11 Feb. Khajuraho – Orchha 202 km.
In this MC.journey through Uttar Pradesh, I have seen very few cemeteries, although 15% here are Muslims. Now I find myself just across the border in the state of Madhya Pradesh where I encounter these beautiful ancient temples and a small Islamic cemetery
I run into a black pig
When I came out of the small town Jatara I saw a bunch of black pigs crossing the road. I slow down, so they can manage to pass. But one of the half great kids suddenly change his mind and turned around. I do not manage to brake, so my front wheel hits the pig and I'm leaving with MC.
While my body progresses along the hard ground, dolls picture of a crossed pig, completely smacked out on the road, all those poor run over dogs I of this MC. journey has passed up on my inner retina. As a vegetarian a whole life, I can not bear the thought that I have run a pig over.
I look a little dazed around and saw the whole pig family overthrow of place. The little pig was in hurry when I hit it with my front wheels, so it's probably just got a decent side-kick.
I got up and found that fortunately did not happened anything with me. I get off the gas tank and get along with one inner my motorbike. up on an even keel. My gear pedal and left pedal is again bent in the crash. The headlamps have a proper pressure.
I turned on my hip but not bad. My thick leather jacket and safety jacket took the worst of the falls. Right ankle got a great brand after contact with the exhaust pipe and my palms had deep abrasions. So patch from my first aid bag, was all I needed.
An accident more
40 km. later a jeep suddenly across the road and block completely for me. I'll be running with good speed. I have to brake heavily so I slide in the loose sand and I lie there again. This time I fell on the right side and fall on my camera I had in a leather bags attached to my belt. Nothing happened with me and nothing special with MC. due to the strong side braces and side steel boxes.
I took the camera out of the leather case and could see that it had been damaged. I could turn it on, but the lenses would not come out and open up. The display had also been what I would called got a little blood / fluid retention.
A short déjà vu for my motorbike. Journey to the Middle East 2003, when my Mac computer had slipped out of my luggage, with a speed of 140 km. in Azerbaijan. I had forgotten to zip up the backpack properly after a short stop. I drove back and eventually found my computer. The brain was still alive, but the display screen was at the top and then got a little blood / fluid retention which now my camera also had.
At the time, my first thought as I drove and looked for the computer that I had lost my mind, my visual memory, all my photos from the 1-month journey had disappeared. The purpose of this 'visual journey' was now just as meaningless. I had for a short while completely lost my footing.
Some of the same thoughts pass through my head. My camera, I can not do without this on my journey. I have become addicted to see and experience through its lens. It has been my guiding observation guide to lead me from one visual observation to the next.
After numerous attempts where I gently try to help the lens from sliding back and forth, it happens suddenly - one, the second and third lens barrel slowly glide. After some experimentation, I can also get the three lens barrel to slip out completely in extreme zoom position. A huge relief spreading through my mind. I'm still fighting skillfully, my hunting pictures can continue.
A group of women in Orchha that smiling offers me very welcome to photograph them, it is otherwise very few times it happened
Through the camera lens, I experience the moment
When I walk around, I look and think in pictures. Through the lens and the display, I seek the right motive, a detail, a situation the right angle, the right distance and the right moment.
Like a hunter you get a visually hunting instinct, you become better and better at sensing the places and areas you should seek to get some good pictures. They have become better at getting closer to people without stepping too close. One's body language and attitude have been better to signal that you just take a picture and not a visual assault.
When you walk around without camera, focus is usually not at all the details, but combine them automatically to a overall visual image, with a feeling that you actually see it all. But this general overall visual image corresponding to that you only read one book summary and not the whole book. Thereby you miss all the important details that help to create the book exciting and vibrant history, the same way it is with the details of the visual overall picture, you need to detail to really experience life, down to the roots, where the story draws nourishment.
The camera gives me a legitimate excuse and reason to come a little closer to normal. people via a wordless communication. In my approach to people, scenes and situations, I have always sought to visualize the immediate, here and now impression both of the detail and the larger whole.
Half houses
Just before I reach Orchha I drove through a small village where the front of most houses on the main street was demolished. This minor road was being extended so trucks and large buses can pass each other. It would probably be too expensive for both the State and the homeowner if the house was demolished and then search for a new land and built a new house. Many of the houses are also long and narrow, so it's probably best for families and the state, only to tear down the front, against a financial compensation for the damage.
For money, they then have the option to convert the half-housing to a full turn. Time will tell how the houses facing the main street going to look like.
Promoting the town of Orchha
A Belgian tourist, had given me the name of Fort View Guest House, as he seems sounded good, according to his guidebook. So I went to see this, after visiting 2 other guest house I had been recommended, but they had no decent view.
From the outside Fort View looked like just a boring bungalow. I gave it fortunately a chance. What a luck. When I had passed the front office, met my gaze a long narrow snow-white simple planted courtyard with a stunning widescreen view towards the fort on the cliff top, which shone quite golden in the afternoon sun's warm rays. One's gaze slid along the fort fortress walls on the other side of the Betwa River, stopping first at the fortress bridge, gateway to the fort. The river on this side of the fort is almost completely dried up.
I go up to the terrace's balustrade and enjoy this amazing view. I saw that there is a room on the right, and its has own private small terrace with views directly from a large window towards the fort. An ideal room with a view, for aesthetics and novel ticking like me, who need to be able to immerse themselves. I can figure out that the sunset would be to the left of the fort.
Values for the direct view was 30 $ incl. Breakfast. It was just over my planned budget, I offered 20 $ and a minimum of 3 nights. This he agreed to, as it was outside the tourist season. Visual luxury of being able to sit out on my own little terrace overlooking a beautiful old historic fort and a lot of small temple towers.
A Belgian tourist, had given me the name of Fort View Guest House, as he seems sounded good, according to his guidebook. So I went to see this, after visiting 2 other guest house I had been recommended, but they had no decent view.
From the outside Fort View looked like just a boring bungalow. I gave it fortunately a chance. What a luck. When I had passed the front office, met my gaze a long narrow snow-white simple planted courtyard with a stunning widescreen view towards the fort on the cliff top, which shone quite golden in the afternoon sun's warm rays. One's gaze slid along the fort fortress walls on the other side of the Betwa River, stopping first at the fortress bridge, gateway to the fort. The river on this side of the fort is almost completely dried up.
I go up to the terrace's balustrade and enjoy this amazing view. I saw that there is a room on the right, and its has own private small terrace with views directly from a large window towards the fort. An ideal room with a view, for aesthetics and novel ticking like me, who need to be able to immerse themselves. I can figure out that the sunset would be to the left of the fort.
Values for the direct view was 30 $ incl. Breakfast. It was just over my planned budget, I offered 20 $ and a minimum of 3 nights. This he agreed to, as it was outside the tourist season. Visual luxury of being able to sit out on my own little terrace overlooking a beautiful old historic fort and a lot of small temple towers.
Orchha
Orchha was in the 1600 capital of the state Bundela, but the ruler at the time was killed by bandits and the city went into rapid decline. It was robbed over the years by various marauding armies before it was finally abandoned in 1700 and since then almost nothing changed, however, it is slowly beginning to restore some of the scattered palaces and the fort, temples and tombs.
The front of most houses in Orchha main street has been demolished to make room for the new wider road to be able to cope with present and future needs. Now there is constantly formed traffic jams. The residents is still in the reconstruction phase, so there are piles of materials on the road. You can see that they are trying to recycle rubble and soil from demolition.
12 Feb. -
Quiet morning after a new thunderstorm with rain. I sit on the terrace and enjoy my thai and breakfast, with my woolen blanket around me and looking over the dried up river bed, which is a bit of activity. A shepherd with his small flock of sheep, cross the river bed to enter the Fort area, where the sheep probably can find food.
8:30 am the sun get through the clouds, so maybe it will be a sunny day.
Three women in sari, each with a small watering can pop up just down the slope, I can hear them talk, they go down to a the water in the open field. When I again look in their direction, they sit crouched with their robes pulled up a bit.
Yes most definitely, they're fucking shitting, not more than 100 meters from where I sit and enjoy my breakfast. Here I thought just that I had bought myself a luxury place in life and then they sit there and fucking shitting me up in my face. Just as clearly as I can see them, they can see me - it's just too much.
It take me a few seconds before I again ready to face reality. There they sit in the open landscape and appetizer their case. They do not seem particularly nervous about the situation, despite the fact that I'm sitting here on the first row directly facing them.
I can hear the lively conversation while they empty their bowels, they look like they enjoy this ritual action they make together.
I get a flash back and think about when I was a scout and we sad several side by side and fucking in a sort of latrine, constructed of branches. I remember it as a very intimate and cozy social situation. It was also a little exciting, to balance the branch structure. Could it really withstand the weight of several people. The risk of smoking down in latrinhole was present in one's consciousness.
In the past they built also latrin where several at the same time was able to sit on the toilet.
While I sit and think about what I see - and what I should feel and think in this situation where my natural intimate sphere feels offended. - I am thinking out loud.
- These 3 women choose obviously, to place themselves in the open with their back to the water from a suitable distance, so they have a clear view. No one can sneak up on them without being seen both of them and of me. They will be more defenseless if they did the same action hidden behind a bush.
I also think it's interesting that they all actually empty their bowels at the same time. It requires little physical and psychological together thinking, or maybe it happens quite naturally and unconsciously, in the same way as women who live together, adjust their menstrual cycle after another. I have even read.
These 3 women have probably been in this place many times, perhaps every day, maybe they have done this since they were small children, maybe they have done so for generations. - One thing is certain, they do it only because they can not afford to have running water and toilets in their homes.
A little later while I was standing there and looking towards the fort, I look to my right an a old man with his pants halfway down on hocks disappear in front of a piece of wall. It's not hard to guess what he does on the slope.
When the old gentleman is finished, comes a black sacred cow up which also starters to shit in front of the neighbor's house. At that time, I have not been completely finished my breakfast.
8:30 am the sun get through the clouds, so maybe it will be a sunny day.
Three women in sari, each with a small watering can pop up just down the slope, I can hear them talk, they go down to a the water in the open field. When I again look in their direction, they sit crouched with their robes pulled up a bit.
Yes most definitely, they're fucking shitting, not more than 100 meters from where I sit and enjoy my breakfast. Here I thought just that I had bought myself a luxury place in life and then they sit there and fucking shitting me up in my face. Just as clearly as I can see them, they can see me - it's just too much.
It take me a few seconds before I again ready to face reality. There they sit in the open landscape and appetizer their case. They do not seem particularly nervous about the situation, despite the fact that I'm sitting here on the first row directly facing them.
I can hear the lively conversation while they empty their bowels, they look like they enjoy this ritual action they make together.
I get a flash back and think about when I was a scout and we sad several side by side and fucking in a sort of latrine, constructed of branches. I remember it as a very intimate and cozy social situation. It was also a little exciting, to balance the branch structure. Could it really withstand the weight of several people. The risk of smoking down in latrinhole was present in one's consciousness.
In the past they built also latrin where several at the same time was able to sit on the toilet.
While I sit and think about what I see - and what I should feel and think in this situation where my natural intimate sphere feels offended. - I am thinking out loud.
- These 3 women choose obviously, to place themselves in the open with their back to the water from a suitable distance, so they have a clear view. No one can sneak up on them without being seen both of them and of me. They will be more defenseless if they did the same action hidden behind a bush.
I also think it's interesting that they all actually empty their bowels at the same time. It requires little physical and psychological together thinking, or maybe it happens quite naturally and unconsciously, in the same way as women who live together, adjust their menstrual cycle after another. I have even read.
These 3 women have probably been in this place many times, perhaps every day, maybe they have done this since they were small children, maybe they have done so for generations. - One thing is certain, they do it only because they can not afford to have running water and toilets in their homes.
A little later while I was standing there and looking towards the fort, I look to my right an a old man with his pants halfway down on hocks disappear in front of a piece of wall. It's not hard to guess what he does on the slope.
When the old gentleman is finished, comes a black sacred cow up which also starters to shit in front of the neighbor's house. At that time, I have not been completely finished my breakfast.
I just need to stick my head a little more forward, then my eyes is in the middle of shit. The waste is in a heap down the neighbor slope down towards the river bed.
Later in the day 3 younger women again in front of my field of vision perform the same ritual. I salute them respectfully welcome in the countryside, now that I have become a little more familiar with this very personal and for me unfamiliar ritual.
In environmental terms it is quite natural in this way to give nature back a little of what you have received. Life is one big cycle. But since we humans are not in harmony in all fields with nature around us, we created very easily imbalance. Especially when so many people should be as close to the same, it creates too much energy, both positive and negative, and these energies must then consciously processed and targeted where it can benefit and help to create a balance, to give as many people as possible .
Here in India, where over half the population has no access to toilet, the balance is completely out of proportion. A mirror image of the Indian community disastrous unequal distribution of their resources. It is not only in India there is no balance but throughout the global world.
3 graces by Sandro Botticelli 1485 år
When I see these 3 young women symbolically give energy back to nature, I think of the three Graces of Greek and Roman culture which symbolize fertility, grace and joy.
I enjoy selves to empty my bowels. I sense a liberation and redemption. One's body is emptied of waste substances and is ready to slowly being filled up again with the life-giving food.
To empty my bladder outside, is also a liberating feeling. To stand and empty my bladder outside, a black windy starry night, and let your mind and eyes disappear up to the shining stars and beyond infinity of the universe, is an incredibly powerful experience, you feel totally at one with nature.
The 3 Graces, has no door to their privacy, they can close. I must therefore face the fact that it is I who must close my eyes if I want to keep the idea of my private life. Closing awareness out that I am a part of the economic class system that makes them so they can not afford their own personal toilet door, but must use the public shared spaces without a door.
The rest of the day, I had the feeling that I all the time saw children and adults who sat and emptied bowels. I think I had not noticed it before, or maybe I had unconsciously looked the other way. But now that I had I gotten it right in the head, it was a present problem.
14 Feb.
There are no clouds in the sky, so maybe it will be a sunny day with a clear bright azure sky. For open door I choose to do yoga exercise series 'Hymn to the Sun' in gratitude to its appearance. It's still a little cool this morning.
My eighth MC. workshop visit
The speedometer that stopped 60 km. before I reached Orchha is done. In addition, aluminum rim for headlamp straightened out after my crash. The foot brake was adjusted so that the back brake work properly. I took the opportunity also to tighten all the bolts on the MC.
I have chosen in my report to quantify my MC. workshop visit because I in all my previous MC. journey has had too many MC. workshop visits. On my first MC. India journey 2008 where I also ran on a Royal Enfield 500 cc, I had 16 workshop visits during 1 month with only 15 driving days.
At the time, I promised myself that it was probably the last time that I ran on a Royal. So on my last MC. India Journey 2011 I chose to ride a Honda. It also required many visits to the workshop with major repairs.
So it's not just a joke, I have been unlucky with the MC. I have rented.
This time, I have been lucky. There have been few errors on MC and the rest has been damage I have caused in.
This MC. workshop is a bit special. In the middle of the store, which is quite open to the city's main street and filled with goods on the shelves, is the grandfather of 97 years on his bed and follow what is happening. He started this MC. workshop, which is now operated on by his son and grandson.
The restaurant, the place to retrieve food
In addition to a guest house, located in the right place with the view, it is important for me to find a restaurant where I can get good food and where I also can bear to sit. It becomes your extended living room, because you can bear to sit all day at the guesthouse room and work.
It is therefore important for me to find a restaurant that I like and where I feel welcome. When I found a restaurant in my taste, I repeat success and come again. This routine gives little reassurance.
It is tiring to have to find a new place to have to deal with. Already you are bombarded with so many new impressions through the day to process. Therefore, you do not always desire and energy to try somewhere else.
As a vegetarian, it's great to be in India, as I have just so many different options I can choose from the other, what I would not normally have. On the more local restaurants, there is obviously only a few choice options and here I think the dishes taste a little too similar.
When I found myself in the pilgrimage town Chitrakut, where I had a hard time finding a slightly nicer restaurant, I opted for an evening to eat at one of the open local eateries for the lower class, which looked like a worn soup kitchen. Human Heat had much of, but not much aesthetics. They could not find a place for me at one of the tables, so they asked me to sit down and wait. The food was made and served to the approximately 12 thousands at a time. Some got extra rice and vegetables, others got extra chapatis. So the open kitchen was busy.
I just sat there and waited for them all to finished. I had otherwise expected to get food whith the others. All left the dining spot at the same time after eating dish of the day. Many of them come back again and again the next day and they will be served a court safely memories and tastes as they were today.
First when I have been in India for 2 weeks I eat this kind of placed because hygiene is not very high and all the dishes, mostly happens in cold water. Your system must have built up some bacterial immune system. Thai, I'm not so afraid to drink it servers boiling hot. After two weeks, I enjoy their freshly squeezed juice at street level even though their glass is washed in cold water. Hygiene in better restaurants, is undoubtedly not for good. I have so far escaped an upset stomach.
The local eateries in Chitrakut where I for example would be lucky to get yogurt for breakfast, was very unaesthetic. It affects one, even if you try to concentrate solely on taste.
After 4 days in Chitrakut, where I had some very lean culinary days. Was it nice to get to Khajuraho where I chose this very aesthetic rooftop restaurant that advertised to have an Italian chef. It was quite simple decorated with red clean tablecloths and a polite civilized operation. I chose to eat pizza and spaghetti dishes the evenings I was in Khajuraho. Dishes I usually do not eat as often in Denmark, but here was something my taste buds like, a joy of recognition. - On another rooftop restaurant in Khajuraho, I chose to eat my breakfast when I here could be served yogurt with banana and honey .
Here in Orchha I did not find any restaurant purely aesthetic and culinary appealed to me. Most tourist restaurants offered free WiFi internet connection. It gave me the opportunity to work more freely than I could at a Internet cafe where you have very little space. I decided therefore a restaurant, where I felt comfortable and where I liked the employees. For when the young waiters had the chance, they tried to keep up on your computer and asked so many questions. You have to be open to this cross-border bodily contact.
16 Feb. -
With views to the old castle around 1600 I sit on my bed while I enjoy my thai and the four slices of white toasted bread I eat with a little jam on. I have now eaten this the past 6 mornings I've been here. Not the healthiest and most delicious breakfast you can imagine. Thousands of Italians start the day with a kind of cake. It's a great luxury to be able to enjoy my breakfast with the beautiful view.
It has again thundered all night and kept me very awake. 6:00 am I got up. Thunder crashing still and the rain poured down. Therefore, I had resigned myself that it was probably wise to stay another night here in dry weather. For although it stopped raining during the morning, so I would not know about the rain might come again while I was on the road. Yesterday it was fine 3-4 hours during the day, but then the rain came again. I felt that it was probably wise to wait another day.
I used this extra day to get a massage more by the local young hairdresser. He was not bad. I got him to massage me hard and deep. It was pure luxury, because my body is OK. But since it only cost 10 $ it was cheap luxury, for a wonderful depth relaxing and invigorating intimacy.
Choose to drive over and see the temples, I during my stay only have seen the tip of from my terrace
After the massage and a little rest, I decide to take overto the Fort on my MC. to see the many small temples on its large area. To get close to the temples, I must direct climb over fences. Some of these beautiful old temples was being used as a cowshed and in other there live people, who then indirectly take care of them.
AUM
Bjarne
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