Day By Day

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Adventures in India, Part 21 -- Jhansi to Orchha

We detrained in Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh and took a bus out to Orchha, a small town in the neighboring district of Madhya Pradesh, where we had lunch.

A monument to Mohandas Ghandi, the reformer who gained international fame for his pacifism, but whose economic prescriptions doomed India to remain a largely stagnant subsistence economy through the second half of the Twentieth Century.


In rural India humans live in close contact with livestock, even in the towns.


And in Jhansi, just as in the great cities, the streets are crowded.


Lower class housing, but with a satellite dish.


At Orchha on the banks of the Betwa river we lunched in the midst of impressive Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century temples -- a remembrance of the region's days of glory under the Maharajas.



The family business....






The Betwa River. This area is advertised as a "resort" where people can escape the tumult of the city. That is certainly true -- but there is no escape from the pervasive poverty.


Another reminder of the glorious past -- the Orchha Palace, once the domicile of the local Raja.


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