Walk like an Egyptian...

One of our more bizarre interactions in Khajuraho was when we visited the most famous temple. Standing guard at the doorway of the temple was this guy:


(PICTURE: Me with the security guard.)

While Huyen and I were inspecting the carvings, the security guard came over to us with a huge smile and started to explain what everything meant. The guy was trying so hard to summarize thousands of years of Hinduism into just a few minutes which is obviously not an easy task. To make matters worse, his English was quite poor. However, what he lacked in communication skills he made up with gusto.

While he was telling us about Shiva and the other Hindu gods, he kept looking over his shoulder to see if anyone was stealing the relics he was supposed to be protecting. After he finished giving us his mini tour, he insisted that Huyen and I take pictures with the same poses as in many of the sculptures. Heck, we're always down for some funny pictures so we took these:


The area we are standing on is the same place that dancers and performers would entertain the king hundreds of years ago. On this day though, the only person really being entertained was the security guard.

Biking

(PICTURE: Ride like the wind, Huyen. Ride like the wind.)

Let me tell you one of my secrets for traveling: no matter where you are, it's always more fun to have your own two wheels. Huyen and I have rented bikes in Thailand, Myanmar and India. Whenever we do, it always ends up being one of our favorite experiences. In Khajuraho, we would wake up at about 5AM and bike around so that we could avoid the heat. Having your own wheels allows you to:
1. Avoid all the rickshaws and cyclos who harass you for your business.
2. Gets you off the beaten path.

With our bikes, Huyen and I went to some of the furthest temples in Khajuraho where nobody else was out. We were also able to bike into an old village and meander through alleys and back roads.

I was especially happy with my bike in Khajuraho because it was basically personalized:


*They had no helmets in this city. Thankfully there was very little traffic and decent roads so we didn't have any issues. When we asked for helmets we basically got laughed at since it was like 118 degrees.

Yoga

(PICTURE: My wife, the yoga guru.)

Take a deep breath everyone as I'm about to write something that might offend. Here goes: Yoga, as we know it, is a scam. Don't believe anyone who tells you that yoga is an Indian thing. No, yoga is a western invention, no ifs ands or buts. Sure it might have started in India but the yoga we know (and pay lots of money for) is completely westernized. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with yoga. I thin it's a great form of exercise that really shapes your body. However, for those who go to India to practice, save your cash. What you'll find in India are:
1. Gurus who are no better than your average white chic with an "om" tattoo on her back.
2. Generally gurus who come from the west. We went to one of the most famous ashrams in India and not only was everyone in the class a westerner, but the guru was from NJ.

Huyen and I rarely ever saw any Indian people actually doing yoga. One morning we went to a park where we heard there was "laughing yoga." We walked the whole park and didn't see anyone doing anything more than some neck rolls. By far our worst experience though was in Khajuraho. We had specifically stayed at the Yogi Lodge because it included free yoga every morning. Well on the first morning we asked about the yoga and the owner seemed a little bit caught off guard. He told us we could do it at his other guest house which was a ten minute bike ride away. When we showed up, we were taken upstairs and proceeded to do yoga on a concrete floor. Actually, technically we didn't do it on the floor; we did it on a FILTHY thin carpet that the yoga "instructor" rolled out. This carpet was out of a movie. If you stomped on it, dust flew up. The worst part though was the instructor. We told him right off that we were beginners, yet within five minutes he was asking us to do pretzels. We literally looked at him and laughed. He would then put his legs behind his head and tell us to do what he was doing. We then laughed again. He then would ask how much yoga instructors get paid in America. After digesting this, he asked us for a donation. A donation? For what? Clearly, for him. We told him that the yoga was included with the guest house and he said he knew that but that we should give him "a present." This time we awkwardly laughed and then got the hell out of there.

Khajuraho

(PICTURE: Huyen in front of a temple.)

I've been getting a lot of slack from people for my lack of blogging. And well, I deserve it. I'm gonna try and get back on pace and finish up the India blogs and then put a nice pink bow around Ahoy Hanoi. After that, you can all get your daily fix from the blog Huyen is going to start up.

I think the lack of blogging has been twofold: 1. I'm home now and spending a lot of time with family and friends. 2. I'm honestly just not that excited to write about India. Sometimes trips take a little while to digest and process (the opposite of Indian food) and this was one of them. So, I'm gonna attempt to breeze through India with some more general blog posts.

After going to Varanasi, we headed to Khajuraho. Getting there, as always, was an adventure. We had to take a long train, stay overnight in a very sketchy town where everyone and their mother offered to drive us to Khajuraho for about 10x's the bus fare, and then take an early morning direct bus which stopped 3,974 times including an hour along a mountain pass which wasn't wide enough for two buses/trucks to go through.

We finally got to Khajuraho which was the HOTTEST place we visited in India. I mean, it was freaking HOT! It was the off season and we had the pick of whichever hotel we wanted. We had a bicycle cyclo guy drive us from place to place to get different rates. We finally ended up going to the one we thought we'd go to since it had free yoga in the morning. It wasn't the nicest place but for $4 a night you can't really complain.

The next day we rented bicycles and rode around all of the temples with the famous karma sutra carvings:

Looking at the carvings one can't help but be impressed. I mean, how flexible are Indians?

Seriously though, doesn't this explain why the population is the fastest growing in the world?

Photos of People

(PICTURE: One of my favorite shots I took in India.)

In Varanasi, I took a lot of interesting photos of people. Here's some of my favorites that I haven't posted on other entries:

Sleeping On Roofs

Everywhere we went, people would sleep on roofs at night. In Varanasi though, we definitely saw the largest clusters of people sleeping together on the roofs:


(PICTURE: Natural AC.)

The only problem with sleeping on a roof is that it exposes you to the elements. You know, like rain or monkeys. Yes, monkeys. In Agra, we saw a family sleeping on a roof. About two minutes after I took this picture...


...a monkey came along and scratched the shirtless boy:



The father wasn't too happy and threw a rock at the monkey:

Sunrise Over The Ganges

(PICTURE: Sunrise over the Ganges.)

We had actually booked our guest house because it said online that they had a free boat cruise at sunset every morning. Naturally this turned out not to be true. However, we agreed to pay the money and were told to be ready at 5AM the next morning. We were up at 5AM but nobody came to pick us up. Finally I managed to wake up the guest house owner who had booked the trip for us and he took us down to the ghats where we met the guys who supposedly were supposed to pick us up at 5AM. Anyway, we got down to the river just as the sun was peaking up over the horizon.



It was absolutely beautiful and amazing to see how much activity goes on around the river every morning.