Journey to Khajuraho

Four lane highway challenges

Today was an arduous day of traveling. We left the hotel at 7AM to catch an 8AM train from Agra to Jhansi. The train was about 10 minutes late and we found our seats (reserved in an air-conditioned car) which was like any other train I've taken. The 2 hour and 40 minute train ride took almost 4 hours because the electric engine had problems. We were on the last third of the journey, when the train stopped, started again, stopped ....this went on for 4-5 times with one stop of almost 1/2 an hour as they tried to fix the engine - I guess this was our adventure part of our overseas adventure travel.

Blow your horn to pass

We then started a five hour bus trip from Jhani to Khajuraho. This is only about one hundred miles, but as Mary described it: this is a 1 1/2 lane road. For a truck and our bus to pass, one usually had to have two wheels on the shoulder or we could pass in the center between two scooters on either side. Most of the road was heavily pot holed - so that's why we averaged 20 mph. Of course, looking back on all our bus travel, this was about our average speed, even on four lane roads. Every road has pedestrians, carts pulled by people, horses or camels, cows, bicycles, rickshaws, tut-tuts, cars and trucks, plus the typical chaos of small cities.
We arrived at the Radisson Jass hotel at about 6 PM. We're now in central India, the smog decreased significantly and the land has lots of trees and hills. On many hills we see either forts or Hindu shrines. All of this effort to see the temples built in the 9th-10th centuries by the Chandela dynasty.