I am in Mumbai today - but first a quick background. I decided to go to India sometime in early January - and so Leah and I flew to Mumbai on Jan 10th. It has all been a bit rushed but that's the best way I think.
So we've been here for 5 days, we just arrived this morning on a night-bus. We wanted to take a sleeper train, but it was full, and then we wanted a sleeper bus, but it was full so we had to settle on a chair bus. Leah had a really hard time sleeping, but since Kimberly had prescribed us a sleeping pill I was able to get some rest. The roads were just terrible, with the bumping and the lurching and the braking and honking while we slept. Altogether it was "interesting and adventurous". I guess that's what we're here for! :)
Yesterday on the 16th we were in Aurangabad. This is medium sized city with a few good resturants. We discovered two that were outstanding - Smile at the Nirala Bazaar, and Prashant which is just down the road from the train station. We stayed at the Hotel Shree Maya, with Kimberly who had been there a couple days ahead so we could meet up. Kim was an immense help in getting us acclimatized to the nature of life and culture in India; she is also quite a hoot to have around so we were all laughing it up as we wandered around Aurangabad, and the caves.
The 14th and 15th we went to see the main attraction of Aurangabad, the Ajanta and Ellora caves. These are monolithic temples carved right out of the mountain. It is absolutely tremendous to see these - some of these temples were carved from the early days of Hinduism, Buddhism and the Jains, anywhere from 300-1000AD. In Ajanta, some of the original paint remains and the skill of the artists far outweighs pre-renaissance paintings in Europe; these guys knew how to create perspective and the illusion on depth! In Ellora, many of the caves were carved by the Jains who were masters of fine detail in their art. It is hard to believe that all of those temples were carved directly from the mountain, no assembly required!
We had a very uneventful night-train from Mumbai to Aurangabad in the first place - we took a second class A/C car and it was reasonably comfortable. Only a few bugs, and I wouldn't eat off the floor but altogether it was just fine. I have to say that the flights from Seattle to Mumbai left something to be desired, but we were stuck with them so we had to suck it up and be happy. :) I had a hard time sleeping, so I tried some Nytol (non-prescription sleeping pills) but they just made me tired and not sleepy - and on top of it they gave me restless-legs. Damn that sucked - no more Nytol for me.
"India Trip"
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