Beautiful Orchha

Grounds of our hotel - Old Palaces behind
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We got up early and left Delhi on the 5:30 train. New Delhi train station didn’t change our minds about the city – a face mask was essential kit and we didn’t have one - there are hundreds of people that live in the station and therefore do their business there too.

Temples
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We got approached by a guy who looked semi-official by the fact that he was dressed quite smartly and carried a pen. He kindly told us that our ticket was invalid and needed a stamp – we knew that it was okay and that this was yet another scam with the aim to suck some money out of our pockets – Charlie raised her voice and the man disappeared quite quickly – we got on the train and the tickets were fine.

Holy Man - 50RS please
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We arrived at Jhansi train station at about two o’clock in the afternoon and took a 45 minute Tuk-Tuk ride in to Orchha and entered the town through the gate to the old city. The name Orchha means hidden Palace.

View of the Old City
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Orchha was the capital of Bundela from 16^th century to 1783 and is a walled city on the banks of a river. The river provides the local people with water to drink and wash themselves and their clothes – although quite why they insist on tipping all of their rubbish in to it is a mystery to me.

Air-con tent!
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We stayed in part of the old city, by the river and one of the palaces in a rather nice fixed tent complete with air-conditioning – all part of a hotel complex with a flutist piping as you approached the door.

We had a great time roaming freely amongst all of the palaces and temples and hired the occasional guide to show us some of the more out of the way places. The guides here are in fact teenagers who happen to have keys to some padlocked doors and who for a couple of hundred rupees will show you around the upper floors of the temples and palaces – they also claim to tell you the history of the places too, but my cynical head tells me that they are probably telling you a load rubbish – but that’s okay, getting in to the nooks and crannies of the buildings or on the roofs was good enough for us – finding bats sleeping and honey bees nests made us feel a little like Indiana Jones

Orchha is a beautiful city – a great couple of days here and well worth the visit. Faith in India starting to be restored.

Having difficulty adding photos - will post in next day or two