-- From New Delhi to Orchha
The road tracklog
towards Orchha
from 01/10 to 07/10/2007
This first day of October was one driving day from New Delhi to Fatehpur Sikri. The road was in excellent condition. It was a pleasure rare to drive except for the exit from New Delhi up to Faridabad during which traffic was very dense and required much attention have regard to the erratic behaviour of Indian driver. I arrived at the end of the afternoon at Gulistan Tourist Complex where I stationed my truck before walking to admire to sunset on the mosque.
The following morning I visited the site of the ghost town of Fatehpur Sikri, built by the Akbar emperor and hardly given up fifteen years later for lack of water. The site appeared to me better maintained that at the time of my former visits. It is difficult to imagine the life of the course of the emperor in these stone buildings of red sandstone facing. The set is always also cold and stripped of all heart. No animation effort is made in spite of the high asking price for foreigners. In the afternoon I drove towards Agra where I set up my bivouac at the Lauries Hotel.
Panoramic view
Fatehpur Sikri
the 01/10/2007
Buland Darwaza
Fatehpur Sikri
the 01/10/2007
Agra, city of superlatives from Akbar to Shah Jahan and his son Aurengzeb who deposited him and imprisoned him into the Red Fort vis-à-vis Taj Mahal which he contemplated during eight years from his gilded prison. I visited this city during a long day by bicycle with the rickshaw-men, in the air, sound and olfactive pollution. By visiting the mosque I undergone the intransigence of insane of God, nothing was saved to me. And yet, Taj Mahal is omnipresent symbol of the love of a man for his second wife, Mumtaz Mahal who died by putting in the world his ninth child, gift of Allah! In this city with a little attention it is easy to see the evolution of indo-Moslem art by visiting the three main mausoleums. I had a one rest day at the Lauries Hotel.
Taj Mahal
Agra
le 03/10/2007
La prison de Shah Jahan
Agra
le 03/10/2007
Vue du Taj Mahal
de la prison de Shah Jahan
Agra
le 03/10/2007
I left the noisy Lauries Hotel, close to a main road, to go directly to Orchha without stop in Gwalior. The road up to Gwalior is with toll except two or three sections under construction. From Gwalior to Jhansi the road is often degraded. Then up to Orchha it was recently asphalted. I found a bivouac on the Betwa’s ghâts where I spent three resting nights.
Ghats
Orchha
the 05/10/2007
Orchha is a thin village along a main road perpendicular to the market and the street leading to the palatial. It was the capital of a Rajput kingdom at the 17th century overcome by the vindication of a 13-year-old prince the future Aurangzeb whose religious intransigence, an Islamism precursor, was the one of the causes of the Mughal empire decline by creating an alliance of the Rajput clans. The whole, palates, temple and cenotaph are not in ruins but much degraded. There remain some beautiful frescos representatives of art Rajput.
Palaces
Orchha
the 06/10/2007
Laksmi Temple frescoes
Orchha
l
the 06/10/2007
Sunday 07/10 I remained in Orchha, harbour without noise and nauseating odour.
The following week I went to Khajuraho and Varanasi (Benares).
