Fri, Nov 27: Panna Tiger Reserve and Khajuraho

We were up at 4:30am to catch a jeep ride at 5:00am to Panna Tiger Reserve.  The roads were rough but pretty deserted at that hour.  We did see a couple of jackals along the way.

We arrived at the reserve’s check-in area after 45 minutes of bouncing around, got checked in and were at the gate when it opened at 6:00.  The dirt road in the park was better than the roads we took to get here. 

We saw the two types of deer in the park, sambar and spotted. 

Other animals included wild boar, 

macaque monkeys, many long-tailed and black-faced or gray langurs, 

a couple antelope, one crocodile sunning itself on the bank across the river,

and lots of birds.  Since we aren't birders we don't remember what they were.

We didn’t see any tigers but we did see a leopard sleeping in a tree.  The guides said it was very unusual to see leopards so we were lucky with that.

The Ken River runs through the park and it, and the surrounding countryside, is beautiful.  And we had blue skies…not too much smog this far out from the large cities.  

We had a bathroom break in the park (the term bathroom being used figuratively).  The bathroom consisted of two “stalls” of waist high walls on three sides and a flat stone slab slanting to the back.  REALLY rustic, although not as bad as a bathroom we used in Chitwan National Park in Nepal. 

There was a pavilion set up on a hill overlooking the Ken River where we had breakfast sitting on the wall (no tables or benches).  Then it was a bumpy ride back to town where we rested in the hotel and Paul took a nap.

Mid-afternoon we met another local guide and headed to the temple complex for which Khajuraho is famous.  There were originally 84 temples built in the 1500’s by the Chandela dynasty.  The dynasty died out and the people moved away so the complex was lost for several centuries.  It was found again in the 1800’s and has undergone much restoration.  The area is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Some of the temples are known as erotic temples as there are many carvings of people engaging in sex acts of all sorts.  Some are considered “unnatural” in that it is probably physically impossible to perform the act.  All of those carvings include one figure holding their hand over their eyes to indicate that the acts are unnatural. 

We opted to see only one of the two complexes.  We have seen so many temples in India and they begin to blur together.  So we headed to the hotel where Mary took a nap, then it was out to our favorite Italian restaurant in India for dinner.  We had lasagna and ravioli’s, good but not as good as the pizza the night before.