I had some browser problems, then a power cut to deal with last time I wrote so the day ended quite abruptly. On the bus to Aurangabad I was sitting next to a well dressed, pleasant mannered man who just before he was about to get off handed me a slip of paper with his name address and contact details on it. He said, “I would like it very much if you could write to me and tell me what you think of my country”. I spoke to him briefly – he owned an off-set printing company in Aurangabad had a couple of kids and was a very nice, well spoken man. If I was serious about getting to know “real” Indians perhaps I should take him up on it and write but I found my horrible skeptical self kicking in saying – oh sure, then he’ll be writing to me for years asking me to sponsor him to move to Australia. I am “damaged goods” when it comes to random Indian I meet, I just don’t trust anyone. Yes the commuters on the busses and the trains seem to be the best of them all. They are just on their way somewhere, interested in talking to me and telling me things and are probably exactly the type of people I want to meet.
The other foreigners I had met were crowded in at the back of the bus so I didn’t talk to them on the way. But afterwards we decided to set off towards the same general area around the station to look for a hotel and then have dinner together. We got separated in the process and I found myself with just one other (an Isreali guy) after it became clear that really cheap rooms were not to be found. We ended sharing a room for only slightly more than a dorm at the YHA hostel. I had forgotten what fun Youth Hostels can be. In the common room I found Josh and the South Korean girl I’d met in Mandu already there and a couple of other Japanese. It was fun sitting round talking to them and reminded me of “that kind of backpacking” that I hadn’t for a long time. They were all in the middle of their trips – had been to most of the places I had been and more and were now trying desperately to get to Goa for the Christmas Party Time. All with tragic tales of overbooked trains, 30 hour bus trips, and the endless combinations of possibilities for what they could do next.
I got in the swing of it too and felt divided by the well organized “pinch point” strategy I had decided on and their “see what happens – oh well” approach, knowing the former was more effective and likely to succeed and knowing that the latter creates a completely different existential experience. In my normal chameleon style the next morning I went with the back packers – cancelled the train I had to Mumbai, the accommodation in Jalgaon and headed off in a local bus towards Ellora, now with no fixed plan of what I would do after that.
The main attraction at Ellora is a number of “rock-cut” temples from around 600AD. There are Buddhist, Hindu and Jain temples – but the main showpiece is the Kailasa Temple which is suppose to represent Shiva’s home in the Himalayas. They were constructed completely out of a single slab of stone which is phenomenal, really interesting to see and speculate on the amount of work, organization and skill. The place is also quoted sometimes as evidence of the peaceful co-existence of the different religions – although there seems to have been quite some rivalry in whose temples are grandest.
After spending quite some time in the main temple I was following a track that I thought led to the other caves. I was day dreaming a bit and found myself outside the compound, walking over a hill and ended up at a little village with a beautiful lookout over the who area. There were interesting buildings there too – some temples and other things that I have no idea what they were (I took some photos so may be able to work it out) and spent a bit of time just sitting up there and watching the few locals going about their business. It was a very pleasant interlude and I felt unmotivated to see the rest of the caves afterwards, though I did pop into a couple on my way back. A quote from Flaubert I had read the day before seemed appropriate:
“The Egyptian temples bore me profoundly. Are they going to become like the churches in Brittany, the waterfalls in the Pyrenees? Oh necessity! To do what you are supposed to do; to be always, according to the circumstance (and despite aversion of the moment), what a young man, or tourist, or an artist, or a son, or a citizen, etc. is supposed to be.
I had lunch with the others - including the first couple as we had been reunited in the caves - in a local restaurant and took their advice about a menu option. The food was fantastic - but I forgot to write down the name of it. I recognised that of course many these others who were travelling longer than me had been braver, tried more, knew more any way and were basically a lot better at this than I was. So I had nothing to lose by joining up with them for a little while and gleening what knowledge I could from that source. We took the local bus back to Aurangenbad, picked up our bags from the hostel and rushed for a tourist bus to Pune - I didn't know anything about it but I figured I could read the Lonely Planet on the way. It didn't turn out to be the best decision I've made on the trip - but I'll get to that story in due course.
