Dear All,
We had decided to visit Orcha after a recommendation from a friend saying that it was a beautiful small town and the perfect place to chill our for a few days. So we were looking forward to chilling our in a quiet town until we had arrived on the one weekend Orcha has its biggest festival of the year!!
The festival is called “Ram Virah” and celebrates the marriage of 2 gods; Rama the Sun god to Sita another god of something I cant remember (theres so many gods that appear in so many forms its confusing). The festival is celebrated all over India however in Orcha there is India’s only temple dedicated to Rama, so the festival heart is in Orcha. Indian weddings are huge events when its humans getting married and involves all night parties, dancing, food the whole shebang, so you can imagine when their celebrating the gods wedding the party is 10 times bigger..
Saturday started with breakfast at the front of our very small 5 bedroom hotel. We sat eating toast and jam and chai and watched the crowds file into Orcha. It was a continual procession of colourful saris, excited kids and wandering sadhu’s (holy men) as we ate breakfast. Most had walked from smaller towns and those with a bit more money arrived in tuktuks (we had squeezed 4 of us in one tuktuk, they managed to squeeze 10 in one tuktuk).
During the day they continued to arrive at Orcha and set up a space in front of the Rama temple to wait for the ceremony to begin once the sun went down. We wandered across to the Palace (I think I may have called it a fort in the last blog). It is a huge palace with high walls and big and small domes on the roof, it was built in sandstone in the 1600’s as the residence of a local leader. As most were at the festival we had the palace to ourselves and wandered the corridors, stairways, balconies and rooftop. It’s a beautiful palace with carved windows, archways and walls. A family of monkeys came to watch us and in turn we watched them jumping around. There was also a large number of vultures hanging around the palace. I’ve never seen vultures up close before but when it landed on the roof closeby, it was suddenly huge.
Once the sun had gone done the singing and dancing began at the temple. It was a real festival atmosphere with people selling icecream, samosas and little sweet cakes that are offerings and then the streets were lined with others selling blue and red flashing hindu gods, hindu posters, fake flowers, plastic toys and piles of different shades of red powder used for tikkas (the red dot). It had a similar atmosphere to the lily dale show..however it was a religious festival. What amazed me most were at least 10 men in different spots with small suitcases, books filled with designs and very vintage looking battery run tattoo gun. Yep, you could even get a tattoo at the festival. Every stall was busy tattooing men with their girlfriends or wives initials, apparently its very romantic..and I’m sure it would be very romantic when they catch HIV from sharing tattoo needles. For that reason dan and I decided to refrain.
The festival kicked into gear at around 9pm when there was a parade. The start of the parade were small vans decked out on lights, speakers and tinsel blasting music so loud it was distorted. Then followed 10 small boys or teenagers carrying a box with a metal candelabra type structure on top with 3 fluoro bulbs at the end of each metal arm following them were 3 very small vans with huge generators to power the boys carrying the light thingys..it was all very odd. The parade had to keep stopping because following the light boys was a carriage carried by men which held two people dressed as the gods Rama and Sita. Once Rama and Sita enter the temple you’re not allowed to take photos so outside during the parade it is almost a riot to get close and take a snap, we stayed back and could only see elbows, arms and a mass of bodies surging towards the tiny cart. It was all very crazy. From there the carriage enters the temple and the formal marriage ceremony is held. However by this time we had seen enough and more importantly had been shoved, pushed and hassled enough that we decided to head for bed.
Some Indians don’t blink an eye as we walk past, others stare and even if you return the stare they continue to stare. Others are brave enough to ask for photos, dan is popular with the ladies as they think he looks like a movie star.lol. Then some Indians want you to come to their shop “just looking is free”, others offer massages or yoga courses. There’s a variety of beggars ranging from peaceful sadhu’s to hobbling old ladies to the really little dirty kids some who openly ask for money others who just tag along as we walk. The kids are the hardest because you cant give to them all and you don’t want to encourage their begging, makes it tricky. We have seen a few that are more like street buskers; a snake charmer in Varanasi and a tiny little smiling girl around the age of 4 who can tightrope walk. I suppose its all part of the experience.
We woke on Sunday to a much quieter Orcha and had breakfast at a small rooftop restaurant. The family that owned the restaurant were lovely and loved cricket so dan and I pretended to know something about cricket which was funny. Guess who the most amazing cricketer is through Indian eyes?? SHANE WARNE! Lol. Spoke to the family for a while and the wife ended up painting a flowery pattern on the inside of my hand with henna (a natural ink), meanwhile dan entertained their 3 year old with his magic tricks.
We left Orcha late on Sunday afternoon and caught a tuktuk to Jhansi and then a train for 3 hours to Agra. Although it wasn’t the chilled out town we thought, it was definitely worth the visit.
Love to all , jess xoxo
