Temples and more temples

This will be the temple and fort tour so there will be more on this later.   However, I would like to comment on some wonderful temples we saw in Khadjuraho last week.  We are in transit now leaving Delhi today for Agra - so not much to report except a couple of cases of Delhi-belly (Christina and me) and some flea bites from Varanasi.  I should also say that Alex got hung up in that awful storm and was unable to get to New York to catch his flight but he is in transit now and he will catch up with us at Agra.
We had a wonderful guide in Khadjuraho who had lived all over the world but had now retired to this village and guided tourists through the temple sites there.
He explained the meaning of all those figurines we see on Indian temples.  They start at the bottom with a military life of wine women and song (with apologies to Canada's peacekeepers) and move to up a level to a family life then to the life of an ascetic and on upwards to heaven.  The idea is that one can contemplate the carvings on the temples and over time achieve enlightenment.  It is meant as a visual scripture or teacher for a largely illiterate population.  What is really lovely about it is that one does not have to give up everything in order to achieve enlightenment. Every aspect of life plays a role and by living life, by living the stages of life one eventually gets to the top of the temple, the wheel of life beyond which is heaven.  It is quite beautiful and Raj, our guide was a very good teacher.