Uttar & Madhya Pradesh: The Holy Indian Temple Trail.

You can never do too much travelling in a year, can you? ‘Course not – time to squeeze in a final 3-week dash from Kolkata to Delhi. With Ben and Alex for company, we set out from Kolkata to our first stop, Bodhgaya, the place where Buddha famously gained enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree. Bodhgaya is one of the most important pilgrimage sites for Buddhists in India. The streets are full of annoying touts and other tourist traps, but between the Mahabodhi Temple and the many other Buddhist temples around the town, there are plenty of opportunities to escape the noise and do a spot of meditating.

Hanging out under the Bodhi Tree next to the Mahabodhi Temple, one of the holiest places for Buddhists. Super peaceful, apart from the heavily armed guards.

Some crazy dude decided to sculpt a 35-metre high Buddha statue. Serene, bro, serene.

The Bhutanese Buddhist Temple. Looks pretty humble from the outside, but the inside is one of the most splendidly colourful and intricate temples you could ever imagine.

Our next stop was a complete contrast – one of the holiest Hindu cities in India, Varanasi. While Buddhists are calm and meditative in their worship, Hindus tend to be noisy, flamboyant and in your face. The old city is a chaotic maze of tiny alleys packed with bazaars, temples, people and cows, and the main streets are choked with rickshaws, scooters and cows (being a Hindu city, there are lots of cows…). The famous ghats that line the Ganges have to be one of the most interesting places to hang out, and definitely the best place to people-watch. Worshippers bathing in the holy (and absolutely filthy) Ganges, public cremations and people bathing their buffaloes are classic sights.

Walking along the ghats is one of the least stressful activities to do in Varanasi, if you can handle the billions of touts offering boat tours.

On that note, boat tours on the Ganges at dawn are also pretty nice. It's even better if you don't fall in - if the dead bodies and faeces don't make you sick, the heavy metals from the factories probably will.

Cow-dodging in the old streets of Varanasi.

There is absolutely no debate when it comes to the best lassi shop in Varanasi (if not India?). 

Blue Lassi Shop is the bees' knees.

The Nepali Temple, a surprisingly peaceful place of Hindu worship.

 

Happy Diwali! We spent the Festival of Lights in the City of Lights. Absolute madness. From the rooftop of our hotel the amount of fireworks going off made it literally sound like a warzone. Walking through the streets was not safe – the only warning you’d get before a child would throw a lit firework at you was “Hello, bomb!”

From Varanasi we headed down to Khajuraho, a laid back town built in the middle of a collection of ancient Hindu temple ruins. The temples have all been magnificently restored, but the main reason they attract tourists is because of the weird/erotic scenes carved on the temple walls. The erotic carvings apparently make Khajuraho a popular honeymoon destination (we learnt this because lots of people asked us if we were on our honeymoon...).

Some of the temple-carvers clearly got a bit over excited about their job. The carvings were mostly hilarious, however some were just disturbing. We listened in on a few tour guides who loved to point out the carving of a man engaging in coitus with a horse.

Umm... Probably gonna regret this one in a few years.

 

We met this guy called Manuj who invited us over for lunch at his place. His mum made some mean chai and cooked up a delicious feast, and he seemed like a legit guy. He showed us round his farm where he grows mainly papaya, tomatoes and marijuana, and explained to us how he kept the police away with bamboo sticks.

One of Manuj's loyal farmers.

We climbed up a small mountain near Manuj's village, which gave us some amazing views around the hazy surrounding farmlands and there was even a tiny temple on top.

 

A short train ride away we visited a similarly laid back town called Orchha, built in the ruins of a 500 year old Hindu city. It may have had fewer temples and been slightly less well restored than Khajuraho, but it had some crazy impressive palaces and forts in a much quieter setting than Khajuraho.

The Jehangir Palace, probably the most impressive old palace in Orchha. In parts you could still see faded blue and turquoise tiles, and the remnants of nice murals. Must have been pretty, pretty, pretty stunning 500 years ago!

The builders clearly weren't too safety conscious - half a metre of railing is all that stands between tourists and the wilderness below.

Next time: The Taj and other beautiful things