... and the best chai in India. Just don't try to find it in the dark.

Which we just about had to do. I was about to start typing the rest of this post, when the power went out, if not over all of Khajuraho, then over our wee block of it. Electricity failures are not conducive to blogging.

Jhansi
Nuttin' to it, except for getting to/from Khajuraho. There is one very, very important aspect to Jhansi though: the express buses to Khaj run at 5:30am and 11am. Anyone saying otherwise, is trying to sell you something — usually a 1600-rupee taxi ride. We hopped a 9am local bus instead (160 total).

Either way, we survived the bus ride, and immediately after stepping into the shark-like frenzy of rickshaw wallahs, I made a decision that wound up having a lot of bearing on our time in Khajuraho.

We're just here for the articles
Claudia's already detailed (and illustrated) the beautiful, sensual, elegant, intricate smut of the temple carvings. Not that we went to see this, of course. And my dad's old Playboy subscription was just for the articles.

All sorts of explanations are put forth for Khajuraho. Some postulate the temple carvings provided a sort of "Kama Sutra in stone", for sheltered Brahmin boys to come learn the ropes of love-making (take that as you will). Some say that the temple carvings are an overall focus on day to day activities, from putting on makeup to hunting to war to shagging; they merely provided a cross-section of human activities, albeit these depictions assume that all humans are as acrobatic as Olympic gold-medal gymnasts.

Who knows. Maybe I should write an article on this and send it to Playboy.

Shaggin' Keychains
When I chose Santosh to rickshaw-drive us to our hotel, I did it because he shouted a price and left the melee surrounding us at the bus station. He didn't wave hotel cards in our faces or start naming the souveneirs we obviously were gagging to buy after 6 hours of having our bums tossed in the air. When traveling in India, my money goes to the least annoying person.

Later, our hotel manager and I chatted with Santosh about some waterfalls located about 20km outside of town. Claudia and I had made good time seeing the Western Group of temples (the main group), so we decided to go check this out, along with the Eastern Group of temples, our first stop.

As we walked up to the front gate for these 3 Jain temples, a hawker showed us the only souveneirs I have cared about on this trip: 5 keychains, "demonstrating" some of the poses from the temples. They even had little switches that you pushed and pulled to make the figures move. I'm not much of a gift-buyer, but I picked up a few on the way out. I'll say no more; I just know some friends who are going to get some (hopefully) funny gifts upon my return to Eugene in January. I can see it now: "Gee Ant, you went to India for 2 months, and all you brought back was a shaggin' keychain."

"Exactly."

"I like to drive like Formula One"
Claudia's going to talk about our rickshaw ride to Duneh Falls in the Ken Ghizal Sanctuary. Between the road barely wide enough for the rickshaw (much less rickshaw and one cow); swerving to avoid potholes, bumps and, well, more cows; and nearly being ejected from the rickshaw during some said swerves, Santosh confided that he likes to drive the auto-rickshaw because "I like to drive like Formula One." Comforting... and fun.

I wish I'd brought my pack. I could've stayed for days in the sanctuary. The main feature is a long gorge — "a little Grand Canyon", as our guide, H.L. Kushuvehu, described it. Large and small waterfalls flow near one end of it, cascading into water that in places is 32 meters deep. On the opposite side of the gorge from us, a rocky field stretched out. During monsoon season though, the entire area floods, and water spills into the gorge below.

Going through an Indian park is a very different experience from the States. The guide took us up a path, then we clambered over some rocks and looked at some other pools and falls. My mountain-goat side took over, and I started clambering over a few more rocks, to look at some other areas. The guide didn't like that; apparently it's "against rules... If a government official came, he would want to know why someone was up here." Ri-ight. Reluctantly, I climbed back down. My next trip to the sanctuary will need to be stealthy.

The park itself is something that most of North India is not: green, clean, and quiet. I didn't want to leave. There was that entire stretch of gorge left to check out, after all... and what looked like a great bit of wall-climbing here... and there... and perhaps a bit of swimming at this bit... I wanted to run off and clamber, but instead, at the end of our tour Claudia and I sat in white plastic chairs and drank chai, not knowing what was about to happen.

"We'll go to my house, just 5 minutes,"
said Santosh as we dodged cows, children, goats, potholes, bumps, sections where there should have been pavement, more cows, and, at last, reached the main road and the city limits. "Cool," we said, though really we were just happy to have our bums back on the seats again. We'd had some good chats with Santosh, and he hadn't tried to pull any crap on us. Even Claudia kinda trusted him, and she's more suspicious of rickshaw drivers than the Bush administration is of anyone born with a built-in suntan.

Santosh shares a house with his mum and dad, a little outside of Khaj, off a dirt track, down a narrow lane between 2 stripes of housing and a lot of children. Inside with Santosh and his dad, we learned a great deal about rickshaw drivers and a very basic principle of life. Rickshaw drivers don't make much money. Hardly anyone in India does. Going to Santosh's house and meeting his family though, showed us that life is very much not what you're given, but what you do with it.

Santosh's dad didn't go to school. He learned English by interacting with tourists when he drove a cycle-rickshaw for 20 years, and an auto-rickshaw for 8. He's now retired. This man drove a 2-stroke engined vehicle, mainly ferrying about tourists, mind you. Yet he's been able to learn a foreign language, and stop working sooner than most Americans, who seem to be deciding that 100 is a good time to cut back their hours a bit, and would sooner give up cable than learn Spanish. Santosh, who's 18 and has been driving the auto-rickshaw for a year, is his only child — probably a big reason the family's doing well: small family, and in India, no dowries to collect when trying to marry off a daughter.

Santosh's dad also owns the home they live in, which included a nice patio and at least 2 good-sized rooms. He's in the process of buying more property, which he plans to rent out. Santosh is studying history at university, and is hoping to land government/Civil Service work, despite the "50,000, 100,000 rupees that you have to pay to get a job." Yes, that's right: they have to pay to get a government job. Baksheesh isn't only for tourists, after all.

They offered tea, and we drank the best chai I've had in India. Sweet, but not too sweet, with a bit of cardamom, enough to balance the tea, but not so much that it got an edge to it. A perfect cup; I savored each sip, though that was difficult to do when Santosh's mother and grandmother spirited Claudia off to the next room to wrap her in a sari. I managed to drink the chai though, and not snort it out while giggling. We got loads of pictures, us in groups, me and Claudia (in her sari - quite cute, by which I mean funny, by which dear, yes, I mean cute).

Rickshaw drivers are people too... in Khajuraho, anyway
In the dark of 7pm, Santosh drove us back down the dirt lane towards the main road and town. He hardly used his headlamp; he didn't need to. He could pick out every shape in the road and to the side; he's lived here all his life, after all, and knew the road by heart. At the hotel, Claudia and I paid up for the day, and also gave him an extra 100 rupees as a thank-you for his hospitality — and to help him towards that civil service job. He asked if we'd need him in the morning; we said we'd tell the hotel to find him if we did, but it turns out that we walked to the bus station, and that was the last time we saw Santosh.

The moment Claudia and I returned to Jhansi, 2 rickshaw drivers nearly got into a fistfight over us. In Agra, the usual fighting, back-and-forth, and walking away have returned to our list of daily activities. But not all rickshaw drivers are arses, and while it's not the best-paying job on the subcontinent, you can still do well for yourself: Life's about what you do with what you've got.

Meeting Santosh and his family turned out to be one of my best experiences so far in India — and as I write this post in Agra, just a couple of days before leaving for Bangkok, I know it's also one of the experiences that will mean the most to me when I think back on this trip.