Onward to Orchaa Resort, a luxury hotel, with a pool!
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| Lovely Aussie Sam photobombs |
A visit to two conjoined castles, Jehangir Mahal and Raj Mahal - examples of medieval Islamic architecture, built a few hundred years apart - Hogwarts twinned with Gormenghast.
How on earth these were built, in the middle of nowhere, the materials found and shifted here. The manpower and skills involved must have been immense, showing the money and power these guys once held. Beautiful, inspired and strange.
And look, there are our quarters, a row of tents billeted in the grounds and overlooked by these towering ruins, mausoleums for the local chiefs' nearest and dearest.
Vultures look down, hoping the practice might be revived.
Into town to see the sunset over the river Betwa, and to visit the Ram Raja temple for the ceremony of Durga Pooja, atonement to the six-armed goddess Durga.
She looks suspiciously like a Powerpuff Girl to me, and we see her regularly from now on.
No photography, but imagine a bright, colourful family occasion at Smithfields market, with several different 'counters', where people choose their favourite priest to chant with and pay tribute to Buttercup.
At the local Tara Gram paper factory we see the women and men create beautiful products - notebooks, diaries, stationery - from old rags and clothing. Very hard work, not a lot of health and safety (another recurrent theme), but valuable employment as part of an official scheme for job creation and eco-manufacturing.
We have a fun cooking lesson with local lass Vandna and her kids, culturally appropriating saris and kurtas to add to the authenticity.
I'll try some of her recipes when we back to Walthamstow - the ingredients will be easy to source, not so sure about my technical skills.
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