Elephanta Caves

As there were no organised group activities our day today was completely free to do as we liked. I toyed with joining others to look round the city a bit more but decided instead to do the Elephanta Islands trip.

The Island which held my interest sits about an hours boat-ride from the Gates of India, a structure built to commerorate George V visit to India early last century. After getting instructions on where I needed to go to get a ticket, what time I needed to leave teh island to ensure I got a boat back and what I should look out for with the local tourist operators I set off on my own in one of the worlds largest, most populous cities.

Years ago I used to live in London where I would happily travel all over the place (with my trusty A-Z of course) and even when I passed my drivers test there, I would happily drive all over the place too. But years later, and with a well-developed preference for crowd-free places, this was going to be a challenge. I needn't have worried too much . . . .

The taxi ride from the hotel to the Gates of India was straightforward - for me at least. The driver however was getting very frustrated with the heavy traffic and the constant go-stop motoring, which was made worse for both of us with no air-condioning in the car. Eventually arriving at the Gates I headed to where the ferry tickets were on sale. No more than 10 steps into the short walk I had a tout alongside me and, despite my best efforts to tell him I just wanted to be left alone so I could look at my options, he (or his partner) just kept re-appearing evrywhere I went. Aargh! I bought a ticket from another vendor.

A short wait at the waterside then onto the boat. It was one of dozens of similar boats which carried maybe 60 or 70 people each. There was a continuous loop of boats heading to and from the Island giving some indication of the popularity of the place. The trip itself was uneventful - possibly the best part was sitting on the deck in a lovely cooling breeze - it was getting to be very hot.

At the Island there was a few hundred metres of uphill walking to be done to reach the caves themselves. Along this route there was the usual array of vendors encouraging people to "Just take a look . . .". I'm getting quite good at saying "Neh" and continuiing to walk.

Once inside the caves area I felt the need for a drink. I'd got a couple of bottles of water with me so sat down on a stone wall to get one out. No sooner had I sat down than a monkey approached me. I jumped up quickly and grabbed my bag only for the monkey to take a lunge at my bag as I did so. Freaky! Apparenly all they want are the water bottles so once I'd been told this I hid them away from sight and had no more problems.

The caves themselves were fantastic, especially the first and largest one. They're some 400-500 years old and the carvings are huge - how they managed to create such beautiful, scaled, accuarate and neat carvings all those yearas ago is a mystery but the feat itself has been recognised as worthy of World Heritage status which was bestowed on the caves in 1987.

The boat ride back brought the same welcome cooling breeze. Back on the mainland it was a relativley simple job of getting a taxi and getting back to the hotel. Our travel plans tonight include taking an overnight train down to Goa. Everyone is looking forward to the Goa bit - few are looking forward to the overnight train bit . . . .!