Raipur

It was an easy drive today.  Lots of good roads, many toll roads.  At some points it seemed like we couldn't drive 5 km at a time without needing to pay more tolls!!  But the road was good, and not too busy, so we made good time.

It seems the Indians have found a great way to fleece foreigners though.  At one toll point, all cars were going through without paying, but trucks were paying.  Then, as we got to it, the car lane was closed and we were directed to the truck lane.  As soon as we moved over, the car lane opened again!  We paid, no other cars did.

They tried the same thing at the next toll, and we said NO WAY!!!  Craig argued with them for a bit, and they said that the other cars were single-occupancy, so no toll, and we were multiple-occupancy, so we had to pay.  We refused to pay, and eventually they let us through.  Then we passed the car that had been in front of us, with 2 people in it, and were passed by the one behind us, with 4.  Can't believe them for a minute!

Tonight we stay in Raipur, tomorrow we head further south.

Our high temperature today was 44 degrees celsius!

Driving east to Raipur

It's early Monday morning here.  I've just ordered some breakfast.  We'll be on the road at about 9.00 am or so.

Our destination was Hyderabad, but we found out yesterday that the road to Hyderabad is closed.  So we had to choose another destination.  So then we thought to take the road west, as we want to head south-west towards Hampi.  But that road is apparently so bad it would take us 2-3 days just to make it to the next major city, before we could then head south.

So.  We are going east.  To Raipur.  That's not what we wanted to do, and it's not heading at all in Hampi's direction, but it is what it is.  We might not be going to Hampi after all.  Instead we might head east and then go south to Chennai.

We'll see how it goes.  Supposedly the road to Raipur is good.  I'm crossing my fingers ...

Nagpur

Another long drive today -- to Nagpur from Jabalpur.  The roads were super!  There was a stretch with some bad road surface, but not nearly as bad as we've previously had, and the dual carriageways more than made up for it!!

The worst is when you're driving along and suddenly there's a sign which says "Narrow and Weak Bridge - No Overtaking".  So the sign looks really old, and the bridge looks older -- with potholes on it -- and the sides of the bridge have completely deteriorated, and OF COURSE everyone is overtaking! I'm holding my breath that one of these dodgy bridges doesn't collapse one of these days while we are on it ...

We are in Nagpur tonight and tomorrow night, in a very luxurious hotel, before heading to Hyderabad. Super security conscious -- they check under the car and scan our luggage, and we get to walk through a metal detector.  And ... we both have internet access!!!  Very excited, we haven't had that for a while :-)

The hotel has valet parking, but Craig doesn't want anyone else driving the car, so he drove into the carpark under the hotel, with a hotel employee in the passenger seat.  The hotel employee was totally awed when he realised that he was sitting in a Land Rover.  Apparently it is his dream to own a Land Rover one day, and he reads Land Rover Owner International every month.  You don't see many LR's in India -- we've only seen one other: a Freelander 2 in Jabalpur.  The Beast attracts attention everywhere, even now when it's under about an inch of dust :-) as it is now :-)

PS Temperatures today peaked at 43C!

Jabalpur, written Thursday 27 March

We’re in Jabalpur tonight (Thursday 27 March), as we were last night.

We left Khajuraho yesterday morning, with Jabalpur as our destination for the night.  The drive was ok for the first 100 kms but then we hit a very bad road again.  In fact, the road surface ceased to exist in places altogether.  Our less than 300 km drive turned into a bit of a nightmare,when it took us more than 8 hours to get to Jabalpur. 

We did see some exotic animals along the way.  First off we saw two Nilgais, which are totally amazing animals, with the grace of a horse, running across the road directly in front of the Beast.  We decided they reminded us of the horse-like-creatures in Avatar.  Totally amazing!  Further along the road we saw an elephant, followed by many monkeys.  Black, hairy pigs also abounded (hogs/boar??). Also, sometime during the drive, when the road didn't exist, so we were drive quite slowly, a small, round, furry thing fell out of the sky, on to our windscreen, then disappeared.  We stopped to look, but saw nothing.  Our theory is that it was a baby monkey, but who knows :-)

Got to Jabalpur and were waved over for a police-check.  They wanted to see ‘papers’ without explaining what papers they were after.  Craig waved everything under their noses, and they said ok.  I doubt they’d ever seen a Carnet before, and I’m sure they didn’t care whether we had a Dutch, Australian, English or international driving license (Craig has all four and I have three).

We made it to our chosen hotel, which had lovely air conditioning, which we needed as it reached 39 degrees celsius yesterday whilst we were driving (thank goodness we had the airco re-gassed in NL before this trip).  Today it hit 40!  Very warm!  More of the same heat forecast for our next drive to Nagpur.

We decided to make a two night stay of this hotel, just to relax after our horror drive, and giving us some time to exchange some money and find a supermarket — we did both today, so stocked up on drinks for the fridge and more Indian cash for our wallets.

The restaurant at this hotel has been excellent!  We’ve been enjoying all the fabulous food.  Craig got to eat his favourite Indian dish today - in India!  A lamb vindaloo — he said it was delicious!  I totally fell in love with a vegetable Korma — will have to see if I can find the recipe to make it at home.

PS - see below a photo showing why we ended up staying in Khajuraho for 6 nights ... lovely pool :-)

PPS - also photo of the rear of the elephant!!

Khajuraho - beautiful temples!

We are still in Khajuraho, 3 nights so far, and probably a couple more.

The reason why tourists come to this itty bitty town is the amazing temples which abound here!!

After taking the first day off (the 21st of March) to laze by the gorgeous pool, yesterday (the 22nd of March) we decided we really should go see some of these temples.

I was totally shocked because I didn't have any real expectations, so seeing the actual temples was amazing!! Some of these temples are over 1,000 years old! And they still look absolutely gorgeous :-)

The temples here in Khajuraho are not only famous for their stunning architecture, but also for their erotic carvings! Yes, it appears that apart from building temples, the people here were constantly busy thinking up new sexual positions, and then carving them in sand-stone or granite on the temples! Totally amazing carvings, thousands of them!

So even though I had wondered about whether the awful drive to this place might be worth it, seeing the temples in all their splendour confirmed that it was!

Other than visiting the temples (in 36 degrees celsius), we've just been lazing around the hotel and the pool and the restaurant!  The pool is gorgeous and we've been enjoying that, the food is lovely, and the hotel is fabulously air-conditioned!

Unfortunately, it appears that despite all our boxes of things, we did not bring any sun-screen, so typically I (Mirne) got red after 15 minutes in the sun ... I'm trying to stay out of the sun, but it's difficult when viewing the temples.  Tomorrow I'll wear long sleeves I think ...  We went to the "medicine-shop" in the village yesterday, and they had some sun-screen, but the use-by date was sometime in 2011!  We didn't buy it :-)

Yesterday, we also found a "wine-shop", which sold local Indian wines.  I've been trying local wines since we arrived in India, and they have some very nice reds!  It was especially nice to drink some wine after spending time in Pakistan and Iran, which are (of course) alcohol-free countries.

Craig has been watching the 20/20 cricket which is being played in Bangladesh at the moment.  We had to laugh when we found that the Dutch cricket team actually consists of 2 South Africans, 4 Australians, 2 New Zealanders and 1 Pakistani.  So far we've only identified 1 player who was actually born in the Netherlands!!  Craig's had to watch the cricket via the internet here, because it appears Khajuraho (the entire town) is being switched to a different cable television service, which means only free-to-air channels are available - that means nothing in English!

A laqrge statue of a boar - the entire surface was covered in intricate carvings of people.

It seems a horse is a mans best friend, NOT a dog

Elephants everywhere

A woman caressing a lion

A woman caressing an elephant

A bull statue

Agra to Khajuraho

Well, the roads in Albania have been bested - the section we drove from Gwalior to Jhansi (approximately 100 km) has to have been the worst road I have ever driven on.  It is National Highway 75, and didn't have a lot of bitumen on it!  In places it was a collection of pits (not holes) around 4-5 feet in diameter and 2-5 feet deep!  We had to be very careful driving through, but at the same time we had to keep the pace up as there really are no decent hotels (read: hotels with safe parking for the Beast) between Agra and Khajuraho.

We made it, but it took us over 8 hours to drive less than 400 km.  It was dark by the time we pulled into the hotel car-park here, and both of us were completely exhausted.  The drive was pretty stressful for me, what with the crazy Indians all trying hard to get reincarnated, the cows on the road, the dogs, the goats.... and the need to keep up some speed in the atrocious conditions.  For Mirne, it was impossible - she had to just sit there, with absolutely no control, while I played chicken with trucks, cars and carts and tried to avoid hitting livestock and people whilst still remaining on the blacktop.

After Jhansi the road improved, but it was still not really in good condition.  The bitumen was so badly worn, and had been replaced so many times, that the potholes were everywhere, and had bitumen bottoms.  This made it hard to see where they were, so we managed to hit pretty much all of them!  If the car's suspension survived I'll be impressed - I have to go out and do a once-over on the Beast after I finish writing this.  I think every nut and bolt I can find will need tightening, as well as a few I can't find!

At one point they were re-bitumening a section of the road, and vehicles were driving on it immediately after.  You can't really blame them though - the road was only wide enough for 1.5 vehicles at that point, and when that happens the biggest vehicle (or the bravest/craziest driver) gets to use it.  We used it a lot - much to Mirne's dismay.  I think she would rather I had taken to the dirt more often and let the other cars go through.  I was thinking of the tyres, and the one with the repair job, as well as the suspension, so tried to stick to the bitumen as much as possible.

Anyway, we made it to the Clarks Hotel here in Khajuraho, the first one we came to.  The car is parked safely, we are reasonably comfortable, the pool is nice, and we have good internet.  Tomorrow we'll probably go have a look at the temples, then we might have another lazy day, or head further down to the south.

Agra

Well, it’s the big one - the one thing that everyone who comes to India comes to see:  the Taj Mahal.  Built as a mausoleum for the second wife of Emperor Akbar, it is an amazing sight.  White marble and red brick as far as you can see, and all of it inlaid with semi-precious stones.  It was a very bright day today, and very hot, so we stayed as long as we could then headed off to Agra Fort.

This sits around a bend in the river from the Taj Mahal, with a view of the building.  Unfortunately for Emperor Akbar, it is as close as he got to his beautiful creation after a couple of years.  Two years after the Taj was completed he was overthrown by his own son, and imprisoned in the fort where he could only see it through a window.  Fortunately for him, the view is pretty good!

The fort itself was built before 1080AD, and is entirely of brick.  It is the best Mughal Empire fortress still standing in India, but we couldn’t see all of it as about half is still in use by the military.  After wandering around here for a couple of hours we were both bushed and headed back to our lovely air-conditioned hotel for some lunch and a relaxing afternoon.

We got around today with the help of a nice man driving a tuk-tuk.  He accepted a reasonable price to take us to the sights and back to our hotel, waiting for us outside each one.  Without him, we would have had to deal with the multiple bidders for our money everywhere.

Tomorrow we’ll head off towards Khajuraho and the temples there…..