Orchha

Our train arrived after dark, and after a bit of a hassle with the transportation people, managed to rent a van to take us from Jhansi to Orchha and our hotel. It is around 18 kilometers over country roads and they wanted us to take tuk tuks. No way. So we arrived at our hotel and found it to be a fabulous place with huge rooms.

Its not much but it should do for two nights. Maybe we'll just stay right here. There was a dancer and musicians in the courtyard but no one was watching. The hotel was fairly empty.
The hotel had two courtyards and beautiful gardens. The dancer and musicians played on the raised square.

The second courtyard had a lovely pool.
A nice sitting area outside our room.


The entrance.
Temples on the road into town.

I can't figure out how to get rid of duplicate photos.


I have no idea what this building was but I thought it was interesting.



What a beautiful tree trunk.

Orchha is a town of around 8000 in the middle of nowhere with dozens of abandoned temples and a palace or two.

The town isn't much but there are a few interesting shops. And an internet cafe of course.

We loved the colors.


The main palace area was across a 17th century bridge. It is called the Raj Mahal and has two interesting courtyards.

I actually found Orchha disappointing. But then I have been to all the major palaces and forts in Rajasthan at least once and lots of gorgeous temples. Desolate was a word which came to mind here.

The 17th century bridge to the main palace/temple area.


With tourists around of course there would be the occasional holy man.

The local tourist market. We would have been almost as happy just hanging around our gorgeous hotel and ordering room service or eating in the excellent dining room.
Janet takes a nice dip.
Goodby Orchha. We left very early in the morning so the night manager packed us all a boxed breakfast to eat on the train. We were very spoiled here and hated to leave.

Gwalior

After our last look at the Taj from the back side we set off on the train for Gwalior. Its only about an hour's ride from Agra and definitely off the tourist track. We were surprised to find ourselves in a coach with a couple of dozen middle class women from Agra who were off on a tour of Gwalior. Its a city of around 800,000 and except for the fort and a museum made from a former palace it doesn't have much to offer for the tourist. Unfortunately it was Wednesday and the palace was closed.
The fort is situated on top of a huge hill which overlooks the town. The Agra Red Fort was modeled on this one.
Views of the city from the fort.

The blue color is actually tiles.

The fort dates from the 1500's. There are ducks, elephants, palm trees, parrots and flowers on the tilework.


Elephants.

And, of course, an Indian family had to pose with Andrea.
Indian rangers,

We had stowed our baggage at the station during our tour as we were continuing on to Orchha via the train station in Jhansi (the nearest one to Orchha) After the fort we had a delightful lunch in a swank hotel near the station.

People sleeping even though it was early afternoon. We had the portion of lunch we couldn't eat packed up and Andrea gave it to the first hungry people she could find. It didn't take long.
And there are always hungry dogs who need snacks as well.

We're still smiling after a long day.

Then there is always the luggage problem. At some stations the train only stops for 5 minutes or less. By this point the four of us had 11 bags to get off somehow. So we decided to pile them up against the door. Then we had to hope that we were getting off on the right side of the train.