The Caves @ Ellora

I can't believe I haven't blogged about my Ellora trip!
**Jovi, what's up with you?**

Three weeks after arriving in India, I was ready... ready to see the world beyond Hyderabad. I joined Katja, Fabrizio and Simran on a scenic and cultural tour through Maharashtra and was perfectly happy to let them make the plans (c'mon, too many people planning just makes things more complicated).

(L-R) Katja, Jovi, Simran & Fabrizio

October 31 8:00pm
With a Toyota Qualis, an Indian driver (who doesn't speak English) and our bags, we embarked on our journey and there was no turning back. Dinner at a roadside restaurant showed us how there were more Indian options than what's available at Goel (the ISB cafeteria). Per special request, non-spicy Indian food was served and they were yummy (and affordable too)!

November 1
Dark, bumpy roads in the late night and some "creative" Indian driving had our solitary Hindi-speaking friend, Simran, sacrifice sleep to keep the driver awake. The persistent mosquitos cut short the driver's pre-dawn sleeping break by an hour and saw the girls stranded (as the boys gave up on sleeping earlier and headed to a nearby temple) with no cellphone reception. Reunited at 4am, we continued on our journey and some three of us went back to sleeping state.



We woke up to a great scenic view of Indian sunrise, sprawling greens and beautiful mountains. Still, after a night of sleeping in the car, finding shelter for us to wash up and rest became the top priority. Trusting Lonely Planet's recommendation, we made inquiries with 3 hotels, but finally found one that wasn't in the list. Hidden one minute from the main road was Hotel Peshwall, a nice little hostel that provided value for money.

The unique shower and toilet implements had Katja stumped for a while, but her adaptive German nature helped her (and me) find out how to use everything... the boys weren't as lucky as I was, they left thinking that the toilet bowl had to be flushed using a pail of water. Learning India's electricity sharing policy by having our enjoyable TV show cut was a bit depressing, but it did give us an early start to Ellora.

The Ellora caves are among many man-made, hand-carved caves in India dedicated to dieties from the main religions... Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism. A picture is worth a thousand words, so have a look at the slide show to see more of Ellora.

My current Facebook photo may be quite deceiving to some of you... I look like I'm at the TajMahal. But in reality, being in Aurangabad gave us the opportunity to go to Bibi Ka Magbara, India's mini-Taj Mahal. I was told that it was a poor imitation, but it still looks great in photos!

November 2
A new day has come and adhering to the Chinese tourism motto of "getting value for time & money by going to as many places as possible", we headed to Shirdi hoping to see Shri Sai Baba, a highly revered holy man in India.

Mobile phones, cameras and shoes aren't allowed in the temple so we had to deposit them with a shop. Walking barefoot on asphalted & cemented streets isn't my idea of a party, and while someone else was worried about his poor socks, I was worried about my poor feet... they were getting dirty, and from living in the Philippines, we know that there are just tons of stuff you can pick up walking barefoot on the streets! Long lines and bad timing had my poor suffer through the burning heat, with no avail... our consolation, we were able to see Shri Sai Baba from a TV screen.

Next stop... Chateau Indage, a vineyard that accounts for 75% of Indian wine exports. A tour through vineyard grounds made for great photo ops, but the wine was found to be wanting in comparison to European wines. Still, a great experience overall.

Heading back to Hyderabad was a bigger adventure. We got stuck in a 3kph traffic for more than an hour and were starving when we got to Pune, some great Indian food out there! And then, it was a series of overtaking the bigger trucks in a two-way two-lane road through counterflowing... the main philosophy, "Will I get in front of the next truck before the car coming from the other direction gets there?" A one-hour rest-stop at a gas station made me realize how widely practiced Yoga is... truck drivers practicing Yoga near the gas pumps (that should wake them up)!

November 3
Then came daybreak, our driver went as fast as 120kph! Back in ISB at 10am, I will remember the weird, great and tiring experiences of the weekend, and say my short prayers for the casualties (mosquitos and ****).