Ellora Caves
Trip Start
Aug 24, 2010
1
13
122
Trip End
Aug 23, 2011
Ellora, Mahārāshtra, India
Thursday, September 16, 2010
We caught the bus to Ellora, which was about an hour away. The staff at the youth hostel were sorting out our washing for us. The journey to get to the caves was quite interesting. We were chatting with two young Indian lads who were asking us all sorts of questions. What cars we had in England, what forms of transport we used. They couldn't believe that we didn't have rickshaws as the streets are littered with them here. Then they asked what we ate for lunch...we were talking about sandwiches....which they thought it was hilarious that we have sandwiches everyday for lunch! They hadn't heard of ham either....we've not seen any pork based dishes anywhere. Most restaurants have been vegetarian anyway and only a small proportion of the menu is attributed to meat. The meat they do have is chicken, mutton (which is goat here) and I have seen cows brains too!
I was also chatting to a girl who had pretty good English. Turned out she worked for prudential insurance and so that was why it was so good! So, if you're a member of "The Pru", I've got fingers in pies over here! She wanted a picture taken with me....I obliged. This has become more common, people asking for a picture with one of us or both. In a strange way you also get a feeling of what it would be like to be famous. To make people really happy and excited just from saying hello, for having pictures taken with people and getting asked the same questions over and over again! I then asked where she was going. She was not the first person we'd heard say this....but she said she was going to a funeral as her father-in-law had expired! This literal translation is unfortunate for the few people that have said this to us! Phil asked me, where did she say she was going....and when I said expired we both had to fight to hold back the smiles and laughter.....I mean you can't laugh at someone who's just said they're going to a funeral!
We arrived at the caves and spent a few hours looking around. They were more impressive than Ajanta Caves and the best in India according to our guide book. They were pretty amazing. We met a German girl on the bus and we looked around the caves with her. She was looking forward to Ajanta Caves more...as she'd read they were better. We disagreed with her. What she'd actually read was, "Ellora caves wins hands down"....she thought hands down was the same as thumbs down....i.e. Ajanta was better! We explained this to her....no more mistakes in the future. Ellora caves was home to the worlds largest monolithic sculpture (sculpture carved out of one big chunk of rock). V.impressive. Rain hit just before we left....tried to get shelter under a tree....drenched in about 30 seconds. I mean....literally couldn't have been wetter if we'd jumped in a river.
Had a bottle of Carlsberg out of a black beer bottled shaped bag...so I could drink on the streets. In desperate need of a shave and haircut now. The beard is starting up its own ecosystem!
