The Wandering Chocoholic

Orchha, India

Woke up this morning after a solid 9-hour sleep feeling refreshed, rested, and a thousand percent better. It’s amazing what a bit of fresh air, quiet, and a good night’s sleep can do.

ATM mission: accomplished

After a lovely buffet breakfast in the hotel, we set out towards town to sightsee a bit. But on the way into town, we heard exciting news: The ATM had money in it! Not only that, but the lineup wasn’t too long. A few of us made a beeline there, and queued up among the surprisingly friendly locals.

Most people we’ve spoken to seem to be taking the frustration of the currency situation in a surprising amount of stride; not that I’ve done an official poll or anything, but they all seem supportive of the official government position that it will cut down on corruption. I couldn’t imagine people back home accepting this sort of situation with a smile; after all, people are unable to buy food, go to work or do much of anything other than queue up for hours on end to get cash. There would be riots in the street by us, most likely. Not to mention, it’s highly debatable whether demonetization will actually accomplish anything at all against corruption; after all, the rich have plenty of black market options at their disposal, while the poor are in dire straits. But it seems like this is something of a popular move here, which baffles the heck out of me. But anyway.

Within a half hour or so, we’d made it to the front, with the help of a bank manager telling us to stand in a separate queue for westerners. I’ve been here a week now and this has happened so often that I’m starting to lose my sense of guilt over it; I still feel vaguely bad whenever I do it, but it appears to just be how things are done here. Then, I got the unique experience of using an ATM in India. While at home, people keep a respectful distance, here, they crowd in right behind you and stare over your shoulder, offering advice on what buttons to press to make the machine work. It’s a bit tricky to keep your PIN hidden, but they mean well. Visa/PLUS was working; MasterCard/Cirrus wasn’t. Luckily I have one of each, so I was able to get the daily maximum of 2000 rupees (about $40 Canadian) out from the machine. Between that and the cash I exchanged the other day, I should be well sorted from now until we leave India. Level up!

Quick visit to Orchha Palace

At that point, we only had about a half hour for a very quick, condensed tour of the Orchha Palace complex. We saw two of the structures, including the Raj Mahal — not to be confused with the Taj Mahal — which had some lovely rock paintings and some elaborate doors. I didn’t really remember too many more details, but the palace is on the river and quite lovely. Also, there were more monkeys strolling the grounds.

Indian cooking class

Then, one of the trip highlights so far: An Indian cooking class in the home of a local woman. It was more of a demonstration than a class, though a few of us did get drafted as helpers at one point or another, shelling peas, rolling dough and so on. The lady running the class made an enormous number of dishes, all of which seemed to contain cilantro, coriander and cumin.

We took notes on the recipes as best we could, though to be honest, some of these ingredients would be tough to source back home, and plenty of the recipes were so labour-intensive that I’d be unlikely to bother back home. But it was amazing to see how efficiently she threw together fantastic flavours of all kinds. We made masala chai from scratch to start off with, and while we were sipping that, we made three different kinds of vegetable curry, a rice pilaf dish, a yogurt dish, some guava chutney, fried dal, and two kinds of flatbreads. Everything was delicious, and we ate so much we thought they might have to roll us out of there.

Lazy afternoon in Orchha

We headed back to town, stopping off in the marketplace so a few people could get henna on their hands, or browse the shops a bit more. I picked up some Oreos for tonight’s train, because some traditions must be continued.

Next, Chris, Des and I walked up to the chhatris to walk around and explore. The chhatris (cenotaphs) that tower over the Orchha landscape were built by Maharaja Sujan Singh in the 17th century. They surrounded a square courtyard with lovely flower gardens. We had the whole place to ourselves, and we wandered through leisurely, almost not daring to speak to break the peaceful silence. Quiet is such a rare thing in India that you really have to stop and appreciate it when you can. It’s easy to understand why meditation and yoga come from India; with so much chaos, people really need retreats.

At that point we were tired and we headed back to the hotel to use the WiFi in the lobby for a bit. A few people got Indian massages. Some of us ordered drinks and sat and sipped them by the pool. And we just chatted and whittled the time away. Soon we’ll have some dinner and head out to the train station to board our night train to Varanasi.

This has been our chance to chill out for a day or so, and we’re all enjoying it immensely. Orchha is my favourite place in India so far, and I’m really glad we came here. I think if I had only seen the big cities, I would have had a very different view of the country. But it’s so pretty and peaceful here, I feel like I could really love it here.