Day 8 – Are you a Jainist Monk or are you just happy to see Amazon Woman

In the morning prior to setting out to Jhansi to catch our train to Agra, we visited the eastern group of temples which where also constructed with the principles of Tantric art (a little bit of naughtiness).  During this portion we were introduced to Jainism, a faith that roughly runs parallel to Buddism but varies in some significant ways.  There are two main sects of monks who approach the issue of rejecting all worldly goods to different extremes.  The Digambara, take a very extreme view of this by rejecting all clothing (nuns where simple white clothing).  Whereas, Svetambarra monks wear simple white robes.  The reason I raise this is that they each have temples devoted to the faiths at this site (although both reject the need for a temple).  The image of naked guys walking about the countryside, in contrast to the sculptures on their temples, is confusing at best.

Putting those disturbing images behind us, we said goodbye to our guide and departed the hotel in the hands of our driver to get us to Jhansi in lots of time to catch our train to Agra.  Easier said than done.

The supposedly short drive to Jhansi was complicated by a public holiday with many fairs and celebrations along our route.  The biggest of these broke up minutes before we approached  one lane bridge in the town.  Traffic ground to a halt and the predictably undisciplined drivers immediately filled up all lanes on our side.  At the peak, there were 6 lines of traffic abreast on our side, a scant 100m from the bridge.  I’m sure an identical situation developed on the far side.  This classic standoff continued for over an hour, with people going nowhere.  Police seemed caught off guard and totally ineffective in dealing with the situation, until they broke the logjam, allowing a steady stream of vehicles from the other side over.  After about 10 minutes of this, tempers began to boil over on our side as evidenced by the blaring of horns.  Motor bikes continued to bypass lanes, merrily cutting of others and squeezing every little crack they could find.

Finally, after over an hour, we began to inch forward, crossing the bridge, but not doing much better than a crawl, for about another 5 km.  After this, traffic thinned out and we made it to the train station about an hour later and in time (20 min.) to catch our train to Agra.

We arrived in Agra about 10 minutes late, met our new driver (for the next 15 days) and went to the hotel.  With dreams of the Taj Mahal dancing in our heads we were soon fast asleep.