A sunset - a recovery

Dear Sam,

It was already 1 o'clock when I arrived Ellora and I was supposed to be back to Aurangabad by 4:30 pm for the bus. So I had about 2 and a half hour for the caves... enough and yet not enough. I actually planned to go to Ellora very early in the morning (this time I did wake up very early). I calculated 60 rs for the return bus ticket, 10 rs entry fee and 10 rs even for a chai. By noon I'd be back to Aurangabad, find a Western Union for the money dear Lulu sent me, have my lunch and head to Gujarat. That would've been a perfect way to manage an almost unmanageable day - a "studentic" way, a Bengali way. Well, I went German instead. I played it "safe" -.-.

I woke up at 7 o'clock just to wait in an internet cafe until 10 for the (apparently) only Western Union in Aurangabad. I had the bad luck of meeting the most incompetent bankers in a most unprofessional site for a bank! I checked out from that Youth Hostel (just fyi: Lonely Planet has even taken them down from the recent edition) as soon as I could. The manager also was not the friendliest person I've met. Or may be he had a bad day/night like me too.

I actually got a bit insecure about the bus fare and the entry fee. May be the bus fare's 40 rs and not 30 rs! How would I come back then? And for the entry fee - foreigners pay 250 rs (though it's 10 rs for Indians). But as a SAARCian I've been paying just as much as the Indians everywhere, every time! I always take a chance. I don't know why I didn't do that today.

Anywho, then I was there at Ellora. I was saved. I had my money. Guess how much the bus fare was! Yes, 30 rs. Guess how much the entry fee was! Yes, 10 rs. You know the feeling when you knew from the very beginning that your plan AT the very beginning would work, but then you chicken out and change your plans just to find out it was not a clever idea to change the plan after all? Exactly! I hate Murphy's law too :-P.

I travelled around 1900 km, spent 35 hours in sleeper and passenger classes and dingy stations, crossed 3 states, halfslept for 3 hours with the fear of the worst nightmare that can happen to a girl ... just to spend 10 hours in Aurangabad and 2.5 hours of it in Ellora! At least if I had followed my initial plan, I could have had twice as much time for the spendiferous caves! And just like the little red cherry on the top of the whipped cream of a Schwarzwald-Kirsch-Torte, I found a Western Union at the private bus station on Adalat road when I came back from Ellora. By the look of that place (very busy and touristy), I bet it would've taken the usual 10 minutes to get the money instead of the 45 minutes I had to waste this morning.

Fail! Epic fail! Maha fail in Maharashstra! But... I had a good time in the caves. In fact, a great time. It was like going back to childhood, exploring every dark corner with the faint hope of seeing a lurking snake. I started at the southest (Buddhist) point from cave 1 and hiked till the last Hindu cave to the north and then cheated by taking an auto-rickshaw to the Jain ones :-P. The Buddhist caves were... well, Buddhist! Beaming with peace - calm and quiet. Only a few people were there (the crowd was mainly at the Kailash Temple, which I kept aside for a perfect conclusion). I even saw a headless preaching Buddha, either in the Do Thal or in the Tin Thal, I think. Did you see that one?

The Hindu caves were architecturally less boring. I mean, they looked like a lot's going on. I think I saw Shiva doing a Tae-Kwon-Do move at his Nataraja form in the Das Avatara cave (the cave with Nandi, his bull). I was positively surprised that no kids were riding on Nandi! They never miss a chance of playing the Rodeo on the first inanimate animal they meet in front of any Hallway. But one simply does not ride on a bull, specially if the name is Nandi :-D.

They closed the narrow passage between the last two Hindu caves (with the waterfall with no water in between) because of a small avalanche or so. I didn't know that. No signs warned me and when one did, it was too late. I was already there and I had no time to go back. All the people from the last Hindu cave helplessly watched me passing the partly fence-less narrow passage, jumping over the very small avalanche-boulders. Terrific. LOL. One small girl even asked me, "Didi, aap ko darr nahi laga"? I said, "Nahi" ;-).

The Jain caves after that were filled up with lots and lots of people...pushing each other as usual. The stairs were so steep and slippery that anything can happen anytime. And it did. A woman with a baby in her arms tripped...just before me (I did NOT push. I do NOT do such things. So stop smirking). Both were fine, when I left. I had no time but I checked. It's my civic duty to check (imagine me pulling up my chin sky high ... :-D)!

The best was, of course, the Kailash Temple! It was fascinating! 100 years of top-down-chiselling of 400,000 tons of rocks to build the world's largest monolithic monument! Ammayyyzing! Once again I was thinking how very little impressed I was when I saw the Taj Mahal for the very first time (the roof top view from the hotel was way better though). I was inside the complex and saw it and thought to myself, "Ah okay! That's the Taj Mahal. Nice. Now what else do we do! Let's make some funny pictures." And for the Kailash Temple, I went inside the complex and saw it and ... looked at it again ... and again and again. I just couldn't stop looking at this marvel! 

And now I'm in the bus heading to Ahmedabad, Little Rann of Kutch. precisely. The AC upper berth is just what I needed after my Backpacker's moral breakdown (you know what I mean). I never knew such buses existed. But still, was it really worth it? This trip? I feel exhausted. Physically. Mentally. And since our last silent telepathic fight, also emotionally. I quit. I'm going back.

That's what I thought until I saw the most beautiful and dangerous scene ever in my life just some moments ago.

We are crossing a very narrow road - definitely not eligible for two-way traffic - around the mountains (with traces of broken fence and car parts). I can see the 5 cm distance between life and death. And I can see the majestic Deccan Plateau with the patchwork valley down there at this heavenly red sunset.

I'm not going back.

<3 - TZ

13.05.13