Friday, February 9th, 2007
Khajuraho
Please do not continue if you are offended by nudity or acts of a sexual nature!
Everyone comes here for the temples with erotic carvings, there doesn’t seem to be much else to this sleepy village… apart from the most voracious touts I can possibly imagine. All the best carvings are found in the Western Temples, which are quite expensive to get into. I wasn’t impressed when I found out that if I left during the day, I had to pay again to get back in. In fact, I wanted to leave India at this point, it does seem to be a ‘take take take’ kind of a place. However, if you organise yourself so you stay inside all day, the carvings and statues are amazing.
Most of the carvings are actually quite tame, and you have to spend some time there to come across many of the more racy items. What really strikes me about the temples are how much love permeates all the cartoon-esque statues. There’s very little which is really lustful or pornographic in any way.
However, we came across some tour groups later in the day and I think if you employ a guide, they take you straight to the ‘good stuff’ and ignore all the temples which don’t have much sex. They also all seem to come from the school of the bleedin’ obvious when they point out what is happening in all the carvings, and don’t give much sense of context. So I really recommend you don’t use a guide if you ever go, you’ll get a much better sense of what it’s about!
There are loads more photos if you’re interested in a gallery I made here: www.EyesOpen.co.uk/Khajuraho