Another busy day in the country. This morning after breakfast we headed out to see the Western group of Temples that were part of a group of some 85 Temples which were scattered over 23 Sq klm..there are only about 25 remaining. These Temples were built sometime between AD 900 & 1300.
The Temples are UNESCO listed and are just awesome ..We had a wonderful local guide who kept us amused will his take on some of the carvings around these Temples...eye popping to say the least and rest assured those old time carvers could tell a dirty story with their carvings as good as anyone today.. I would put the photos up but they are a tad explicit.
We spent a few hours walking around the beautiful grounds.. Apparently the Indian government has a ban on industry polluting the air here so it has a 200 klm boundary to protect the Temples.. these Temples are older than Angkor Wat.
I took a photo of a monkey with a baby and when I looked at the picture, the baby looks human ?? I am thinking maybe the security or garden guy have been messing with the monkeys ..Creepy...
 As we left and walked through the town back to the bus we were pretty much attacked by the hawkers..OMG !! We raced to the bus and our guide did the selling from the front of the bus, after this we checked out yet another temple and once again were attacked by the hawkers so both Peter & I both bought a Gandhi ornament and I made sure I got mine cheaper than his ...Jenny 1 Peter nil... On the way out we stopped at a artefact shop which had some great stuff but the jewellery was way too expensive..
We had lunch today at a lovely restaurant out in their garden..once again a mix of curries, these are a bit repetitive but they are pretty good, we are leaning which ones are good and everyday there's usually something different.
We were once again picked up from the restaurant by the Panna Safari guides in their Jeeps and we went off to a different part of the National Park, this time to hunt the elusive tiger...The drive out took about 45 minutes, we picked up our ranger at the gate and off we went.. Unfortunately we didn't get to see a tiger, but we got close, as we were leaving all these animals came running across the track so all the cars stopped and we waited as more deer raced past us, but the ever elusive tiger didn't show..we saw tracks though but that was as good as it got.. It is great fun spotting wildlife, reminds me of Bear hunting in Canada..
Today we saw loads of Spotted deer, Antelope and Sanbar Deer, we also saw heaps of monkeys and a couple of wild cats ..they are bigger than the domestic cat and have pointed ears, there were Eagles and Fish eating eagles ?? Two different kinds, our rangers English wasn't so good so it was hard to get the names of everything.. There was also a Drongo Bird..? No it wasn't me !
The sun set as we were leaving and it was beautiful, It was really quite cold coming home so our driver stopped and put the top down on our jeep, everyone else kept going so we were a bit behind... Next thing we knew our driver turned off the highway and we drove down this tiny road in the dark dodging people, kids and cows and goats, bikes as well as tuk tuks, we would through small villages whose homes we right on the roadside.. we were beginning to think we were being abducted as we saw none of the other Jeeps.. it was a tad scary until finally we saw the lights of the town and when we pulled up it turned out that all the others came home that way as well Pheww!
It was a great stay here in Khajuraho, the countryside is just beautiful and as you pass through villages the kids are playing cricket everywhere, sometimes they have stumps and sometimes they have a stack of rocks or broken bricks..but they are all cricket mad..
Tomorrow we have a 5 hour bus ride, then a train trip ending the day in AGRA..exciting !