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2003-12-15 - Satna - Khujaraho (Day 242)

"The Big Man in Town" always seems to look the same, a bit overweight, bulkier then most and in some unbelievable getup. Today he was in the typical Indian pajama-suit with this extremely incongruent Nike woven hat on top. I could tell he would not be able to resist coming over and it was only a few minute when he cam from the shop a hundred meters away over to stand in front of me and stare. Unlike more of the "Mr. Bigs", this one only had one question, "Where is your country?" but like all the others he turned my response into a story, in this case a 30-minute conversation for all those around. I later asked another what was being said to find he was telling them of my occupation, how much I earned, where I was coming from and going, and any number of things, which he apparently surmised from my one word "America" answer. Its so funny how many of these 'Big Man in Town" I have seen on this trip, every village seems to have one. I do not know, perhaps that is true worldwide I just had not noticed before now.

The horrible roads continue until an amazingly flat stretch of asphalt 10 km long announces we have finally reached an oasis in the desert watered by tourist's money and causing all to turn into a garden.

Riding into Khujaraho I was astounded at what I found a simply lovely little tourist town surrounding the most exquisite temples I have yet seen in India. I was just in time to take a first set of pictures before the sun set getting my first views of the wonderful carvings in the beautiful glow of a setting sun. As with any woman, the golden light presented the lovely forms carved into the temples in all their beauty and desirability.

The evening gave me an even bigger smile when I found a restaurant with a table perched in a treetop directly across and overlooking the temples. I stayed in Mandi because of one restaurant's Macaroni and Cheese, and even from the first day here, I could tell that I was going to stick around a bit just for this table.

In the evening I cam across a Japanese girl who had done much the same trip as me on the back of her boyfriend's Enfield. It brings a smile to think of how many other's have done the same trip as me - its just too bad there are almost no American's that seem to want to venture out to India as all I've met have been Europeans with the British and Israelis far outnumbering any other tourists. I am again surprised to find Japanese girls traveling alone in such a hard country. I suspect their toughness has been vastly underrated.

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