Allahabad to Khujaraho

There are many photos and experiences regarding our stay in Allahabad, which may have been the most enjoyable days of the trip. We had extremely nice and considerate hosts, foremost Arunava and Poonam, who have worked hard to organize most of the monthlong trip. Our collective thanks on all accounts. Today I will be unable to spend too much time because of a busy schedule and a home office dial-up connection here in the city of Satna. It's one of the smaller spots we'll stay and only for a day. Coming from Allahabad we made an ill-advised left turn in one of the many many villages and ended up on rutted and sometimes unpaved, hilly backroads to Khujaraho. This place, which has a name I'm likely mispelling, is called the Land of Temples. It's immaculately clean, beautifully landscaped and just acre upon acre of ancient sandstone temples made by Hindustan kings as long ago as 900 a.d. What a treat it was to spend the night in a hotel there, have breakfast and walk among these ancient and nearly entirely intact places of worship for a long, sun-soaked afternoon. All of the temples are carved with the erotic figures often photographed and copied for the Kama Sutra. The cascading minarets are designed to look like the peaks of the Himalayas and the entry ways like caves to mimic the places where lord Shiva was said to live, meditate and reach enlightenment. This evening we're in Satna, cement city, which our tour guide says "pass through if you can". That being said, who wants to stick to tour books. If that were the case we wouldn't be staying in homes of nice people like Santos Gupta, a native of Allahabad who moved here to begin a billy manufacturing company. Billies (again, spelling) are handmade, all natural cigarettes mosted noted for the green leaf that wraps them. Tonight we have a cultural presentation and will do our stuff at the Rotary meeting, dinner, and tomorrow a breakfast and tour of a Rotary community project. Have I said that here, where government seems to fail all too often, Rotary seems to pick up the bill and help run schools or employment programs. Midday tomorrow we head to Renukoot for a few days and will begin the sojourn back to Delhi for a day in Agra via the speed train and a day in Delhi shopping and such before getting back on the plane. I hope all is well back home and abroad, and wish everyone a fine morning/evening.