Day 15: Varanasi

I’ve never had such a love-hate rela­tion­ship with any­where on planet Earth as with Varanasi. Maybe for­eign­ers should be barred from this city. I don’t know. On one hand, this is a cul­tur­ally amaz­ing place. It’s among of humanity’s most ancient cities, and it shows; lay­ers of alley­ways and build­ings in degrees of decay bunch up …

Read More →

03.13.2011 – 10:03:PM | By Matt Carney | Posted in India II | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments:

Day 13: Khajuraho II

We were wrong to sec­ond guess the woman from the other day. She gen­uinely wanted our com­pany only, noth­ing more. We returned the next morn­ing where the woman, named Sayra, her eldest daugh­ter Anjum, and youngest Zeba were all work­ing on break­fast. The two girls worked in the kitchen, while Sayra sat on the floor in …

Read More →

02.17.2011 – 9:08:AM | By Matt Carney | Posted in India II | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments:

Day 11: Khajuraho

This is the Dis­ney­land of India. It’s not pre-designed, of course–the three tem­ple groups here are gen­uine, all of them circa 1000CE, and real peo­ple live here. I’ve just never seen this many tourists crowded into one place in this coun­try before, nor have I been to an Indian city with merely 15,000 res­i­dents, nor …

Read More →

02.16.2011 – 2:22:AM | By Matt Carney | Posted in India II | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments:

Day 9: Ajanta and Ellora Caves

Ajanta and Ellora are eas­ily among the top five sites for any­body who likes mon­u­ments, Hin­duism or Bud­dhism, or any com­bi­na­tion of those. In terms of mon­u­ments, I’d say that per­son­ally, these sites were more inter­est­ing than many ancient mon­u­ments in Europe—they are cer­tainly bet­ter pre­served for being the same age. Ajanta is older, the …

Read More →

02.15.2011 – 8:02:AM | By Matt Carney | Posted in India II | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments: