The caves at Elephanta (back blip)

Photo by Tessa H. I woke up early and dozed a bit, fell back to sleep, then heard someone in the corridor being asked if she wanted her room.cleaned. 

'S***! ' I thought. 'That means it's 10 o'clock!'. I looked at my watch. Five to ten. The group was leaving at ten. I jumped up, had half a shower, threw some things together, and ran downstairs to reception. No one even glanced up or said Hi. I was not the last person to arrive. It was only when we were in the taxi that I realised I didn't have my phone with me. No photos...

The taxi took us to the tip of Mumbai, the port with its ornately carved 'Gate of India' from whence sailed many Brits on their final passage from India. 

(My own mother, her siblings and parents would have sailed from Calcutta to Southampton in 1946. My mother has never been back. She was only nine when they left. My grandfather returned in the late 1970s to visit Aunt Helen, who had Stayed On. He was then cursed with the hereditary diabetes type II and dodgy kidneys, and the trip nearly killed him. I remember having to ask the nuns to pray for him. Clearly this worked, as he lived another three and a half years).

Also down by the harbour is the very wonderful- looking Taj Hotel. It's the first luxury hotel built by Indians for wealthy Indians. Afternoon tea there costs around seventeen pounds UK. That's a lot for a low earner. Only the elite Indians can afford to go there. 

We took a public boat to Elephanta island. The trip took about an hour and the boat was full, as expected. It was Sunday, after all. From the ferry there's a walkway or mini-train for those who like those things, to the land end of the pier. The caves are a world heritage site, so there's security, and one pays to go up the steps (120 in all). There's a blue tarp to keep the sun off, and a stepped  passageway with tourist stalls on either side. It takes about ten to fifteen minutes to get up, as it's so crowded, and the same steps are used for the descent. Then there's more security and a hefty visitors' fee to enter the cave site. 

Like the caves at Dambulla in Sri Lanka, these are not underground caverns but temples carved into the rock.  Spacious and well lit, they date back to the 6th century AD, and have monumental rock carvings of Shiva and other gods. There's a giant lingam (sacred phallus) facing four directions. I didn't even see this, but it's in the photos that my niece companions have sent me, when I asked them for shots. There are five caves altogether. Some are more dilapidated than others. Some have cast concrete floors added. All of them have niches where Indians love to pose for selfies or shots. Being white and therefore exotic, I was asked to pose for many group shots with Indians families I will never meet again. This is par for the course. When we got to the end we rested in the shade and then went back down again. Unfortunately the two North American/Mexican/Nahuatl/Turkish/Dutch people and I got separated from the group. Actually it was fortunate for us, because we sat in a cafe for at least twenty minutes, watching sacred cows, dogs and monkeys being shooed away from the cafe. A cow with a calf tried to steal a tourist's corn on the cob from our of their hand. The cafe owner then gave the cow a corn cob. The cow ate a bit, and started chewing, leaving the rest. A stray dog came and took the remainder and ran off with it, to where the cow couldn't get it. The monkey kept sneaking up behind me, but the owner could see it and shouted at me. Earlier, we'd watched monkeys stealing a Sprite bottle from a tourist, holding the bottle upright and drinking it dry. Another monkey ran all the way up a tree whilst holding a bottle. 

Once we were reunited, we got back in the boat, and when we arrived at the Gate of India, there were literally thousands of people milling around, trying to get on boats. We wondered why there were so many, as it was late afternoon by then (later we found out that there was to be a skite-flying competition on the island)..No taxi wanted to take us back to Chembur, as is often the case, we got on in the end, that took four of us to the Chembur monorail station. Did we know how to get back to our hotel? Of course we didn't! Eventually we crossed the rail bridge and asked for directions (again) and an Indian couple felt so sorry for us that they gave us a lift: all four of us in the back!

On our return we had a few minutes to shower and change before we had to go out again to a fancy restaurant in the next street, called Grand Central. Some friend/relatives  of Sridhar Camilla's husband) joined us, but were late because one of our party had stayed behind with her bad foot, and gone to a hospital to have it looked at. She had been allowed to sit upfront in the cab of the ambulance! It was pronounced to be Just a Swelling, but this had all taken hours....the upshot of all of this was that we ordered late and ate late, and the vegetarians got very hungry and cheesed off, but I was being fed morsels of delicious tandoori fish and butter chicken, so I was happy, and am not a bit worried about eating late. Returned to the hotel on foot, tired and very very full. This was to be our last night in Mumbai, before taking flight for Rajasthan.