendering his lunch in a train station, so I don't feel quite as bad. In terms of sanitation, you also have to keep in mind that almost every street in an Indian city has a man urinating on it at any given moment....

Back on the bus I had to make do with a bag held outside the window, and pitied the people around me. August tried his best, but there wasn't really anything he could do. When we finally got to Khajuraho, he grabbed all our bags and led me to a bench where I sat while he arranged a rickshaw to the hotel. I wasn't much in a mood for bargaining (and would have looked pretty desperate, so while he went into the hotel to negotiate I sat on a bit of curb. Some youngmen asked me where I was from. I responded by throwiung up into my already splashy bag. They helpfully pointed out that I was sitting across the street from a doctor's office.

I was so glad to see that bathroom, though I didn't have much left in my digestive system at that point. The luxury of a nice clean tiled floor to lie on. A few hours later, August's system exploded, too, and we had quite the night. By about noon the next day I was feeling up to the task of seeking out more water and a bowl of vegetable soup. I ate it over the course of two hours, in between semi-conscious rests.

The next day we were still pretty helpless, and August's stomach issues had changed direction. But we finally managed to see the temples, taking a few bathroom breaks. Almost every inch of the ten or so buildings in the complex was elaborately carved. Most famous are the explicit depictions from the Kama Sutra, but there were rows of individualized elephants wrapping an entire temple.

It was interesting, if a little awkward, to see whole Indian families visiting the temples. Even if we were just examining the detail of a female statue's jewelery, we didn't want the grandmother walking by to think we were looking too long at the four-person scene carved right above.

These temples were also inhabited by monkeys, who seemed rather interested in stealing shoes. Most temples will have a shoe-check of sorts before you enter the consecrated area barefoot, but all Khajuraho had was a uniformed guard with a big stick. He comicly chased the monkeys around the site, yelling in Hindi.

As for the sickness, we recovered completely withing a few days, without even taking the antibiotics I brought with.