On the way to Orccha the bus broke down. So I was kicking it in heat that matched the Thar desert easily. Of course there was no shade to be found. Eventually I end up climbing onto another bus passing by. Two bus worth of people in one bus. Atleast there were no chickens...that I saw.Orccha was cool. It was a dirty hippy paradise with sadhus, a couple butt-naked, and Hindu pilgrims everywhere. There's a Ram temple in the village that attracts many people, and I happened to arrive during an auspicious time. My first night there I was walking down
towards the river and a very fragile looking sadhu came up behind me singing some song. I listened carefully trying to figure out what he was saying. I recognized it as Sanskrit. It was a pleasant song and really added to the aura of the place. Once he finished his song I began with one of the Rama shlokas that I had to memorize earlier. You should have seen this guys face. About half way through, once he realized that what I was saying was not coincidental, he emphatically finished the song. It was awesome. That was probably the most memorable part of the trip. Otherwise it was just more temple/palace/fort whoring. 
The king's palace there was pretty kick ass though. I snuck in early and had the place to myself. Some of the balconies and outer passage ways had collapsed and you could see through the shaky floor in many spots which made for a scary tour. There were giant vultures sitting on top of the ancient spires. All things considered it was pretty special.
I "finished" Orccha pretty early and needed to kill time somehow. I decided to head back down to the river and find a tree to sit under and just watch the pilgrims do their laundry and swim and whatnot. I finally settled on a clean enough spot, but it smelled pretty foul again. Like that field of dead cows and your average septic river. I'm just sitting there taking in the sights and after about 20 minutes I notice that one of the nearby "boulders" was actually a half submerged dead cow. Locals eagerly swam and bathed and did their laundry. What happened to the dead cow moments later is far too disgusting to relate here. I couldn't wait to get home.
And of course Delhi had its own surprises waiting for me. Like the guy with elephantitis-stricken-testicles swollen to the size of small basketballs running around flashing everyone. It never stops in here.
