Khajuraho
Without gloves, hands almost froze during the early morning drive from Jhansi. But Khajuraho had everything you needed to have to heat you up. Man, some of those erotic babes at Khajuraho, holding dicks and all that in their hands and giving blow jobs upside down to fifteen men at a time, can turn anyone on. At least they did turn Tiwari and me on. Tiwari got so charged up that he even ended up making honeymoon plans. The funny thing is that Khajuraho was known as “Vatsa” once upon a time. That explains all my horniness, doesn’t it? 😛
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The ride to Bandhavgarh that ended in Barhi
Once we decided to leave Khajuraho, it was a long drive the rest of the day, because we were determined to reach Bandavgarh by night. We didn’t. None of them who we asked for directions recommended going all the way to Bandavgarh because there was a jungle in the way, not supposed to be safe during night-time. They didn’t really tell us in a “noooooooooo, don’t go there at this time for God’s sake!” type of fashion. What they told was much more subtle, without trying to challenge our guts, but definitely delivering the same frightening message nevertheless. We were told that of course we could drive all the way to Bandavgarh, crossing jungles and all that but if we found anyone waving hands at us, signaling us to stop, we should simply zoom past. Now that kind of thing is scary. You tell such things to strangers crossing your town on a bullet and asking you for directions when you want to scare them like shit.
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About 100 kms before Bandavgarh, roads disappeared and their place was taken over by boulders on ground. That super bumpy stretch in the dark was really long and gaand ki literally lag gayi. The mere though that we could have lost directions and might have to return back through the same path was so depressing that I felt like throwing both the bike and Tiwari somewhere in the dark and then hitting my head with the heaviest boulder that I could lift. Luckily, we didn’t have to return. We reached a small town called Barhi. We had been told that if we decided to play safe and all, we could take a night halt at Barhi. That’s what we decided to do especially after the hip-hurting ride.
Now Barhi was a friggin small town and sadly it was the only town before Bandavgarh where we could expect to find a shelter in the night. There were no hotels but lodges in Barhi. To our utter disappointment we soon discovered that the first lodge that we went to, was full. The care-taker came out and told us that he would have really loved to offer us shelter, given that we were coming from such far off places on bike and all that but he regretted the unavailability of any extra space where he could accommodate us. He was a good man and he did direct us to another lodge – apparently the only other lodge in Barhi. The thought of even this second and last lodge being occupied was more scary than the idea of being mugged at night in the Bandhavgarh jungles. It was past nine in the night – Barhi was a strange and small land, Bandavgarh was about sixty more kilometers away and our hips were bleeding.
The other lodge had only two rooms. One was vacant – we took it – for 100 bucks. Phew! More than me, my hips were delighted. This was going to be the cheapest accommodation that we would have during the entire road trip – but who cared! There was one problem though – there was no bathroom. How could we sleep without taking a bath after such a long journey? Tiwari spotted a Sulabh Souchalaya (SS) right opposite the lodge, on the other side of the road. I removed my clothes, put on a green towel (that had been picked up at Jhansi by the way, along with a new underwear), stepped outside the lodge, crossed the road bare-chested, reached the SS and then realized something – they won’t have hot water. They didn’t. It must have been less than twenty degrees at that time.
There was a hand-pump right outside the SS, right on the road and at 10 in the night I decided to have bath in public under street light, with some locals fellas warming themselves up on fire lit nearby. The reason I decided to use the hand-pump was not to display my naked body in public but because the water that comes from hand-pumps on cold winter nights is usually warmer than the outside temperature. It was true – the water indeed was warm and I had a refreshing bath and Tiwari clicked my nude pictures. Then we swapped roles.
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It had been a tiring day and soon after having food and parking the bike securely, we crashed off. The plan was to get up early and reach Bandhavgarh as quick as possible so that we didn’t have to miss the jeep-safari that we knew happened only in the mornings. I guess I dreamed about tigers having sex in the jungle that night – that’s what you dream about when you have been in Khajuraho one day and about to be in Bandhavgarh the next.