The World Heritage listed Ajanta caves (Buddhist) were another tight squeeze on the way to a different train station (Jalgaon) for a 24 hour trip to Varanasi.
These cave temples weren’t as cool as the ones in Ellora, but still interesting. I found the cave paintings disappointing, but without a guide (nor a good flashlight – my headlamp isn’t working anymore!) they were rather faint and I couldn’t usually find the specific painting that the guidebook mentioned in a particular cave.
Tip: if you can only do one, see Ellora.
Carving inside a cave (with cool shadows cast by one of the few lights inside the caves)
Cave painting
Some of the 30 cave temples in this horseshoe shaped cliff face
I arrived in Aurangabad today, which is hella hot in the daytime, but reasonable in the evening. Very dry landscape.
The reason I’m here is I visited the World Heritage site Ellora Caves today (a must see!), which make the Mamallapuram rock carvings look minor…
More detail later, this internet place is closing soon (I really wanted to get some big highlights done of previous stops
There are 34 “caves” (some Buddhist, some Hindu, some Jain) carved out of the cliff-side between 7th and 11th Century)
Cave 16 – the huge Kailasa Temple (bigger than the Parthenon!)
Expensive hotels here. My half-decent budget hotel is Rs900/$22.50 per night (usually I’ve been paying Rs400/$10 most nights).
And I don’t even have my own toilet (though I do have a (bucket) shower in my room). Sigh.
And check out time is noon, so even though I’m here 48 hours (6am to 6am two days later), I’m paying for 3 nights! Well, he did give me a discount (only Rs500/$12.50 for the first “night” from 6am to noon today).
I ended up sleeping a few hours upon checkin because I didn’t sleep well on the train last night, despite following the lead of 3 Indian-Canadians from B.C. and paying for an upgrade to AC2 class (from AC3) via the conductor. Funny, AC2 was waitlisted when I tried to buy the ticket, and now there are at least a dozen empty berths.
Mumbai isn’t as bad as I expected, but I’ve only seen the small Colaba area near my hotel… after a late “brunch” (a South Indian thali) during which I read up and highlit my guidebook, I’m now ready to get out and explore!
Terry Fox is alive and well in India, or at least his memory is! (for your Canadians)
Literally. At both ends. But better this morning (only had a bland breakfast though). Not sure what it was – everything seems suspect in restrospect! I hope Christian and/or Silje (from Norway) weren’t sick too (although that would narrow down the bad (sea)food!)
I’ve checked out now, and am sharing a 2-hour taxi to the Margao train station (Rs1000/$25) in a few hours with Max, yet another Austrian.
Actually we’re paying a little more (Rs1200/$30 total; 2½ hours + church sightseeing) to make a detour to Old Goa and look at some of the churches there (something I had planned on doing as a day trip from Panjim (Panaji) but ditched to stay at the beach).
At 18:00 departs my 12 hour train to Mumbai, which has the most expensive hotel rooms in the country…
Kochi (Cochin) consists of a mainland part (Ernakulam), a peninsula (Fort Kochi (Fort Cochin)) and some islands (Vypeen and others). There are inexpensive ferries running between them, e.g. Rs2.50/$0.07 between Ernakulam and Fort Kochi.
Fort Kochi (Fort Cochin) is where most tourists head to (because mainland Ernakulam is a big dirty busy uninteresting Indian town, although that is where the train station is located (and named after)).
Highlights include:
Cantilevered Chinese fishing nets along the waterfront promenade
It’s green! As in parks, trees (reminds me a little of the French side of Pondy)
Fresh fish catch brought in by the fishermen (which you can buy and take to a resto to have it cooked, although I didn’t actually do that)
Refilling water bottle from a 5 gallon jug for Rs5/L (less/re-use plastic!)
Nice sunsets!
Kathakali Centre (if I hadn’t just seen one a performance at a temple a few nights earlier, this would be the place to go!)
Traditional sights that didn’t wow me: a church; Santa Cruz Basilica (though on Sun evening they do a procession around the basilica while firecrackers go off)
See also my previous post(s) on Kochi…
Photos: fresh fish for sale (lobster too, in his hand); Sun evening procession around Santa Cruz Basilica
Fresh fish for saleSun procession around Santa Cruz Basilica
I also bought two India-related books at a bookstore here:
Are you Experienced? by William Sutcliffe, about a first time backpacker in India (written by a 26 year old Brit, the characters are younger)
Holy Cow! An Indian Adventure by Sarah MacDonald (written by an Australian woman who returned to India 11 years after hating it the first time)
Restos I recommend:
Talk of the Town – on the 1st floor (2nd floor north american naming convention)
Salt ‘n’ Pepper – a sidewalk resto
New Ananda Bhavan (near the Kathakali Theatre) for a great thali lunch (Rs25/$0.63)
Ba’Sheer Juice on the waterfront for inexpensive fresh fruit juice (no water/ice/sugar!)
Misc photos: kids playing after school with what looks like a church steeple on the ground;
kid selling Spirograph (I remember having one as a kid!) for Rs60/$1.50 as he demonstrates it on his large paper
Yesterday was not fun, what with, umm, stomach issues, on the train yesterday (at least the toilet was pretty clean on the train, being in one of the better classes).
I arrived in Margao (Madgaon), the main train station town in Goa, in mid-afternoon exhausted and not feeling well.
So instead of 2 auto-rickshaws and 2 buses up to Arambol beach, I took the fastest route to a beach, which was a 10-15min auto-rickshaw ride to nearby Benaulim Beach (only 6-8km away from Margao).
I slogged along the beach to find a room at the beach huts, and the 3rd or 4th one did have one available (albeit with the tiles ripped out of the bathroom for renovation).
I drank 1L water with oral rehydration salts, took a brief swim, huddled on the padded lounge chair (free!) to watch sunset, and then slept off and on until the next morning (no dinner).
Today my stomach feels better. I had an exciting porridge breakfast (mmm), and a slightly more substantial lunch.
I was going to try to move to Arambol today, but it turns out check-out is at noon (not 24 hours from check-in) so I am staying another day (which is also safer, methinks).
The beach here is very wide, with light rolling waves and a good breeze. Lots of restos on the beach, but spread out enough to not be manic.
This is the main part of Benaulim beach (my bungalows/hotel is a 5 minute walk north of here, where it’s a little quieter)
There was no night train from Hampi. I should have considered the night sleeper bus (apparently you get a sleepable bunk – not reclining seats). Then again, The Book says to avoid night buses. Then again, I’ve met plenty of travelers who like them.
In the meantime, some more Hampi photos:
– the river, with laundry drying, looking from my side (Hampi Bazaar) towards the calmer other side (there’s a small boat crossing)
– giving a monkey a drink (yes, that’s my hand); the cap on the water bottle is loose so that it dripped (one monkey later bit a hole near the bottom of the bottle, so I closed the cap and used that as the water “spout”
Unfortunately, I had brought the wrong spare SD card (memory) for the camera and had no space half-way through the feeding frenzy (I had nuts and bananas for them too). Part of that problem was that I had organized the photos by location in a separate folder, so when I popped the card in it said no photos to display and I assumed it was empty, instead of checking that there was room for 500+ photos…
Communicating in English: Note: there is a movement in India to make Hindi the official country-wide unifying language, but south India is resisting the idea because English is the common second language – hardly anyone speaks Hindi in the south. Recall that virtually every state (certainly in the south) has its own language (a Dravidian language in the south, which is very different from Hindi).
Alleppey and backwaters:
In the backwaters village homestay, Thomas’ mother did the (excellent) cooking. She also gave cooking classes (no time for me though).
Tip: skip the night in Alleppey and head straight for Chennamkary village homestay!
Including this mother with baby – so cute! Had to include this pic for Susan!
Apparently the mother’s very red face means she is ready for to mate again…
They may be wild, but they are definitely used to humans – they will take bananas and nuts (one at a time, stuffing their cheek) out of your hand, and drink water from a loose-capped water bottle (one actually managed to twist the cap off) or from a half-coconut shell, even tipping it up like a cup!
I didn’t do any of that direct interaction (other guys did), but I’m heading up there again today with supplies!
Oh, and one of them kept touching my back while I was crouched taking photos and videos – they’d definitely get into a backpack or bag if you left it lying on the ground…
Monkey with baby on board
On an unrelated note, I was recently asked: How are you finding communicating in India? How common is English?
A: English is quite common (less so in smaller towns, but people who deal with tourists speak English, except for the canoe paddlers out of Alleppey
That being said, their English is hard to understand due to to the strong Indian accent (think Apu on The Simpsons but even stronger) – I frequently have to ask What? and Sorry? to get them to repeat it…
An exception of course is better- or foreign-educated Indians, their English is very understandable. Note: there is a movement in India to make Hindi the official country-wide unifying language, but south India is resisting the idea because English is the common second language – hardly anyone speaks Hindi in the south. Recall that virtually every state (certainly in the south) has its own language (a Dravidian language in the south, which is very different from Hindi).
