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One of my favourite parts of the trip.
We arrive at our hotel, straight after a couple of hours on a train, and in a mini-bus, and are shown straight to the garden terrace, and offered a drink. Indira briefs us on the local, and our planned itinerary in for the next 2 days. |
| The beautiful room I stayed in, next to the river.
Once again, basic accommodation, proved to be nothing of the sort. |
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The electrics, in some of our accommodation, was a little old, but added to the character. |
| The view from my balcony, showing the the river that ran past the hotel.
Waking in the morning and looking out across the water, was a special moment for me. |
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The main street, of this simple village. |
| My friend Kevin in front of the Man Mandir Palace and Gwalior Fort, in his “foreign correspondent” pose. |  |
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A projected view of one of the palace walls. |
| The main wall of the fort, taken through one of the gates. |  |
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Another part of the fort, showing the detail of the stone carvings. |
| The beautiful courtyard, showing the high walkways, all around.
It took several hours to see them all. |
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A temple inside the palace, had this picture of Hanuman (the white monkey in the picture) I had seen a song/dance rendition of the Reamker, which features Hanuman, while visiting Cambodia. |
| Gate at the back of the palace, with superbly carved elephants. |  |
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Underground, in a recently opened area. |
| Indian Women in Traditional dress. |  |
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In the centre of the forecourt, was this bath, similar to the ones I had seen at the Angkor Wat. |
| As we head up to the walkways, I pose on the stairs with Indira.
I really is hard to describe, just how excellent she was as a guide. I remember reading a quote once: What’s the difference between a gymnast and an acrobat ? They both do the same things, but the gymnast tries to make the activity look easy, and the acrobat tries to make it look hard. Indira made travel organization look simple, but having arranged my own trips several times, I knew that it wasn’t. |
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View of the forecourt, from high up on one of the walkways. |
| A view of one of the other forts, through a “window”. |  |
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High up on one of the walkways, out of the window, there are views of the village. |
| Angela and Paul, with a Hindu Holyman (possibly, or more likely, someone who dresses like one).
On the left of the picture, another “Holyman” wanted to get in on the action. |
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We visit a traditional Indian village.
Kingsley and Indira sample some street food, and as usual, wherever Kingsley goes, livestock are sure to follow. |
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I’ve done quite a lot of bushcraft and shelter building, but, using techniques i had been taught and practiced, this was actually someone’s home. |
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This bed was hand made by the occupants of the house.
Indira had told me as a child, she slept in a similar bed. The construction was amazing, and could easily have been constructed with just a swiss army knife. The cordage was hand made in a similar fashion to the stuff I did at Woodsmoke where cordage was twisted against its natural “turn”, and created an binding effect. |
| An eating house in the street, with food cooked on an open fire.
It always seems strange when I see people using skills I learn as a hobby, which they use as a practical day to day skill, in the same way I operate a microwave. One of the few souvenir shops around here, made me laugh. It had a sign in the window which said “More crap inside”. Priceless. |
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The other fort, much nearer to the village, which I had photographed several times from a distance.
When we walked around, we found that several homeless people were living there. |
| India is really moving on, in terms of business.
Even though it was a small village, there were many posters like these, advertising training in computer technology. |
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This one, wasn’t actually fastened onto the wall, it was painted directly onto it. |
| The local police station. |  |
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After we had walked around the town, Indira took us across the rive on this bridge, and we were able to relax here. |
| Here I relax in what Kevin called my “C&A Man” pose.
A few minutes later, Kingsley, good naturedly started to hand out pencils to a few of the local children, and we were mobbed !. |
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Looking across the river at one of the other forts. |
| We decide to leave the minibus and walk back to our hotel.
A superb relaxing walk and a great end to another brilliant day. |
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Before dinner, I grab a bottle of beer, and join everyone, “paddling” in the water at the back of the hotel.
We were sharing the hotel with some other guests, who also like to drink, and sadly at 10pm, the Hotel ran out of beer !. |