Architecture and Avians

Sunday : We are abruptly awoken at 5.26 a.m. by the hotel's generator,  situated below our window , firing up. Luckily the mains power is restored after a few minutes. When we wake up properly D is a bit bunged up. Anyone with any knowledge of the W family knows that this provokes an instant reaction from R who immediately boils the kettle and looks for a suitable steaming vessel. Holding your face inches from recently boiled water whilst covered with a towel certainly kicks your sysyem into life. It has been raining overnight but is definitely warmer.

Today we plan to get on with things and visit the palace and the other , monuments around the town. We skip the hotel buffet and head for one of LP's recommended breakfast spots, the Ram Raja. Here we eat our omelette/boiled eggs at a pavement table while attracting an ever larger audience of dogs. R suggests that we breakfast at base tomorrow. We walk across the bridge to the island and buy tickets which allow us to visit many of the ancient monuments dotted around the town. 

We start with the two big palaces and we have the place to ourselves as we explore the older, smaller palace, the Raj Mahal. Some areas have been graffitied or otherwise damaged but there are glimpses of the splendour created there in the 16th century. We find a dark room decorated with religious paintings, some in quite good condition. As we are about to leave the young man who checked our ticket appears and tells us to follow. He opens a chained up door and reveals a dark room with some much better preserved paintings . He tells us that this was the Maharani's room. We are impressed. The young man disappears before we have the opportunity to thank him in pecuniary form.

The Jahangir Mahal is even bigger and more imposing although the crowds  are starting to build including the usual groups of loud, giggling young men. We catch one taking sneaky photos of us and he suddenly pretends to be interested in the architecture. Once again there are one or two remants of former glory to give a glimpse of its original magnificence. We are so impressed that we retire to the hotel within the palace complex for a pot of tea and the chance to use their splendid five counties view loo.

On our way out of the palaces we pass what are surely the neatest ruins anywhere in India. The genius who made this happen should be promoted from Ancient Monuments.

We opt to take a walk through the palace grounds and are almost overwhelmed by the profusion of bird life. There are dozens of sunbirds, even though it is still rather overcast. We also see a hoopoe, a crested bunting, a Brahminy Starling, lots of little brown jobs that we could not identify, vultures flying overhead and last but not least a spectacular Indian Roller with its electric blue wing plumage.

Our next monument is quite small but has an extensive walled garden planted with trees and that carry sweet scented blossoms. There is some kind of well or sunken bath, decorated with carvings that is now being used as a compost heap. English Heritage/Historic Scotland would have a fit.

We have worked up an appetite and head back to the  hotel for lunch.  R is not totally enamoured of the standards in most of the catering establishments that we have seen around town and wishes to play safe (?).   A small girl yhat we pass in the street greets R with "Hello foreigner". Although it is still cloudy it is definitely warming up and we elect to sit out on the terrace for our pakora and a local speciality potato dish a bit like chips.  We are joined by an English couple who live in Australia, who are on their first visit to India, and also keen on birdwatching.  They have seen Egyptian vultures at the far end of the Palace island and have some great pictures.

After a post lunch snooze we take the short walk back to the Chhatris. Today we have the ticket that gives us access into the maintained garden and lets us get much closer to the vultures. We count 15 on the various cupolas and spires. Some of them are nesting,  hopefully a positive sign. We spend so long vulture spotting that we get evicted by the parkie who rattles his keys at us to get us to jildi.

Tonight we have decided to risk another LP recommendation,  the Betwa Tarang restaurant, Orchha's finest spot for budget veggie food according to the be-sandalled scribes. Our food arrives when each dish is ready rather than in a co-ordinated fashion. Tandoori rotis are 6 rupees each and worth every penny.  R's review will be appearing under the strap line "Grubby but friendly".

Drinking can be dangerous