Cookery Class

Monkeys were still in evidence this morning, though not quite so close, as well as Egyptian vultures roosting on the temples. For breakfast we headed back to the little cafe where we ate last night, and found a great variety of food on offer from Korean to Israeli. Our visit this morning, still in Orchha, was to a couple of 15th century palaces abandoned in the 1700's. In fact one of them took 80 years to build and was only ever occupied for one night. The frescoes here were exceptionally well preserved as they had never been exposed to direct sunlight.

Wider local rickshaws took us to an Indian cookery class run by a relation of our guide. She taught us how to make masala tea, vegetable curry and puris, a puffed up bread. Later we enjoyed lunch, a beautiful meal made by the two lovely ladies who were demonstrating.

The bus took us along increasingly bumpy roads to Alipura, a small town further east from Orchha. Our accommodation here was in another Heritage property, a palace owned by the present Rajah. The rooms were huge as were the bathrooms with lovely furnishings to match. We had a bit of a walk round the village, a very traditional place with few amenities but better houses than we have seen elsewhere. As usual our group attracted loads of children, practising their English.

Our main meal was taken in the hotel, a buffet with about 10 choices. The only beer was strong beer so after such a long and bumpy drive it wasn't a problem falling asleep. Our instructions were to catch up on sleep as the day trip wouldn't start till 12.00.