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Madhya Pradesh { 14 images } Created 19 Nov 2013

Photos from Madhya Pradesh taken in November 2008.
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  • The village Khajuraho, located nearly 400km west of Varanasi is inscribed in Unesco's World Heritage List for its magnificient temple groups. Well-known for the large amount of erotic sculptures, the Khajuraho temple complex has been divided in three groups: the eastern group, the western group and the southern group. The temple in this photo is situated in the western group complex.
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  • According to "Wikipedia" - the Khajuraho temples are now set in a parkland landscape. When India gained independence from Britain in 1947 the landscape setting was semi-desert and scrub. The archaeological park now has something of the character of an English public park, with mown grass, rose beds and ornamental trees. This may be popular with visitors but has no relationship with the historic landscape at the time the temples were built.
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  • On our second day we decided to hire a bike to explore the area in Khajuraho. We first drove our bicycles toward the south group temples. We made a short break near a school where schoolchilds were just cleaning their breakfast bowls.
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  • There is an interesting craftman shop near the Ghantai Temple called "Talking Trees of Kulbel". The owner, Mister Rajendra Singh, displays a lot of ebony carvings for sale. Ebony wood is extremely hard, making it very difficult to carve.
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  • As we saw the boy crossing the river, we asked ourselves what we should do on the other side? <br />
So, we decided to turn back to the village of Khajuraho.<br />
Furthermore, the river was probably infested by piranhas, crocodiles and giant snakes :-).
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  • Marco fixing the slipped chain on his hi-tech cycle. The pathways between the temple groups are pretty cool and often used by the residents of Khajuraho. We met a lot of people there.
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  • Portrait of an indian boy we met as we were turning back to Khajuraho village.
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  • We met this lady on the way back to Khajuraho. After she was given the rest of our cookies and a handful of balloons for her children, i asked for taking a photo of her.
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  • A curious squirrel between carved stones of the Chaturbhuja temple.
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  • All the temples in Khajuraho were build between the 10th and 12th centuries, during the reign of the Chandella dynasty. The Chaturbhuja temple is one of the few temples, which was build in a time as the power of the Kings began to decline.
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  • Sometimes people ask me if i could send them the photos i've taken of them. I would do it in any case, but sometimes language barriers, an incomplete adress or at worst a foreign writing, makes understanding very difficult and frustrating. Therefore, i'm very sorry for the people who didn't get the photos i promised. Maybe someone know the address of this women?
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  • How women's clothes can remain clean in a place where dirt lies around and dust pollute the air day by day?
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  • A ghat in Khajuraho, used for washing. The women are working hard to get the laundry beautifuly clean.
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  • Compared to indian cities like Delhi, Khajuraho is a pretty relaxing place. We enjoyed to stay there, but at that time we didn't know that for one very good reason, we would probably be stuck in Khajuraho for a while: Mumbai was under attack by a terrorist organisation, close to al-Qaeda.<br />
Later, in the evening, we were informed that barricades and checkpoints were erected by the police on key roads, all over India. So, we expected transportation troubles between Khajuraho and Jhansi, our next destination. <br />
At that moment we had two alternatives: stay in Khajuraho for a while, or beeing driven to Agra by an aggressive swindling idiot. Finally two boys, Bhaiya and Kaushlendra - with which we became friends, told us that one of their uncles, could drive us to Jhansi. <br />
Drivers carrying tourists were allowed to pass the checkpoints without problems, so the next day we drove along many traffic queues without beeing controlled. The first driver (the aggressive idiot), knew that, so he was probably pretty angry, sitting in his car, he missed the deal of his life: avoiding all the queues and checkpoints and earning a lot of money for driving two stupid tourists to Agra, where he wanted to go anyway. Too bad, that we didn't see him in the queue. :-)
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