Khajuraho-Orchha-Agra--December 1, 2006--Road Journey, Jahangiri Mahal Palace

 

 

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We drove off in the morning first visiting the site of the previous day's massage and then traveled for a few hours by car to Orchha. 

Most roads in India are two lanes (sometimes closer to one and one half lanes).  Traffic is usually heavy with many trucks, making continual passing necessary with lots of horn honking.  Traffic consists of all types of vehicles, animals and humans, all moving at different speeds. On one of these busy roads, our driver once spotted a small child (about one year old) walking in the middle of the road.  He braked abruptly and rescued the child for the frantic mother who was running out of her home after she saw what was about to happen.

On the relatively few expressways we traversed, it was not unusual to see a camel or cow on the road.  At dusk, very few vehicles turn on their lights, which makes driving especially dangerous at that time of day.  Once dark, most moving objects on the road have lights while animals and their keepers generally vacate the roads at that time.  We had to ask a couple of our drivers to make the back seat seatbelts available for safety reasons; they responded good naturedly that it was not necessary by law in India to wear a seat belt in the back seat. We responded that we were big on seat belts so they consequently pulled the rear seat belts out from under the seat.  While it is impossible to take a trip like this without long road journeys, it is definitely preferable not to travel on the highways of India after dark.

After we had lunch in Orchha and visited the palace, we traveled by car again to the train station at Jhansi.  There we caught an evening train for the two and one half journey to Agra, the home of the Taj Mahal.

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