The ferry ride took a lot longer than expected. About an hour. You can't expect much when you're only going 8-10 mph (I had my GPS with me. Click HERE to see the proximity of the gateway and the island. It is the largest island shown in the upper right quadrant of the screen) Upon arriving, the sea breeze once again kept me dry, but I had no idea there was a good climb up a stone corridor to get to the caves themselves. You can see that the corridor was full of little vendors trying to get you to buy little trinkets and charms just itching for me to stop and buy something. By the time I got to the entrance, I was pretty much a wet mess. Luckily I had a handkercheif I had carried with me to dry myself off. Seemed like I was using it every 30 seconds or so.At the entrance to the caves, there as an Indian woman there that immediately ran up to me asking if I would take her picture. I though it was a cool photo opportunity. There were about 5 others that saw me taking her picture and suddenly ran over to me. I thought it was a little odd, but then it clicked when my Indian companion paid the first woman and pulled me away from the crowd. What a clever ploy. . . Get these foreigners to think they're getting a cultural photo and then take their money. I made the mistake only once but got at least an interesting photo.
The caves themselves were fascinating. Carved right out of the side of the mountain. The many pillars positioned both along the outside facade and all through the interior were very interesting. A lot of work went into carving these. There were a total of 4 different caves, some interconnected but most did not. It reminded me of the cliffs at Petra in Jordan, but not nearly as ornate.
For those of you who don't know, I love geocaching and of course I looked up the Mumbai area to see if there were any around. Fortunately there is only one in the area and it happens to be on Elephanta Island. It was actually a good thing that I had planned on finding it because there was a path that I would have never seen nor taken if I didn't know there was a cache on the other end. The path took us up about a 1/4 mile to the top of the second largest hill on the island with an incredible view of the entire bay. Once at the top, it was just a short 200 foot trek through the thick of the jungle to find the 35 mm cannister hidden under a small outcropping of rocks. I was pretty stoked that I found it. This picture is the kind of folliage I was going through. Surprisingly I didn't receive a single insect bite while on the adventure.
Monkeys are also considered sacred on the island so I had to catch a quick shot of one of them running around.
It was time to leave the island in order to catch the last boat and seeing that I had no intentions of spending the night on the island, we hurried down the mountain and jumped back on the ferry and in about an hour we pulled back into the port by the gateway. At that point I felt so sticky and dirty that I just wanted to get home. Luckily the car waiting for us had a very nice air conditioner and I was able to somewhat dry out. However, the sun was just setting and so I was able to jump out of the car and grab this beautiful shot of the sun setting on the Arabian Sea, a view not many people have the chance to see with their own eyes. India may be a little dirty and rough around the edges, but if you look passed that it really is a beautiful part of the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment