Ellora Cave Temples

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Klaudia (and others at times) continues to reprimand me for not writing regularly enough, but – even though the details do become a bit blended together and, moreover, this may sound like an excuse – I enjoy the percolation of ideas that occurs through retrospection on our experiences. Contrary to what one might initially think, hindsight, or retrospection, seems to make things more interestingly palpable to me insofar as it provides me an opportunity to analyze my prior behavior, and the events that caused the behavior. Then, I can deliberate upon that past behavior in relation to my current behavior, taking note of how it has changed over a short time; and I do this all with a chuckle of disbelief: if I were writing in the moment, I could not wholeheartedly aver, as I now can with the benefit of retrospection, that India has kicked our asses, and that that ass-kicking began in Ellora.



We took an overnight train in 2^nd class AC from Mumbai to Aurangabad, where we transferred to a short bus ride to Ellora. The train ride was the most bizarre thus far, with a constant coming and going of passengers making sleep difficult: one of us would suddenly awaken to some Indian staring at us on the bunk across from us, which would then force one of us to check on our bags and shoes. It was worse than being awakened by some rustling leaves or a cracking twig while camping: I’m much more afraid of people than animals. Furthermore, the Indians can be very inconsiderate, especially on the night trains: it would be amazing if they simply whispered, let alone completely shut up while I was trying to get some sleep – they turn on lights, they laugh boisterously, move luggage around, with not a single thought of consideration for the individuals around them trying to sleep. They make Italians sound like tame Buddhist monks. This unruly behavior became most evident to me a couple weeks later when we shared a 3^rd class AC compartment with a polite, older Irish couple – I awakened to find them completely packed and sitting upright. Before they realized I was awake, I could barely hear inaudible whispering as they conversed. In other words, they were considerate.



Thus, needless to say, we were tired when we arrived in Aurangabad at 5 in the morning the next day. We went immediately to a ticket window to buy our ticket out of there as we knew we wouldn’t need more than a day to visit the Ellora cave temples, only to find out there were no available tickets anywhere. We knew we’d be able to catch a sleeper bus out, so we didn’t fret much, but sat down near the ticket window all the same to get our bearings before we left the train station to greet the awaiting vultures in the form of tuk-tuk drivers. An older white man, with a grey beard and dressed like a hippie who never quite grew up, walked up to us: “This country is crazy, huh? This country just saps your energy. It’s not for everyone. And it’s soooo dirty. The presentation is nice, everything they give you is glittering, but then, when you look in back, it’s filthy. It’s grime; I feel like I want to vomit.”



We nodded our heads and smiled; although I do not think I made it apparent with my countenance, I was astonished at how frazzled he was.



“I can’t believe how filthy it is here”, he continued in a hoarse voice. “I have one more week in this God-forsaken place, then I go home - thank God. The presentation is so nice; everything they bring you – the food – looks so good, but, in back, it’s the dirtiest place on earth. How do they live like this? I can’t believe it. I can’t take it. There’s shit everywhere. I can’t wait to leave and never come back.”



We smiled some more, and did some nodding; Klaudia asked him where he was from. “South Africa”, he replied.



“Are you staying the night?” I asked.



“I don’t know. I don’t want to spend the night anywhere anymore. It’s filthy. A stray dog almost bit me yesterday. This is hell.” Klaudia and I nodded and politely smiled some more; I may have head-bobbled once.



“Ok, I think I’m going. Good bye.”



“Bye,” we responded and then looked at each other inquisitively.



“Poor guy,” I said to Klaudia. Ah, poor me…



We walked outside and haggled with a tuk-tuk driver for a few minutes, finally agreeing on a price to take us to the bus station where we could catch the bus to Ellora. The entire ride there, he endeavored to convince us to hire him for the day, spinning yarns about how far it was, how his price was only a bit more than the bus ride there, how the Ellora caves are far apart, etc. Although innocuous, the constant selling is always annoying, but even more so at 5:30 am. We arrived at the bus station; I paid him, very happy to take his leave.



The bus ride to Ellora was of course half the time the tuk-tuk driver had said it was, more than 70% the price he’d stated, and not nearly as uncomfortable as he’d warned. But, no matter, we were used to the exhausting exaggerations at this point – you can’t believe every other word they say.



We arrived in Ellora before the caves were open, so sat a spell at a tea house. We, along with three Brahman priests, were the first to enter the park when it finally opened at 6:30 am. We were quickly adopted by some stray dogs that followed us the entire morning, but that wasn’t a hindrance to enjoying the caves.



The rock caves of Ellora were chipped away over five centuries by Buddhists, Hindus and Jains. There are over 30 caves (12 Buddhist, 17 Hindu, and 5 Jain) chiseled between 600 and 1000 AD, with the Buddhist and Hindu ones being the oldest, and there are concomitant periods for all the caves, evidence of mutual toleration between the religions. The grandest of these is Cave 16, Kailasa Temple, a rock temple built by King Krishna I in 760 over a 150-year period. The living temple – ie, it is still in use – utilized 7000 laborers who bored out over 200,000 tons of rock with hammer and chisel, then sculpted remarkably detailed figures and designs into a beautiful rock temple. There was a path that led to a hill around the temple, giving us great views of all the temple’s sections and designs. However, scampering monkeys caused us some grief when a big one, unprovoked by us, charged Klaudia with teeth exhibited in a terrifying manner; Klaudia screamed, I yelled at her not to run, and the monkey ceased his approach. After a quick stare down, he proceeded on his way in the opposite direction. I really don’t know what it is with us and monkeys, and if you continue to read these blogs, you’ll soon be hearing some more monkey stories. I may just need a separate blog entitled, “When Monkeys Attack Us”.



As we headed down to from the path to the temple itself, more and more visitors were becoming apparent. Suddenly, one after another, they started requesting pictures with me. I went through several pictures before I began finally declining them, but noticed that, out of possibly about 100 visitors, Klaudia and I were the only foreigners; and everyone else was behaving as if they’d never seen a white couple before - I thought that I might prefer the confrontational monkeys to the awkward stares we were receiving. Also, as a foreign tourist, you are always “a” target; but, when you’re the only foreign tourist, you are “the” target. This was quickly obvious when a little boy began to follow closely behind me. Not yet fully competent in his craft, I knew what he was up to and slapped his grubby little hand as he went for my pocket.



“What do you think you’re doing?!” I yelled. He stared at me for a moment, like the monkey did, then ran off. There was no security evident, so no one to whom to report the incident - we continued our visit.



The grief caused by the monkeys was replaced by grief caused by one relentless beggar requesting hand outs. He followed us around some time, but finally let us be after a very firm “no”.



As the day progressed, I noticed a group of Japanese tourists and Klaudia and I were finally left alone to our visit. We finished the final Jain temple in the mid-afternoon and headed out of the park to get something to eat. Finding the least filthy restaurant, we sat down and ordered. We asked if there was some place to wash our hands, to which the waiter pointed to a water bin stationed above a bucket. What can I say? No running water? The food was actually pretty good – Klaudia had vegetable biryana and I had Kaju Curry with Garlic Butter Naan. And there was a sign that promised all the food was washed with mineral water… Ah, I now miss the days when we were eating everything and everywhere.



We took a shared taxi back to Aurangabad then headed over to the bus depot to buy our bus ticket to Ahmedabad, where we were going to transfer to Udaipur.



Klaudia was doing ok, but I was tired, hot, and sick of traveling a bit. Plus, the attention we were receiving from tuk-tuk drivers (“Halo! Where are you going?” or “Do you need a tuk-tuk?”) and sellers (“Take a look at my things!” or “Just look, just look!”) was the most unremittingly raucous we’d experienced up to that point. Like I’d said earlier – there were simply no foreigners around, and we were “the” target.



We were successful in finding the actual bus depot only later, so we ended up purchasing our ticket at a ubiquitous travel agency. We killed a couple hours at a café to escape the constant attention we were receiving, then took a tuk-tuk to the bus depot. Once we arrived, I pulled out my wallet and removed 100 rupees, but the driver didn’t have change. We started looking through our pockets and, between Klaudia and me, we were able to pay in smaller denominations. I distinctly recall placing my wallet back in my pocket as I exited the tuk-tuk and began to wrestle our backpacks out of the back compartment: Klaudia’s backpack was stuck in the confined space. I finally got it out after several pulls, but was aggravated by the whole ordeal. We put our packs on and entered the bus depot office, realizing that we still had two hours before our bus left, so we exited to look for a place where I could possibly get a beer, knowing that it would get more difficult as we headed into Rajistan. Instantly, we were accosted by another raucous Indian: “Halo! Where are you going?! What are you looking for?”



If someone were to tell me that they did not have at least one emotional breakdown during their visit to India – whether it was in the form of an outburst, or a shutdown - I would treat them with the utmost circumspection. In that moment I had mine: I sunk my head and shut down; I was beaten, and all I could do was shake my head at the Indian standing before me, staring at me like a hungry stray dog. I then noticed a sign pointing to a waiting area behind the building and angrily yelled to Klaudia that that was where we were heading, at which point the Indian patted me on the shoulder, saying, “Ok, ok…”



We sat down on some chairs and Klaudia asked for some money to buy some water. My wallet was gone…



I’ve been robbed before (twice in Chicago and twice in Italy), but never while sober and awake, so I cannot say with certainty if I lost my wallet or if I was the victim of a (this time "professional") pickpocket, but I do know that my fatigue caused by lack of sleep and general emotional drain as an introvert having to fend off constant attention throughout the day caused me to lose sight of my surroundings; and I relearned a lesson I’ve received many times in life: it is when you are the most tired and stressed that you are most vulnerable to making mistakes, so it is exactly during those moments when you have to pull yourself together and focus on not doing something stupid, or allowing someone else to do something stupid to you. Looking on the bright side, I used the wallet for small transactions and as a decoy in the event that I was forced to hand something over to someone, with the hope that they would not check more private parts – this worked for me in Florence when three thugs were happy at receiving the wallet and didn’t go fishing elsewhere. I had less than $20 in there. Although it chaps my hide that that amount is a couple nights in a hotel, it doesn’t break the bank. The worst part of it was that I was planning to use my debit card, so I’d put it in my wallet for convenience (I’d like to publicly thank my brother Chris for calling the bank on my behalf). Again, on the bright side, we set up Plans B, C and D for getting cash.



One last thing I realized is that, when we return home, I want to learn how to pickpocket: I can see myself being a real hit at parties, walking up to friends, saying with a smile, “Hey, lose something?”

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