Right now we're in Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh, suffering through our first Indian illnesses. This will be a quick entry, because the power comes in and out here, and I'm not sure how much longer I'll have electricity! Khajuraho has power cuts during the day, to divert electricity to the local farms, but sometimes the power goes out even during unscheduled times.

Since India is such a big country, it was a little overwhelming trying to figure out what to actually do here. So we decided to focus the India leg on our trip on visiting UNESCO World Heritage Sites as possible. So far we've hit the Elephanta, Ajanta, and Ellora caves, all of which are rock-cut temple complexes in Maharashtra state; the Buddhist stupa, temple, and monastery complex at Sanchi; and the Khajuraho temples with their famous erotic sculpture.

There's nothing very interesting to say about any of them -- they're all beautiful places, but you really have to see them to appreciate them. But I will get around to posting photos at some point. Unfortunately, internet access in India seems to be uniformly slow, so I don't know if that's going to be possible for awhile. I'd expected that internet access would be better in India, since it's developing a fairly big IT industry, but it just goes to show how skin-deep the "IT revolution" here is.

One thing that surprised us is how damned COLD it is. I knew that it would be cold further north, but even where we are now, in Khajuraho, it's freezing! Both of us caught colds a couple days ago. I hear constant hacking throughout the hotel, so I think we're not alone. Then we both ate something that didn't agree with us, so we got "Delhi belly" as well . . . It's a very bumpy five hour bus ride to the nearest railhead at Jahnsi, so we want to make sure our stomachs are completely calm before leaving Khajuraho!

Well, the power's scheduled to go out pretty soon, so I will save this now, before I lose it completely!