So my overnight train trip led me to the small town (pop. 20,000) of Khajuraho. The location of…

…the Naughty Temples.

They are actually just called the Temples at Khajuraho (a World Heritage site) and they are split into the Western Temples, Eastern Temples, and Southern Temples. But every single Indian in Delhi knew what I was talking about when I said I wanted to visit the “naughty” temples. And they very kindly did not judge me. Out loud.

My overnight train pulled into the small station around 6:45am. I was glad I had brought my own breakfast (juice and pastry) to munch on the train before we arrived since finding breakfast would have taken up valuable time (my flight out was at 2:55pm) and may not have been easy in this little town. I walked toward the exit, noticing the grid of large, black auto-rickshaws in the parking lot on the other side. Before I even reached the exit, a young man approached me and asked if I needed an auto. I took it. I don’t always go by this technique, but it generally doesn’t lead me wrong, surprisingly enough.

I was just going to hop a ride to the main Western area and walk or bike to the rest like the Lonely Planet website suggested, but instead, after giving it some thought, I decided to just keep the dude for the day. He did give me a map and pricing chart to nudge me in that direction but more so, I was on a schedule and I wanted no delay in getting back to the airport. (Granted, the airport was so small, we actually passed it as we drove the 20 minutes or so from the railway station to the temples.) Additionally, I wanted to give the guy some business, especially since it looked like the majority of autos were shared and I was his solitary customer.

My Auto

It was not long after dawn, so I suspect the temples had just opened as the auto driver pulled up. Three men – guides – were standing dutifully outside the entrance. An older fellow approached me first and seemed fairly competent (and was sure to mention his credentials. I do like to hear them mentioned, even if I do not know exactly what they mean nor how hard they are to fake or lie about.) The man wanted to charge me 1,000 though. And I was like “$20/hr? Seriously? You do better than most Americans!” and I got him grudgingly down to 700 for about a 2-hour tour.

After I paid for my ticket, we entered the complex. It must be noted that, even if the temples are known for their explicit content, the place would be worth visiting even if the sculptures were mundane. The temples are gorgeous! Awesomely-shaped large structures, almost like those drippy sand castles, situated pleasantly in a tree-filled park. The entire place was quite lovely, even without knowledge of the close-up details.

Chitragupta Temple

Kandariya Mahadev Temple (and Devi Jagadambi Temple)

At first, I wasn’t impressed with the guide babbling of a bunch of historical dates in front of the first temple, but once we got walking, he became more interesting. His main repeated point was that the temples are not about the sexualized sculptures. (In fact, I believe the “naughty” ones only appear once out of every ten.) It is not a “Kama Sutra temple” like some people call it. What the temples demonstrate, he said, is “the way to get to heaven.”

Three Stories of Naughty

The particularly naughty stuff, he noted, tended to be on the bottom level. Each level up was progressively more divine. Certainly sex was still part of the equation the further you went up, but a more equal, loving, one-on-one kind of act, not the tantric menage-a-troi acts demonstrated in various lower locations. Though I noticed that bottom-to-top was not the rule and the theme was repeated in various ways on all the temples.

The below is a series of sculptures that the guide described as, basically, good relationship advice. Get to know your partner. Talk to your partner. Do activities together. And, if things go well, initiate something more intimate and, if both partners are into it, then go for it!

But quite a variety of acts were illustrated.

“Hey, how you doin’? You up?”
“I’m up.”

“I seem to be missing my head”
“That’s all right. I have alternatives”

“That elephant is laughing at us”
“Hmmm. Not the way to Heaven?”

(This is a camel.)

“Definitely not the way to Heaven.”

“What’s with all these monkeys?”

He hinted that some guides just walk around and point out the naughty stuff. No idea if that is true but if so, I’m glad I did not get one of those. Awkward!

Many other sculptures depicted “every day” activities like putting on make-up. The majority were not all that naughty.

Life isn’t all about the sex. Really.

You can’t see any naughty from far away

The guide declared his services over after the first few temples. (He said “I could keep describing, but it’s pretty much the same thing on the rest.”) So I wandered around on my own after that.

At one temple, there were two local women. The younger one gave me a tour of the inside (a pretty short tour, granted, as there is as not much on the inside) and I kept thinking she was going to ask for money afterward. Finally, I brought it up, but they said they didn’t do it for money. They were friendly enough and told me they liked my “Indian-style” hair. I had it braided. It’s not the first time someone looked at my standard braid-down-the-back and remarked that it was like how an Indian woman would wear it. The other large temple in the complex appeared to be undergoing renovation, so I skipped it.

Once I had toured the park to my satisfaction, I met up with my auto driver outside the complex. I was in the mood for some chai, so went to a nearby coffee house, but the proprietor said it would take a while to make, so I walked back out. And, lo, my auto driver was getting chai from a dude on the street. I joined him. The chai was hot and delicious. I had to not think about the cleanliness of the glasses too much, but otherwise, street chai is best. My auto driver even bought it for me.

So then, the driver took me to the “Eastern Temples” which are not in a fancy complex like the primary Western group of temples, but scattered about the area. The roads through the town and farmhouses were dirt, rocky, bumpy, and had a fair amount of folk going about their daily routine. I wondered why Lonely Planet recommended a bicycle. That did not seem ideal here.

We bounced along through the small town roads for about ten minutes or so until we reached the Vamana Temple, by itself in the middle of farmland.

Vamana Temple

It was similar to the others, just isolated and surrounded by a tall fence. I was the only visitor, but there was a posted guard who I suspect was bored out of his mind. I said hello and checked out the temple, but not much was new here. The auto driver had found a buddy to chat with in the meantime out where he parked. I bought playing cards from him. (He had regular and extra-naughty, but I just got the regular.) Then my driver snapped my photo.

The second temple Javari Temple was visible from the first and had cute kids playing in the grass out front. They asked me in English what my name was. So after I told them, I asked each of them their names in English, which they answered dutifully. Then I walked down the sidewalk to the temple proper. Another bored guard was there, but this one wanted to point out the naughty parts. “Nice,” he said, pointing to some sculpture-porn. (Awkward.)

He was otherwise friendly enough. When I told him I was American, he said he would love some American money. I felt bad as I had not a cent as I’d been living in India for the better part of the year. He gave me a brief explanation of the little shrine inside the temple then snapped my photo at the entrance. I was the only tourist again, but that may have been because I had an early start. I saw plenty of tourists at the Western Temple complex.

At the Entrance to Javari

As interesting as the temples were, I was becoming more interested in the bit of rural India I was glimpsing in between.

Rural Khajuraho

Though I was less interested when the auto got flagged down by a shopkeeper on our drive out. The guy seemed nice enough, but it felt like the old tourist-shop routine. He was very authentically rural, though, and had none of the cheesy stuff, just an odd selection of antiques, little statues, and jewelry, seemingly sold from his home. I still did not want to buy anything even though I was apparently his “first customer of the day” which is good luck or an omen for the remaining day or somesuch. I feel like I’ve been the “first customer of the day” a lot during my time in India…

A few minutes drive after that, we stopped at a complex more crowded with tourist groups (and touts, ugh) that had a museum that I failed to go to. The temples here were whitewashed and did not seem quite as kept up, but were fine. Nice enough, nothing exciting.

Jain Temple Complex

The next temple on the tour, Duladeo, was packed. The park surrounding the temple was filled with people out picnicking, paying their respects, or enjoying the day. But almost all, if not all, were locals. A cute 10-year-old boy started to give me a tour in surprisingly decent English. He was so darn adorable, I gave him a tip and encouraged him to keep studying English. Then I got hounded by a few touts right to the door of my auto. The worst was a guy trying to sell me a book. He was very persistent and right before the driver pulled away, he said “I haven’t sold a book in two days!”

This is one of those conundrums I often feel in India. When am I being had? When should I give and when should I not? I tend not to give to beggars, especially kids, because it doesn’t help them long term and encourages organized panhandling. (Though sometimes I give kids chocolate or candy.) But putting myself in their shoes… if I was desperate enough to beg and I knew the person I was begging from had more than they needed, it seems like well, of course they should give. The book seller touched a nerve and I still don’t know what the right thing to do would have been.

“…sculptures are generally stereotyped and overburdened with ornamentation…”

The next temple, Chaturbhujha, was pretty small and had one other tourist couple. There was also a worker inside who solicited a donation. On the side was this funny-looking sculpture that I found out later was a half-man, half-woman representation of Shiva called Ardhanarishvara. (At the time, I just went, “Huh? Weird!”)

Half-n-half

As I was walking out, there were three old beggars by the entrance gate. As an addendum to my above, if I do give, it does tend to be to older folk, especially if they are women. I heard that a woman can get thrown out of her house if her husband dies. That would be a terrible blow if you had been comfortably middle class up until then. (And in that case, it seems less likely to be part of a scam or causing children to lose interest in education, etc. Just a person falling into bad circumstances.) Even given that, then there’s yet another begging conundrum, one that I noticed in Rishikesh. If there are multiple people sitting there with their money tins in front of them, it seems weird to just choose one to give to. In Rishikesh, those who gave just went down the line, depositing a coin in each tin. So, since there were three, I calculated what I had on me and gave them 2 rupees each. Yeah, that’s less than a nickel, but we are in rural India and, in general, when I have seen Indians give, it is almost always in coins (i.e. 10 rupees or less).

But naturally, they thought I was being stingy.

Anyway, here comes the interesting part of the day.

It was just after 11:00am when my driver said, “Well, that’s all the temples.” I was kind of surprised that was all there were, but we moved through them at a pretty brisk pace. I did not have to be to the airport (which was literally, just minutes away) until around 2pm.

So, the auto driver invited me to his house for lunch.

At first, I said maybe, but finally I told him, “I’m not comfortable with that.” Objectively describing this to someone sounded, well, not very cautious.

He was fine with that, but assured me that the only other people in the house were his wife, daughter, and mother. I felt this out for a while as he drove. Then I decided it was kosher. This was a rural town where everyone knew everybody. And it felt safe. So I had lunch with my auto driver and his family.

(When I told my co-worker about this later, he sighed and said. “Yeah, only a foreigner would get invited to lunch.”)

He lived in a two-room house with a courtyard in front and a washroom off to the side. (He said I could use it to wash off if I wanted. I declined. He also said I could watch TV in their bedroom if I wanted. I declined that as well, finding both requests slightly odd, but no matter.) They found a seat for me in the sun and his young wife offered me some snacks before tending to their 1-year-old daughter. My driver was the only one who spoke English, so did all the translating as we chatted. His mother was there, but she looked like his grandmother as he was only in his early twenties. Among other things, he told me the auto rickshaw driving was just a weekend job. He was studying and had grander plans.

Hanging out with the locals

After talking for a while, we left his house and walked through the small village (where he greeted everyone) then across a bridge over a creek where people were playing or doing laundry, and finally to a farmhouse where an extended family (and two cows) were hanging out.

The atmosphere was relaxed. The patriarch spoke a little English, so we could talk without having my auto driver translate everything. They asked me questions and I asked them questions. I think they had a relative who lived in the States (as I think basically, everyone in India has) and I asked what their cows’ names were. (Can’t remember the answer now.) I got all sorts of food. They gave me a fresh guava, right off the tree, with salt. Quite tasty. Then they served me what I’ll describe as a vegetable curry and some roti (flatbread) to eat it with. My manners overrode my squeamishness when I saw the older woman, who was sitting on the ground, scoop the curry into my bowl with her fingers. I ate the whole thing.

The only thing I had to offer in return was some Lindt chocolate truffles (wrapped in shiny red foil) I had bought at Le Marche in Delhi. Luckily, there were three kids because I only had three.

Some of the neighbor kids came over to play (or to gape at the blond foreigner?) and I lost track of who I was being introduced to. It was all very friendly. I was pleased when the driver offered me water (and a bar of soap) to wash my hands with. After that, he gave me a bit of tour around the farmland.

Rural Khajuraho

Then we returned to the auto driver’s home. His sister (or his wife’s sister?) was there and he said she could do henna for me. I said, “Sure!” I had only gotten henna for the first time a few weeks previous, so I understood the process a bit better. So, we sat in the bedroom, and she spent a good 15-20 minutes painting the intricate designs on my right arm (though I was starting to watch the clock.)

After the henna, the auto driver took me to the airport, less than ten minutes away. The airport was literally just another building on the side of the road. (Apparently, they were building a new International airport half a mile up which, now that I know how tiny this place is, seems impressive.) He pulled over on the main road and dropped me off at the entrance. I ended up paying him more than we agreed, both for a tip and for the henna. (Total of 700 rupees, just like I gave the tour guide in the morning. $13.)

Hilariously, everyone at the airport from the guard at the entrance, to the lady at security, to the shopkeeper where I bought some naughty coasters loved the henna. They all said it was very beautiful. The airport was tiny and all the travelers I saw were foreign. I think I was the most Indian of anyone, not just because of the henna and the braid down my back, but because I kept showing my PAN (tax) card as identification, causing several airport employees to exclaim, “Are you Indian?”

The flight to Varanasi (got to see the Ganges from a plane!) and then to Delhi was uneventful. Spice Jet is one of the budget airlines, but they did fine.

Now that I understood henna was a two-step process, I spent some time in the ladies room in the domestic terminal at Delhi rubbing the dried ink-paint off in the trash bin (the ladies’ room attendants commenting on how pretty it was) and leaving the nice design.

Side note: getting to the metro from the Delhi domestic terminal takes a little more doing than the easy International terminal. You have to take a shuttle to get to the nearest station. Kind of a pain. Side note 2: New Delhi station (where the railway meets the airport metro meets the regular metro) on a Sunday night? Holy crap, So Many People. I actually walked outside and hailed an autorickshaw to drive me three stops down (and, notably, along a different line) where the crowds had dissipated.

I got a lot of comments at work the next day. To my surprise, “You look like you are married,” was a common comment. I guess henna in that much detail is something married women tend to do. Ah.

Henna!