I’ll start at the beginning. Four of us took a bus ride to Aurangabad. When we arrived there, our plan was to first find a hotel. This took us to the other side of the street…where we were nearly accosted by a slew of Indian men telling us that they knew a “nice, clean, new” hotel we could stay at only “one minute away.” Did I mention this was after midnight? From what I’ve gathered that’s pretty late for most parts of India—so I was already on guard (and a bit nervous). I’m a planner and the fact that we had no plans wasn’t exactly helping the uneasiness these eager men invoked. The feeling was universal for three of us so we soon decided to grab a rickshaw and head to another part of town where we knew there was another group of hotels.
Getting a rickshaw was another fiasco. At first, we grabbed a bigger one because it’s difficult enough to fit four people into the back of one—add in four full backpacks and the thing would burst at the seams. A couple of the eager men with “nice clean hotels one minute away” followed us to the street and we trying to explain to the driver where we wanted to go. I’m not sure where the other men came from but somehow we ended up surrounded by at least 10 men all arguing about where we were going and which rickshaw could take us there. At this point, I was pretty scared. Our ratios were not looking good. I think, in the end, I’m just a paranoid traveler and these men were all just trying to be helpful. Eventually we squeezed onto the right rickshaw and made our way to another hotel.
To make a long story short, we stayed at this next hotel. Two more of our group joined us (they had taken a later bus) and we woke early to get in a very full day of sightseeing. And believe me, it was full. We visited the Ellora caves which are about a half hour away (we hired a driver for the day) and then we ventured over to the Ajanta caves which are about two hours further.
This “caves” are really temples built by Hindus or Buddhists honoring their gods. I must say if I were one of these gods, I’d be quite pleased with their workmanship in making these magnificent sanctuaries. To give you an example:
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| Ode to Buddha! |
At the second cave, I was in the process of framing what was to be an excellent photo when an Indian man walked right into the frame and smiled. I didn't really understand what was going on...he then proceeded to grab his wife and they smiled together. By some universal human code of language (he knew no English, I know very little Hindi) I realized he wanted me to take their photo and then see it. So it began. Another group of guys wanted the same done and somehow they love seeing their image on my camera. Then a girl gestured to me that she wanted to take a photo of me. I thought she meant that she wanted to take my photo for me, so I motioned a polite "no thank you." She seemed insistent and I realized that she wanted to take a photo of me so I just smiled and her friend snapped a shot of both of us. Then it began. EVERYONE wanted my photo. I managed to escape and move onwards after ten or so pictures but it started again with the group of us very quickly. Below is a pic I took of celebrity life. I'm not sure why they wanted pictures of us so badly but one of the guys thinks its auspicious for them. Another theory goes that they only see us white people in movies...perhaps that's also true but they were also loving on the Asians in our group. Maybe they're also a rare species in the cities around the caves where I'm guessing these people came from.
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| Oh, life on the red carpet. |
We also saw MONKEYS! First we saw them on the side of the road and then playing in trees near the caves. It was awesome! I'm not sure what species of monkeys they were but check them out for yourself.
The cave area was EXTREMELY hot so we were all drenched and exhausted after walking around all day. Another thing that was exhausting was the constant near-encounter with death. Let's just say Indian driving is risky like no other. Our driver never seemed satisfied with the speed of the person in front of us so he was constantly passing (on a two-way road with nearly constant oncoming traffic). Blinkers are unknown on the roads but the horn is a driver's best friend. Even sitting in my room in Pune (which is on a street), you can constantly here beep beep beep beep beep. It's the only language drivers know to communicate with one another. There were also lots of cows meandering the roads, usually being herded in groups of at least four. The cows all have painted horns (usually blue or red), by the way. I can't convey the stress of watching our driver navigate around the other cars, oncoming traffic, cows, and endless potholes but hopefully you understand at least a little.
Our driver thankfully offered a good price to drive us all the way back to Pune so we made our way. On Indian highways, there's a secret code of contact involving the actual use (shocking I know) of blinkers. I think there's some sort of Morse code with the frequency of blinks signaling that you, as a driver, will hit the car behind you unless they allow space for merging. Of course it sounds incredibly chaotic to us, but I made it home in one piece so seems the system works or we had a huge stroke of luck.
When we finally got home, I took the most glorious shower and SLEPT in my beautifully comfortable bed. Mmm delicious.
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