Khajuraho

Saturday 3 April: Like so many of India's treasures the temples at Khajuraho were rediscovered by a British map-making party in the early 19th century. Can you imagine the look on Victorian army officer Burt's face when confronted with carvings of ample-breasted women giving blow-jobs to equally well-endowed men? Yes, this is the famous erotic 'Kama Sutra' temple complex and UNESCO World Heritage Site. Today I visit the two temples, Vaman and Javari, near to the old village and then on to the eastern set of three sober Jain temples.
Sunday 4: Early, to avoid the tour-bus clamour, I enter the western temple compound. Lakshamana temple is the largest and most famous, followed by Kandariya, Chausath and, the oldest, Vishvanath. In reality, the majority of the carvings celebrate the female form in a variety of seductive poses and are extremely well sculpted. The scantily-clad bodies appear to move, twisting, turning and writhing away from the honey-coloured sandstone. There are also fine hunting and battle scenes. Only a small proportion of the figures are involved in explicit sexual acts but these are, of course, the ones everyone comes to see and photograph.
Monday 5: Amazingly the tour groups spin through the temples in less than an hour and avoid the little architectural museum where I enjoy a close up view of celestial nymphs writhing in stone. In the afternoon I walk to the restored Duladeo temple set in a pretty lawned flower garden. It too his erotic scenes hidden amongst the carved stone.

Khajuraho photos, enjoy.
At Khajuraho's pristine railway station I board the new 11:00 pm sleeper service, which only started at the end of March, to Varanasi.