More tools for domestic travel

Following up on my year-old post, I shall recommend three tools that are very promising.

Ixigo (http://www.ixigo.com)  has been introducing several cool features, the latest being a comparison with OTAs like cleartrip. It is an innovation in the Indian travel space and one which I very much like, though I have seen it on kayak.com Another great feature is its anywhere to anywhere connectivity, connecting smaller towns also. The interface is also slick. It is definitely the best aggregator for Indian flights.

90DI Travel (http://www.90di.com/travel/index.html)  includes trains and flights in its routes. I recently searched for a Bangalore to Kannur route and found good suggestions. On an aside, I’ve been planning to see Maniratnam-famous Kannur and Fort Bekal for a long time now and I’d be getting to see it next year. Trains are my favourite mode of travel. Hats off to the team for providing train route search on selected days in a simple and easy manner! They say the fare and seat availability is real-time.

IndiaGroove (http://indiagroove.com/trains/train_finder/search) is a good trainfinder site. If only the Indian Railways site is as intuitive and easy to use! In its beta, IndiaGroove only has trains, but is very effective, though outdated. It allows you to search for all the days in the week and also with layovers upto 24 hours. My Bangalore to Kannur/Cannanore train search gives me good results (not the latest schedules though), which I was not able to get easily from the Indian Rail site.

PS: Later I chanced upon a thread in Indiamike, which lists a few more train search sites.

Backpacker friendly, huh?

I have been lucky to see two of the most friendly countries for solo travellers on a budget. When you are checking that out, there is another such list which gives you more options. Some day, I will see Argentina and I will learn Spanish. The USA in its small cities is definitely not backpacker-friendly. There are some countries where you are better off earning your money, not spending it. That explains my almost-zero travel here. But I am excited at visiting friends in the Golden state (is it also called the Sunshine state?) next month.

August flight

I have some luck with the month. Never mind that I could not post once this time. This August saw me flying over Greenland to the land of opportunities. The month had been hectic in getting a visa and the tickets as I do not have any other work. Just married and on the bench is bliss, I say! So as an old fortune-teller in the beautiful Tiruchendur seashore temple prophesied 10 years back and as is written in the destinies of most IT guys, I am here in the US. Des Moines is the place. I had never heard of it before this.

The dreaded visa appointment happened at good-old-Madras and I stayed at a hotel on Mount Road inspite of having countless relatives there so that I could walk fresh to the embassy. I had another friend from my company with me. After hearing random tales about interviews (apparently once they rejected a guy who could not spell a client’s name), I was a little nervous about it. We walked into the embassy at mid-noon. Post pre-qualification, the queue moved fast and we were soon inside the lobby. Fingerprinting over and all of us were anxiously waiting for the approval/rejection. Some senior consul officer gave good advice. My friend and I stood behind each other. The visa officer asked him about the project and approved his soon. My turn came and he asks me where and why I went to Australia. My visit to Madhan’s place apparently helped here as every one knows how serious Aus is about immigration   He approves the visa in just over a minute and I am happy.

The flight is not as easy as the visa. A mid-day flight from Bangalore to Delhi when all my relatives wish me good-bye. By luck, I get a business class seat and I do not see anything fancy about the service. A long halt at Delhi (including paid entry to the new airport lobby as my flight leaves more than 5 hrs later)! Just one call to my wife that I am safely on my way. As all of us happily wait at the lobby, a posse of policemen swoop into the lobby. I am jolted out of my reverie. There is unclaimed luggage close to where I am sitting. I am shooed away, along with many others. A fully equipped bomb squad guy comes and inspects it for quite some time. As he takes out each item one by one, he swears in chaste Hindi (some thing I learnt in Indore). Most of us watch the gripping spectacle while some are actually indifferent. At the end, he just drives the luggage away and we breathe easy.

As I check in at the American counter, they repeatedly ask me if I am going to Narita after Chicago. I am scared that I might after all reach Japan instead of the USA and I tell them I have never heard of the name. Things work out after a little delay and I get a window seat. My only grievance is my toothpaste needs to be checked in separately and they tell this as I am about to board. The flight takes off on time and I catch up on a much-needed nap. The 15 hour ride is so boring. When I wake up, we are over the Atlantic and close to Greenland. Seeing all the mounds of ice over Greenland excites me. The sun’s been up ever since I woke up though the local time is close to midnight. I am reminded of Kishore’s Alaska trip to the land of the midnight sun. The food is nothing to write about. As we circle Chicago, the big lake and the never-ending city seem to invite us warmly.

Only two questions on my visa and I can stay till 25 Nov. I claim all my baggage safely (what a relief!) and pass customs quickly. I put my luggage to the next belt and move on.  I step out of the international terminal and take the train to where my connecting flight leaves from. Here I can brush my teeth. A helpful guy reminds me to take my China lock and key from the restroom. Long long ago I remember reading about how OHare is the busiest airport in the world and look about in all directions where flights are leaving or arriving. There are some coins in the airport lounge and after some hesitation on security concerns, I pick them up when no one is looking. A cent and a quarter dollar, not bad! Those are my first US coins.

The Chicago-Des Moines stretch is fast over big fields. At Des Moines, I misread the signs to get my baggage and walk back. An alarm goes off and a police lady points me to keep going straight and not turn back. My baggage has reached much before me as I wait at Chicago for about 3 hours. I wonder where to get the taxi and drift off across the Hertz and Avis rentals before I realize that I have to go outside to get one I had my Google Maps directions with me, but the friendly white cabbie tells me a little bit about Iowa, how he can afford to get a home here (he is from NY) and how there is no traffic here.  He wisely tells that “it is all over after marriage”. I smile and nod. The unity of humanity! Hehe.

At last, we reach my destination. The cabbie asks for a 4$ tip (what is normal?) on a $33 meter. He says he will leave the amount blank for me to fill for my receipt. I ask him to write it. This incident looks strange to me. I have always thought that in the developed countries, everything is by the rule-book and here I encounter a guy who offers me a chance to sidestep the system. As I meet my manager’s wife, I am safely IN the US.

My favourite card game…

… is literature, (excellent description here). My schoolmate Hem taught me after his first year at PSG and we got addicted. Ever since in all our vacation breaks, we used to gather at different homes and play this for long stretches of time. It is such a simple and skillful game. In our 10day long NSS camp at a small village on the outskirts of Chennai, we spent all our nights playing this. Some of my Guindy classmates also got addicted to this neat game. On every long trip, a pack of cards is quite handy to play this. Be it my last place of work or my last place of study, this game has got its own fans. Once when we played it on the BOM-IND train, it turned to be a boy-vs-girl messy affair. It calls for fair play though the cheats do all their tricks and make it more lively   It always reminds me of the good times I have enjoyed with it. Friends, travel and fun, this game is all that and more. When am I going to play it next? Are you game?

Madai – a safari in the Satpuras

A junior recommends this charming treasure near Pachmarhi, the only hillstation of MP and we are glad to have gone there during our biking expedition. It is that away-from-the-crowd the-road-less-taken type tourist spot. The name is Madai (pics here on Fotki), a resthouse run by the MP forest department in the Satpura tiger reserve. We book our rooms at the Bison lodge in Pachmarhi (bookings have to be done here or at Hoshangabad). We take a diversion on the Pachmarhi-Hoshangabad highway to reach the other side of the Madai resthouse. A boat crosses the Tawa dam reservoir, taking us to the simple rooms there.

Deer welcome us at the resthouse and playfully stroll along us. Just one more foreigner stays in another room and goes on a tiger count with the big officer during the night. How we would have loved to go on a night ride in the park! (Un)luckily, Airtel and Reliance signals are plenty here unlike Pachmarhi and so we are able to speak to our lady love. But it would have been ideal to have had them in this romantic idyll. Post a few experiments, the moon is caught in its natural beauty like this.There are few words to describe the joy of sitting near a bonfire surrounded by deer with moonlight soothing us. There is no electricity in the resthouse, which adds to the charm. Having hot food in such a blissful setting is again incredible. The night passes peacefully, though we occasionally hear sounds from the wild. After all, the tigers and the bears are not far.

The day starts early just like any national park and we are off on a jeep safari at 7am. We spot loads of deer (black buck and sambhar) and some wild boar too. We only see some pugmarks of a leopard. We come to a green meadow where we are delighted to watch our national birds running away. Some bison are also happy to pose for our trigger-happy friend. As we come to the end of our trip, we decide to go on an elephant ride. This is my second such thing in a month’s time, the first having been in Panna during the Khajuraho trip. But my friend has a natural instinct to take pictures and he comes with one (with the shadows) I like most. Soon after this, we hit the road for Indore, having had one of the most unique experiences ever of a lifetime. We will be glad to go back more often!

Orchha – A delightful palace place

Orchha (MP Tourism proclaims it as a medieval legacy in stone – some pictures here on Flickr) forms a part of the tourist circuit of Khajuraho to the north-west. To the south, we have Bandhavgarh National park, which has the highest density of tigers. There is no railway station in Khajuraho and the nearest major one, Jhansi, is 15km away from Orchha, thus explaining the connection. We takethe 8am deluxe bus (the best in its class) to Orchha from Khajuraho. There are plenty of buses covering the 5hour journey to Jhansi and we get down on the highway to take a shared auto to the village itself at 12.15pm. We have half a day to explore the palaces and the temples in this charm of a village. MP Tourism allows stay at one of the palaces called Sheesh Mahal, a luxury one could choose to enjoy and one I could only dream of now. Just like Khajuraho, we spot a lot of foreigners who seem to like it for its quaintness. The eateries are not expensive as in Khajuraho, a lot of Korean food surprisingly. There are the Lonely Planet recommended ones, mandatory to tourist spots preferred by foreigners. The foreigners seem to spend more time by the Betwa river and in the several palaces.

Orchha is a very small village and we go on the day of Sankranti. A Hindu Sammelan is happening at the entrance to the Raja Rama temple, which happens to be the only temple where Lord Rama is worshipped as a king. This has brought in the crowds from the nearby villages of UP. In Orchha at one end you could be part of the UP signal towers, though you are still in MP. After a quick lunch at the first eatery on the road, we proceed to the Jahangir Mahal, the most imposing structure here. A few eateries boast of the Mahal view. We get a guide with us for taking us through Raja Mahal and Jahangir Mahal opposite each other. Both the palaces are full of people today being Sankranti and a holiday. Raja Mahal is comparatively smaller whereas Jahangir Mahal built for Emperor Jahangir, but never used by him is larger and boasts of amazing views of the village and the Chatris (cenotaphs or memorials) by the river. After the very pleasing sights we experience in Khajuraho, palaces are a refreshing change. We spend a little more than 90 minutes at these two palaces. The fact that we have a guide probably helps us move quickly. We do not walk around the palace at all where we could see the beautiful garden Phool Bagh and the camel yard. We also spot some delightful paintings in the Raja Mahal. We are yet to see the temples and our guide has recommended that we walk to the Laxmi temple for more paintings. It is a little away, about a 15 min walk from the main streets of the village.

We walk through the crowded streets, alive with participants of the Hindu Sammelan which is having a session. One of us is advised by a friendly policeman to be careful about our things. The Raja Ram temple opens only in the evening and so we continue walking to the Laxmi temple. The nice walk up here is less crowded and so we find ourselves having the temple pretty much to us. It is thrilling to walk on the little stairs up the temple and peep from the top as some of us discover. We also see the cute colourful paintings recommended to us. We sit here and relax for some time amidst the cool breeze just like this sadhu and that foreigner . We walk back to Orchha.

The more sight-seeing guys among us continue to Chaturbhuj temple, the second biggest structure in Orchha. The views from here (of the main streets and of Jahangir Mahal) are also amazingly good. After that, we stop by for a sizzler (which is very tasty) in one of the eateries just before the bridge to Jahangir Mahal. Very soon, the auto which we had booked to take us to Jhansi (the land of Rani Laxmibhai) arrives. Our bus back to Indore would start at 8pm from there. Orchha has been a pleasing little stop in our Khajuraho exploration.

Khajuraho – Celebrating life

During the Pongal break (!), we go to Khajuraho (some pics here) on a study tour Khajuraho is the best known tourist destination in the state of Madhya Pradesh. The first erotic pictures we see at the Western Group are really very very interesting. A sample here. Having only read about the temples in history books, seeing them is an enlightening experience. Khajuraho is full of foreigners and a lot of the kids call out “Hello”, “Which country from?”, “Money” regularly. It is a surprise to see so many exotic restaurants in the village that is Khajuraho. Khajuraho is difficult to reach as it is so away from the main highways and the roads are a shame around the area in MP. We are a group of 8, which includes one of the French guys Arn on exchange here. All the guides swarm around him, promising several things. There is one particularly nagging guy, who speaks fluent French to the surprise of the rest of us. We spend roughly a day at this place, which speaks volumes about celebrating life. The Western Group is the most popular, being in the middle of the village and having the best temples and the most sensual sculptures. We see the Jain temples in the Eastern group, the Southern group and even a being-excavated ruins, all by cycle. Cycling is the best way to explore Khajuraho, as all the temples are within a radius of 4-5km. We have authentic Italian food at the Mediterraneo restaurant, which is a little pricey but Arn likes it. In the evening, we check out the Sound and Light show at the Western group, describing the history of the place.

I must write about our experiences with the MP Tourism office in Indore, which we approached to seek advice about a Khajuraho trip, as it is our first long trip within the state. MP markets itself as the Heart of Incredible India. The marketing manager there was very friendly and gave us a very big tourist map of the state when we asked him for directions. This has proved to be our biggest reference thereafter. Also, we stayed at the dorm in Hotel Rahil, Khajuraho for a pricely sum of Rs.90/-. The staff at the hotel too were quite friendly too and the stay overnight was pleasant. I must also mention the MP Tourism motels spread through out the state (I have been to Khalghat), which serve quality food.

Here’s a very popular image of a playful couple from Khajuraho.

Biking to Ajanta and Ellora – 2

Sorry guys for being late, I was away on a mindblowing Khajuraho trip the Pongal weekend. But that has to wait. Having done one stage of my longest bike ride in Ellora, both of us had a simple breakfast near the caves and proceeded to Daulatabad. There is a scenic ghat section on this stretch of the highway. Daulatabad is pretty close to Ellora (15km) and very soon we passed this beautiful lake . The landscape is also pleasing to the eyes. We could have had fresh guavas on the very pretty look-out point, but I was a little sick and we took no chances. Our next stop was the famous Daulatabad fort itself. Every history fan knows of Mohammad bin Tughlaq’s experiments in failure. The shifting of India’s capital from Delhi to Daulatabad is a prime example. The day being a Saturday morning in late December, Daulatabad was full of folks. We parked our bikes and proceeded amidst the heaps of crowds. There were quite a few guides willing to share their knowledge. But we decided that we could not do much in this crowd and so did not go all the way to the top in the narrow stairs. Daulatabad reminded me a little of Golconda. This Chand Minar is the big minaret in this charming fort. School kids were playing in the big courtyard.

After spending a little less than a hour in the fort, we left for Aurangabad, our initial destination for the night primarily because it is well-connected. Aurangabad is 15 km away from Daulatabad and we reached it pretty quickly. We hoped to see the duplicate Taj Mahal, otherwise known as Bibi Ka Maqbara, built by Aurangazeb inspired by you-know-what. The Taj in Agra is simply the grandest man-made spectacle my eyes have seen and this Aurangabad imitation pales badly. But the similarities are clear. The Mughal garden and the marble (here unclean) are amazing. But there’s no Yamuna to lend that magical finish here. After this whistle-stop, we went to Panchakki – the water wheel system of those olden days. At this place, we met an Australian STA agent who’s here on a holiday. We chatted with him and wished him a good time. STA is not very useful in India to me. I also spotted the Paithani sarees and Himroo shawls showroom (both Aurangabad specials) here, but this is no shopping trip! We had asked the locals near Bibi Ka Maqbara about good restaurants to have biryani. The Muslim influence hopefully gets very tasty biryani. But the local guys were not very helpful and so we sped off on the Ajanta highway after this 2hour Aurangabad tour.

The Aurangabad-Ajanta road (about 100km) is also very good and we hit our top speeds on this stretch. We had a quick lunch at a dhaba midway and still managed to reach the Ajanta shuttle point at 3.45pm, in roughly 2 hours. This point is 4-5km away from the caves and no private vehicles are allowed beyond here. The MTDC charges a park entry fee, a parking fee, a shopping plaza fee (wasteful) and a shuttle fee, which we paid in 3 different places. Why can’t they make the fee structure simple? The Ajanta caves are located in a beautiful gorge and that explains their charm apart from the fact that they are very very old. We had less time (two hours) to see these cute paintings as some of the caves close by 5.30pm. There are 29 caves in all and the Australian had recommended us to walk to the top on the other side of the stream to have an awesome view. We are forced to drop our shoes at every cave, thus losing some time. The cave guards directed us to the ones worth seeing – which are 3, 5, 10, 16, 17, 29 and we ended up seeing only these caves. These caves are supposedly monasteries and we could see different images of the Buddha in these. Here is an image of the Buddha inside a stupa and here is a mural . The guards did not let us use the tripod and so my companion went livid at them. It is astonishing to note that these murals and sculptures have survived more than 1500 years and some 2000 years and we know what they were meant for! We were tired of our adventure in just about an hour.

We decide that we will go back to Indore riding in the night (just about 330km away) not through the way we came back, but through Bhusawal, Burhanpur and Omkareswar road. The road is fantastic and we ride all the way till Burhanpur in MP, about 140 km from Ajanta and decide to take a break because it has become too cold by 10pm. An early morning start at 7.30am the next day takes us back to our college by 12.30 noon, a distance of 190km, just in time for the new year celebrations. My first long ride has been a great success!

Backpacking buddies – 2

Continuing from here, in Nelson I caught up with Jess again and exchanged email ids. We exchanged a few emails when she described her trip to the glaciers in Franz Josef and her Queenstown (I should write a separate post about it) adventures. But then, after two mails, none of us bothered to continue the conversation. But yes, she’s the girl I will remember best in the 3 months. The next morning I spoke to Scott a Kiwi sheep marketer from Dunedin. In his free time, he works as an evangelist. He was in Nelson, cheering for his kid who plays hockey. He explained the need for everyone to become a true Christian. He tells me India is suffering because there are so many non-Christians and that he would like to work there to change it all. When I counter that a lot of white folks believe less in religion and more reason, he says that that’s because they don’t know the truth. I firmly believe that if we be nice to people and not do harm as much as possible, there is no need for religion.

After Nelson, my next trip was across the Tasman Sea. The Aussies are not as friendly as the Kiwis. But friendly travellers are welcome everywhere. Madhan has got such a warm face that he can start talking to anyone anywhere. In the Indooroopilly shopping centre where we went on the first evening, he spoke to a couple of Tamils who had hopped over from Auckland just like me. I learn a lot from him about hospitality and camaraderie.

Though I spoke to a few people during the course of my 36hour whistle stop in Sydney, the one person who left a lasting impression on me met me at the Central railway station. I was awaiting my CityRail to the domestic airport. Let me call him John. I had confirmed with him that the platform I stood on was the line to the airport. He looked drunk. His first lines were “So you Indians are getting all the jobs and sending us all out?” I dismissed him as one of those outsourcing critics and told myself to be careful of him. But he continued and told me he had an Indian wife! He had fought for the Aussie military and was generally dismissive of politics, but he was a hard-core Indophile at heart. He repeatedly told me to work for the betterment of the Indian majority and not be swayed by money. We sat next to each other on the train. He described his experience in Afghanistan and wished me heartily.

I had a late flight from Sydney to Brisbane and Madhan and Sudar were busy preparing their stall at the Brisbane Multicultural Festival, which is a fascinating experience by itself. There was no public transport at 9.30pm from the airport and so I had to take my only taxi of the trip. It was all Madhan’s money, but still I would never take a taxi in a foreign country when there is public transport. For no reason, I am apprehensive of taxi drivers. I managed to break ice with the Somalian taxi driver. My little bit of geography about the capital Mogadishu got me talking more nicely with him. He knew about Hyderabad more than any other place in India. He was telling me how Somalia has been ravaged by war and there are a few Indians in his country too. I asked him if he’ll go back there. Not when there’s so much war there, he replied. He also told me Somalia has got a little bit of history being so close to Ethiopia and the drive by the sea is so beautiful. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a Somalian coin.

The multicultural festival is where I met an Indonesian student. He was a finance student who planned to do his MBA. He was like a typical Indian graduate student overseas, using his dad’s money and education loans to study abroad, hoping to make enough money in a few years to break even and return to his home country to be respected and make it to the higher society class. He helped me use my camera better. We promised to exchange emails, but never did.

In Fiji, I met an Austrian girl who was out exploring the world on her round trip and a German guy out to get his diving licenses in the most beautiful reefs of the world (it works out to be cheaper too). But the Fijian captain of the SeaSpray (my sailing boat) insisted on converting me and we had a prolonged conversation about faith and the only God. My thin knowledge on Hinduism did not help me much and I hardly could talk anything. I should have had better ammunition to counter these pastors or priests!

One more post on this and I would be done, I hope!

Biking to Ajanta and Ellora – 1

Now that I’m in Indore, my popular Indore getaway posts will get more additions. I’ve been harping too much on geography the time I’ve been in NZ. But India is where all the history is. Though all of us (read my bschool mates) complain about the huge location disadvantage that Indore has in terms of connectivity to all the happening cities (read good jobs), the fact is that Indore is the heart of incredible India (just like the cute MP Tourism ads promote MP)! If we get 5 days at a stretch, we would be able to go in every direction imaginable and visit places like Rajasthan, Himachal, Uttaranchal, Agra, Khajuraho, Gujarat, Goa, Hyderabad, Bihar, … But we had 3 days to spare just before the year ends. So this will be my first multi-day trip around Indore. Also, I’ve been dreaming of a long bike ride for a long time. In NZ, bikes are so expensive compared to cars and they need special licences. After a little research, we chuck destinations inside MP and plan for the World Heritage sites of Ajanta and Ellora. Aurangabad – the base to visit these 2 places – is a little over 400km away. Two of us start on the 29th morning at 8.30am (planned time 7am) on two bikes. My companion Anupam is a veteran of long trips with Indore-Ahmedabad-Indore and Indore-Mumbai trips to his record.

29th is a plain bike ride day. We start on NH3, cross Mhow, the Narmada at Khalghat and reach the MP border. We are alarmed to find that our average speed is just over 40kmph. The NH3 is the worst highway I have found. To our surprise, soon after we cross the border, Maharashtra PWD takes over and NH3 becomes unimaginably good to ride. We hurry past the sugarcane factory at Sirpur and leave NH3 at Dhule (say Dhuliya). Our lunch in a dhaba takes a long time. Of course, we get our direction tips from mapsofindia.com and mapmyindia.com. Here we take NH211, which goes to Aurangabad and beyond. In spite of we hurrying, there is a bye-pass road at Chalisgaon, which is the most horrrible stretch of the highway. And to our horrors, they have a toll post on this stretch, how sad! Bikes don’t have to pay any toll and so we continue our journey unhindered. The road gets worse as we progress. It is evening when we approach Ellora village. We grab a cup of tea and are close to the Ellora cave sites when we see a few hotels advertising availability.

End December is the peak travel season everywhere! More so in India, as the weather is ideal this time. Anupam suggests we stay here itself and proceed tomorrow. It is also getting cold. We check one good hotel, Hotel Kailasa, which is expensive at Rs.1500 and one passable place where we don’t bargain much and settle at Rs.450 for two beds. That definitely is an atrocious price to pay for an ordinary room. I spot quite a few notices in Kannada. Just like Belur and Halebid attract a lot of Tamil tourists, I guess Ajanta and Ellora attract quite a few Kannada ones. Also, this being the half-yearly holidays of the school kids, there was one big gang in 2 buses from Gujarat. Even before we have seen anything, I start getting a cold and a headache. We pick my favourite pill DCold at the in-demand chemist in the Ellora village. We decide that we’ll have decent food at the Kailas restaurant which has a few white faces too. Hotel Kailas has to be the most convenient place to see the caves, which are a few metres away.

We start by 6am early in the morning. The Ellora caves open at 6.30am, which makes it an ideal place to start your day with. Also, they certainly are worth more time to spend than the Ajanta caves, say half a day or more if you don’t want to miss anything. We are the first to check with the gatekeepers, who ask us to come after a tea and 5 minutes as there is little fog yet. But as we have our tea, the school kids party walk in a file and beat us to the entry. The teachers order the kids around and this reminds me of our own school trips. Educational tours are so much fun! There are more kids coming early in the morning from Andhra. We are the first ticket-takers to the biggest temple in the caves, Kailasa temple. As the 34 caves are spread out, we are allowed to take our bikes inside till the very end, i.e., Cave 34.

Ellora caves are distinct for their secular aspect. They have sets of Hindu, Buddhist and Jain caves. The Kailasa temple is Cave 16 and stands right at the entrance to the World Heritage site. We start with caves to the other side of the temple, i.e., 17 and above. We have lots of Nandis just like this one . The kids are curious and keep peeking at our sleek digicams. We wait for the crowd to disperse. These kids stop soon at Cave 23 or 24 and are ordered back by their teachers. We continue further when we see a strip of water fall into a pond. Later, a guide book tells us it is the famed Ellora waterfall . Both of us walk by the dangerous cliff up thorough the cute stairs to Cave 29. Cave 29 is definitely worth the walk. It’s got the best pillars and the figurines we have seen so far. We see that we could have taken our bikes to this place, but the road is a little long and so we walk back along the picturesque rocks. Our next stop is the biggest attraction here, Kailasa temple.

As expected, all the structures are preserved very well in this temple, thus deserving the entry fee they charge only for this separately. Also, most of the tourists prefer to stop here and not visit most of the other caves as it involves a walk. Those who have their cars can take them to caves 29 and 34 also. The Kailasa temple needs at least an hour to explore properly. But we have 3 hours for the whole of the caves and so we just rush to the first floor and through the prakaram(walkway?) on the ground floor. We spot this beauty on rock, the story of the Mahabharatha . That’s our last delight in the temple. We aim at seeing the lesser numbered caves too and the Jain caves which are beyond 29.

We check with the security guard and find out that Caves 10 and 12 are the ones not to be missed out. We start with Cave 10 and explore the big Buddha statue inside a stupa. We glimpse at the Hindu caves 9 and less and decide that we have no time for it. Next we see Cave 12, Teen Taal . It is quite spectacular. The top floor is serene and is good if you want to spend a quiet moment away from the crowds, who don’t seem to spend much time in the Buddhist caves.

Our last stop at Ellora is the Jain set of caves, 33 and 34. We take our bikes out here, which is a little far from 16. These caves are also delightfully carved, the stand-out example being this statue under the peacock , the description of which I overheard it from a guide and then realised the presence of the peacock feather. The gullible Anupam had bought an Ellora picture book, but at a bargain price of 20 though the printed price said 55. We could always refer to it if we needed any info or we should be able to get more info on the net. One more cave later, which is full of the Jain tirthankaras, we conclude our Ellora visit. What an amazing treat for the good year we had!

PS: Some more pictures on flickr.