One night in Orchha

Our stunning trip to Orchha was an eleventh hour decision. Diyari was visiting from Zurich, and Rahim and I from New York, and we all wanted a trip out of Delhi, somewhere wild, in the mountains. We were ready, bus tickets printed, bags packed.

Then, two hours before we four idiots were to leave, sitting in Khan Chacha's, someone decided to check the weather. To be fair, Sheba had been to the mountains around the same time last year, and it had been pleasant during the day, colder at night, so we thought we had some idea. We didn't. The five day forecast for Manali was freezing. Literally. 0 celcius, high of 10 (50F) on the warmest day. Almost doable, but it would also be raining. All week.

We unanimously bagged the trip. And then scrambled to figure out where else we could go. Goa and Pondicherry were out because last minute air fares were astronomical. So we settled on a four day trip to Orchha, a little town in the state of Madhya Pradesh, that Sheba had visited last year on a writing retreat.

Built in the 17th century by the Bundela Dynasty, Orchha had ruins aplenty, and a palace, plus the famed erotic temples of Khajuraho a day trip away. And it was dry and warm - a 6 hour train ride south of Delhi, in the desert. Maybe even too warm: 40C (that's over 100F) but Sheba promised to find us a nice hotel with a pool (more on this later).

Orchha turned out to be a bit of a scrabby town, but the ruins and palace and temples were fabulous. There are remains of the old royal complex stretching for miles around, and the centre of the Bundela kingdom, Jahangir Mahal, is grandly and beautifully preserved.

My favourite sightseeing spot was the chhatris, a set of multi-story memorials to the rulers of Orchha, built along the River Betwa. Vultures perched on steepled tops, larger than life, reminding me of the old stories we were told in Nigeria about how they could carry a child away (these definitely could). Inside the chhatri complex was a fountain filled with flowers in the middle of a garden surrounded by elegant old tombs, spiring into the sky.

Our day trip to Khajuraho was a mixed bag. We spent 8 hours in a hired car, driving there and back, and the hottest 3 hours of the day in Khajuraho itself, an even scabbier town with touts galore. Spanish speakers, take note, Spanish is the foreign language of choice and every boyman will speak it to you while he grabs for your attention.

Not in Khajuraho but apt

The restaurants are hohum, the service unfriendly, and the men relentless. A trip to the ice cream shop resulted in me, Sheba, and Diyari surrounded by young ones, staring and whispering (on the good side), pushing through us and arguing with the shopkeeper (on the bad side). Ugh.

But the Khajuraho temples are sexed up sandstone spectacles. The manicured park that contains the Western temples is nothing like the jungle that used to surround, but it does make it easier to see. And the erotic sculptures live up to the hype - they are intensely intimate, romantic, sensual, explicit. Friezes of sculptures band the outsides of the temples, several stories high, and inside, the gods sit in stone cool silence. Marvelous.

So our hotel in Orchha was, as promised, lux. A replica of an 18th century nobleman's residence, Hotel Bundel Khand was over the top, a sight to see. Our rooms were massive with carved wooden headboards, high ceilings, stained glass windows, fans and light switches from another era. The bathrooms had lushy painted tiles on the floors and walls, and showers big enough for an orgy. The terraces were bound with vines and overlooked the River Betwa, with its boulders and clear running water.

As opulent as all this, the open spaces took the cake: the four part lawn, two open air lounges, a pool, a rooftop terrace with views of both the river and the inner courtyard. Every night, folk musicians played in the centre lawn for guests who wished to dine outside.

There was a flowering hedgerow around what we named the dragonfly lounge, for their iridescent company. There, in relative seclusion, under the billowing canopy, on pillowed lounge chairs, we started our 10 hour party, in the heat of the afternoon, set to the soundtrack Rahim had made for my birthday earlier that week (on my kickass portable speakers), tripping the light fantastic.

Towards twilight, we danced our (nearly) nungu pungu way into the cool blue pool, scandalising the guests and their children. By night, we were up on the roof that ran the circumference of the hotel, ornate watchtowers every turn, posing with the lizards and the sodium lamps, laughing and laughing and laughing.

Just before midnight, we lay down to watch the world breathe, unravel, coalesce, when the lights went out. Thunder and we stood and shivered in the open air hallways, watching purple lightning splinter the sky, wind and rain like the world was going to end. To the rescue, here is beauty. If we exist for nothing else, it's enough. Would that I remember.