Another early start to catch the sun rise at the Taj Mahal but this time from the other side of the river. The viewpoint is from the riverside gardens where were the foundations of a black marble taj that was never built but was for the mogul who created the taj for his wife.His son deposed him because of the likely cost and put him under house arrest in the red fort in Agra where he spent the last years of his life mourning his wife looking at the Taj Mahal in the distance. Ironically his sarcophagus is next to his wife's ruining the complete symmetry of the place. We had time for a cup of masala chai and a plate of spicy chick peas for breakfast from the stall by the entrance to the gardens. Next to our bus a woman milked her buffalo.
We then boarded the express train for Jhansi which took us through a desert landscape of scrub and jagged sand dunes and then suddenly back into the fertile landscape we have been used to seeing .A little old female beggar got on the train and started wailing in the corridor,we gave her the remains of a breakfast box we found from an earlier passenger.the guards shouted at her and she shut up and munched an apple from the box.At the first stop she was thrown off the train by the guards accompanied by another torrent of abuse.This was a first class train after all and standards have to be maintained.
Having arrived in Jhansi we braved the normal chaos of an Indian railway station and boarded a fleet of tuktuks and took off for Orchha,a small village in the countryside. Our accommodation is in luxury tents overlooked by the local king's cremation towers and next to a wild river. After a good lunch we rested prior to an afternoon visit to the village which is dominated by an old temple which we climbed to the top up very narrow dark stairs and had a panoramic view of the whole area. Across the river is a vast palace complex which we will see tomorrow and below is a temple to Rama,an avatar to Vishnu.After a roadside supper where we had a wood fired Indian pizza we attended the evening service in the temple. It is a very holy place and the silver door to the shrine has an armed guard who bears allegiance to lord Rama before any one else even the Indian prime minister. It was quite moving seeing the devotion of the people to their god as they proffered their offerings and received a sprinkling of holy water.
Upon our return to the hotel a works outing was in full swing outside our tents so we sat by a charcoal brazier and drank Indian rum and coke watching all the men dancing together.the girls in our party joined in with some other guests and danced too.