In Agra we visited the Taj Mahal and the magnificent Agra Fort, described in an earlier posting following our first visit there in December. Remarkably, neither site had changed much in the two months since we last visited. Late in the afternoon we visited a carpet showroom and saw a good demonstration of all the stages of design and production of a knotted wool carpet. Gloria and Peter bought one! Even more amazing, we didn’t! 
Next morning we boarded a train and traveled east for about 4 hours across the middle of the Indian sub-continent to Jhansi. This train ride took us through vast agricultural expanses of wheat, mostly still planted, cut and threshed by hand. As is 
always the case in India, we could see 
many 
men and women throughout the countryside, tending the crops or their cattle or goats. Even though the crop appeared sumptuous, the people live in very plain and crowded conditions, in small brick or adobe brick houses with few or no windows, and thatched or tiled roofs. Some have electricity, very few have running water (use local wells/pumps), but many have TVs and cell phones. We disembarked the train in the early afternoon and piled into rickshaws for the 20 km drive to Orchha on the Betwa River.
In Orchha we arrived at “Betwa Cottages” and were checked into tents! Ours was a lovely white canvas tent lined with marigold colored cotton, with beds, chairs and furniture, a frige, an air conditioner and fan, and a full bathroom (this was fortuitous since Orchha was where I had a 12-hour bout of the Indian equivalent of Montezuma’s Revenge, of which Dean was mercifully unaware because of the lulling purr of the air conditioner! My recovery was hasty and complete. 
Our tent was conveniently located beside the small swimming pool, and all of the tour members were glad of the opportunity to submerge in the water and cool down. 
The town is the site of many stone palaces dating back 500-600 years, each decorated with wonderful ornate figurative and geometric carved designs. 
The sites are relatively uncontrolled, meaning that you can wander into the palaces and climb up stairs to the upper levels for a nice view of the surrounding landscapes. 
From these, one could see the nearby Betwa River and the many pilgrims (to this holy Hindu town) gathering and bathing along the banks. Again, there was a dazzling array of color afforded by the women’s saris, and bare-skinned little children ran in and out of the water’s edge.
Because it is Holi week, the number of pilgrims in town is even greater than usual. At the temple, there was chanting and singing, and then with a great commotion,, a grilled gate was thrust open revealing the idol of Ram. Some people prostrated themselves while others raised their hands. In Hinduism, I gather, the idol does not merely represent a god, it IS that god. Never mind that the same god may have another temple dedicated to him/her just down the road. A leap of faith of one kind or another is required to get over that little inconsistency. 
Then people formed up into a line-up and processed by in front of the idol, presenting their offerings of flowers and fruit, and receiving some back as a blessing from the god. It was lovely to see.
We had a good amount of unscheduled time in Orchha, which was much appreciated so that we could wander through the other palaces, or cool off at the swimming pool. 
We visited a paper-making
workshop supported by a local NGO for the development of craft.
Dean and I went with several others to a 
sound-and-light
performance at Raja Mahal, the largest palace in the town. There, colored spotlights were used on various parts of the building to accentuate points of a musical and narrated soundtrack reviewing the history of the town and its rajas (kings).
station, and at nearly 11PM,
boarded
the overnight train to Allahabad. We were on our way eastward across the middle of the India sub-continent toward Varanasi, but with lots more ahead of us before we arrived in that holy place.
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