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India & Sri Lanka 2019

January - February 2019
A 38-day adventure by Joel Read more
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  • TravelerIndia & Sri Lanka 2019
    1
    Day 21

    Keoladeo NP & Fatehpur Sikri

    February 4, 2019 in India ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    Time for a double WHS today. Had our breakfast and then got picked up by our driver for the day, a fairly mute Indian man - fairly old so we presume he didn't speak much English.

    First stop for the day was about two hours west of Agra, a place called Keoladeo National Park. This is well known as a bird sanctuary, both for migrating and nesting birds. It's especially interesting because the landscape is man-made. This area is quite dry and hot, and over the years a system of gradually constructed dykes, dams, canals and other waterways have slowly turned it into a wetland that attracts birds.

    The typical recommendation here is to hire bikes from the park entrance and ride around, so that's what we did! Very foggy again so we couldn't really see much, but as the morning went on the fog got thinner and we ended up seeing quite a lot of birds. Wading birds, hunting birds, songbirds and waterbirds too - probably the best of the multiple bird sanctuaries we've been to now! Quite a few groups of locals with serious-looking lenses taking photos, so we knew we'd made a good choice.

    Left the bird park around midday by which time the fog had completely lifted, and headed back towards Agra and our next destination: Fatehpur Sikri. This was a city founded by a Mughal emperor in the 16th century. It was intended to be the capital, and served as such for a brief period, but eventually the emperor was deposed and his successors lost interest. So it basically just sits out in the desert, unused and well preserved. Though of course there's a "modern" town around it now, like everywhere else in India.

    We'd heard quite a few horror stories here of people getting ripped off by "guides" - demanding outrageous sums for ridiculously short tours, claiming that the tuk-tuk from the parking to the entrance is free (then disappearing when the driver wants his payment), etc. But it wasn't too bad, we just ignored the swarm around the car, got the bus up to the entrance and headed in. Also helps that we'd bought tickets online so we didn't need anyone's help at all.

    The ruined city was great in the end - lots of palace buildings to check out with intricate carvings and fascinating styles. Mostly done in red sandstone, though with a couple of white marble pavilions dotted around too. All very impressive.

    Once we'd finished looking around we headed next door to the royal mosque - not part of the ticketed area - and this was absolutely rammed. Loads of people around, including beggars and "helpful" people that show you a couple of things and then try to drag you to their shop. The mosques were very impressive (and with similar Mughal architecture to the mosques adjacent to the Taj), but everything else around them made it quite difficult. Alas.

    Back down the hill in the shuttle bus, then an hour car ride back to Agra where we chilled in our room for the evening.    Read more

  • TravelerIndia & Sri Lanka 2019
    Day 22

    South to Bhopal

    February 5, 2019 in India ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C

    The journey continues! Slightly later today though, as we were catching at 8am train rather than a 6am train - a real sleep-in! We spent the six hour journey chuntering across the fields and plains of central/western India. It's not quite as green as I was expecting (not surprising since it's the middle of the dry season), but it's just endlessly flat and fertile here. Rice field after rice field, with not a hill in sight. You can really see how they can feed over a billion citizens! Apparently down south in Tamil Nadu, it's so fertile they harvest the land three (3!) times a year. Crazy.

    We arrived in Bhopal around 3pm, a bit behind schedule but nothing too major. Bhopal is the capital of Madhya Pradesh, and famous mainly for being the site of the world's largest industrial disaster - a gas leak at the nearby Union Carbide chemical plant which poisoned the water and killed thousands of people. They've still never been compensated, and cancer rates here are something like 70x elsewhere in India, even now 30 years later.

    It's apparently a nice city, one of the greenest large cities in India! Though we didn't see much evidence of that on the way in from the train station. We're staying right in the centre of a market area that cars can't enter, much to the confusion of our Uber driver! You'd think he'd know that about his own city. It was pretty crowded here, narrow streets, motorbikes parked everywhere and people zooming up and down on their scooters. Hard to actually get anywhere!

    Stayed in for the afternoon, read a couple of articles about the thriving street food scene here and then headed out in the evening to eat some of it! Even risked one stall with minced mutton burgers - he was cooking them right there and serving, plus doing a roaring trade so we figured it would be ok. And it was.    Read more

  • TravelerIndia & Sri Lanka 2019
    Day 23

    Bhimbetka Rock Art & Sanchi Monuments

    February 6, 2019 in India ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C

    Another double-visit today. Hired a car from our hotel and headed out early, around 8am. First stop was the Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka, a rock art WHS in the middle of nowhere, south-west of Bhopal. The rock art here is a couple of thousand years old and very impressive: colourful and with good details. Lots of animals, but people and scenes too like hunting and battles. Cool to see elephants included in the paintings, as obviously they were important to the peoples of the time!

    Spent about an hour here where we were literally the only people except for a couple of security guys (and right at the end an upper-class older Indian couple arrived). Quite an interesting spot, and cool to see how it compares with the rock art we've seen in many other places (France, Spain, Scandinavia, Australia).

    Back in the car where we drove to the north-east of Bhopal and the small town of Sanchi. Here, on a hill outside of the town is a collection of Buddhist stupas which date back to as early as 300BC. It's actually quite unusual because although Buddha himself was Indian, Buddhism is quite uncommon in India - less than Hindus, Muslims and even Christians. But the earliest stupas were set down by King Ashoka when he converted to Buddhism. Ashoka is a very important figure in Indian history, sort of like Augustus and Rome. He and his descendants the Guptas ruled India for several hundred years and established important cities, laws and the like.

    Anyway the stupas were quite nice, and each had a group of monumental archways adjacent. These were extremely intricately carved with stories about the life of the Buddha, his teachings and so on. Fascinating to see, and in really good condition - we were both very impressed! All up, a good day - just a shame we had to go back to the busy marketplace and our hotel.    Read more

  • TravelerIndia & Sri Lanka 2019
    Day 24

    Relaxing in Bhopal

    February 7, 2019 in India ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    When booking our train tickets, there was only one train I wasn't able to get seats on the day we wanted. Not wanting to risk going on a waitlist, we had to delay our journey south to Aurangabad by another day. As a consequence, we had a full empty day in Bhopal. We basically spent it inside relaxing and planning.Read more

  • TravelerIndia & Sri Lanka 2019
    Day 25

    Long Day of Travel to Aurangabad

    February 8, 2019 in India ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    Today was our longest day of travel for the whole trip. Up at 5am and into an Uber to the station for our 6am train heading south to Aurangabad. We had a pair of bunks reserved so we spent the first few hours dozing before folding them up and sitting on the bench seat. Not the most comfortable, but manageable. The berths are arranged into two pairs in little compartments, and the two opposite us were empty which was nice so we spread out. Until we were halfway through lunch, and two local men got on - doh. Especially since one of them was constantly on the phone, yelling the entire time. I think that the constant noise of car horns, trucks and the like means that the locals are all slightly hard of hearing, and just talk at full volume by default. A minor irritant in the scheme of things.

    After 9 hours, and an hour behind schedule, we finally rolled into Manmad Junction and hopped off. The only direct train to Aurangabad ran overnight and had no seats available, so we had to catch connecting trains - a dicey proposition in India at the best of times. I'd booked our connecting train for 6pm, so that unless our train had the once-a-month luck of being 4+ hours late, we should be OK. Except that the previous day's train had arrived 4.5 hours late, and only 2 minutes before the 30 minutes late connecting train. So if we'd caught it yesterday, we would've had two minutes to change platforms and find our carriage - not an easy task when the trains are usually over a kilometre long!

    But in the end our train was only an hour late, and the connecting train was about 45 minutes late. So we had plenty of time to sit in the "upper class" waiting room and get bored. I'm not sure what upper class means in this context, probably just fewer mice or something - it definitely didn't mean zero mice!

    Finally got on our connecting train to Aurangabad as it was growing dark, and nothing especially eventful happened for the two hour trip down. Our hotel here is directly opposite the station (close enough to hear announcements), so we just walked over and headed to bed.    Read more

  • TravelerIndia & Sri Lanka 2019
    1
    1
    Day 26

    Ellora Caves

    February 9, 2019 in India ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    Despite being a city that probably nobody has ever heard of, Aurangabad is semi on the tourist circuit in India. Outside of town are two sets of cave temples that are quite famous, and it was those we'd come to see. The closer of the two is Ellora Caves, and we bravely decided to get public transport here. After a tuktuk to the bus station, we had a rough idea of the bus to catch - but of course all the signs and announcements are in Hindi! It then becomes a game of picking the best person to ask; someone who'll understand questions, be willing to help, and isn't looking to profit from your interaction. In the end I picked a young guy who looked like he was heading to work as a programmer. He pointed out the right platform and made sure we got on when the bus arrived which was nice!

    When the bus arrived it was complete pandemonium, with pushing and shoving and a new trick I hadn't seen before - people throwing their bags through the window to reserve a seat! Funnily enough we didn't get a seat, but the trip was only 45 minutes so we survived. Better than Sri Lankan buses to be honest.

    So the Ellora cave complex is basically a large group of cave temples (36 in all), from the three key religions in the area. Some are Buddhist, some are Hindu, and some are Jain. The caves have all been hewn out of the rock over centuries by monks and the like, and are full of carvings of deities, religious scenes and so on. They were actually really incredible to see, and we were both really impressed.

    The highlight is the colossal temple #16, a Hindu temple carved from a single stone. It's considered be the world's largest monolith, and I could easily believe it. You have to keep reminding yourself that not only was this dug out of a rock, all of the sculptures and carvings were dug out too. Crazy stuff.

    Had a quick bite of lunch then got the shuttle bus up to the Jain temples, which were on the same site but a couple of kilometres away. These were likewise very ornately carved and intricate, and also connected internally which was really interesting and something we hadn't seen before. Was a lot of fun exploring, even if we did end up running out of time slightly before the shuttle bus left.

    Getting back to Aurangabad was a bit of an ordeal! We waited at the bus stop for an hour while several buses went past - apparently express services! They stop here outbound but not inbound for some reason. But nobody else would stop or even come close. Eventually we and a few other tourists waiting nearby gave in to the private minivan guys who'd been hanging around and trying to sell us tickets for the last hour. I wasn't keen on it, but we were also sick of waiting.

    So we all piled in, thirteen of us into the 9 seater van. He stopped to let one guy hop off, and then five more got in! I was on a bench type thing in the rear right corner and there was a guy sort of in front and above me but not on me. I'm not quite sure where he was actually existing - he seemed to be floating in space! Though the worst one was the guy who sat in the driver's seat - who then got the driver sitting on his lap! Yes, our driver drove about halfway back while sitting on someone's lap. It was okay until he started going offroad, dodging trees and the like to get around queues of traffic. Yikes.    Read more

  • TravelerIndia & Sri Lanka 2019
    Day 27

    Ajanta Caves

    February 10, 2019 in India ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    After yesterday's fun with public transport, we decided to catch the specific tourist bus out to Ajanta Caves, which was quite a bit further (3 hours rather than 45 minutes). Some French girls we'd spoken to briefly said the road was pretty bad. The tourist bus left from near our hotel and was quite comfortable - large padded seats, air conditioning etc. And it was only 1/3rd full so we could spread out and recline. The journey out there passed without incident.

    Had some lunch at the on-site cafe which didn't quite sit right with me, I felt slightly off after eating it. But I soldiered on, checking out another series of mostly-Hindu caves this time, all arranged in a cliffside around a horseshoe bend of a river. Lots of impressive carvings here, mainly of Hindu deities like Ganesh, Shiva, Vishnu and so on. Quite a similar site Ellora yesterday, and just as impressive. A couple of the caves were large cathedral-style rock chambers with vaulted ceilings and excellent acoustics. You can just imagine the monks chanting their mantras.

    Hopped back on the coach at 3pm, ready to commence the journey back home. We set off, and soon stopped on a mountain pass road in a traffic jam. A pair of trucks had collided, causing one to lose a huge load of cotton (it's standard practice here to massively overload trucks). With the blockage being exacerbated by people driving on the wrong side of the road to skip the queue, it took us over two hours to get past the accident. Eventually we made it past and trundled our way back home. After stopping for a tea break, we didn't make it back to Aurangabad until about 8:30pm, which, considering we'd left home at about 7:15am, made for a pretty long day!    Read more

  • TravelerIndia & Sri Lanka 2019
    Day 28

    Westwards to Mumbai

    February 11, 2019 in India ⋅ 🌫 29 °C

    Out early again, on the train at 6am heading west towards Mumbai. Slightly older chair car this time so not as comfortable, but still fine and definitely way better than the base price carriages at the back of the train! I wasn't feeling too crash hot - my stomach had felt weird basically since lunchtime yesterday (though no symptoms of anything), so I just grinned and bore it for the following 6.5 hours until we arrived at Dadar station about halfway into Mumbai. That's where all of the central India trains terminal, for some reason.

    Caught an Uber to the hotel where I basically just went straight to bed and stayed there the rest of the day. Went out in the evening to a western cafe across the road from the hotel, but could only manage a Sprite and some fries. Shandos had been out and enjoyed looking around the city a bit.    Read more

  • TravelerIndia & Sri Lanka 2019
    Day 30

    Elephanta Caves & Mumbai

    February 13, 2019 in India ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

    Feeling a bit better today so decided to head out and tackle the three (3!!) world heritage sites in Mumbai. After some breakfast at a western style cafe with tasty food and glacial service, we headed for the Gateway to India at the entrance to Mumbai harbour and caught a ferry across to Elephanta Caves.

    Here there were more Hindu rock art caves, pretty similar to what we'd just seen at Ellora and Ajanta, and sadly these were by far the least impressive. Only five caves here, and really only the first cave has something interesting in it - a huge three-headed statue of Shiva known as the Trimurti. It was quite interesting looking at the three-faced head sculpture and reading the Wikipedia article, learning about it. Apparently it represents the three aspects of Shiva, the chief god of Hindus.

    One side was slightly feminine, wearing jewellery and holding a lotus leaf, representing fertility. The centre face was serene and holding a shield, showing protection. While the third face looked furious and held a sword, representing destruction. It was probably the best single carving we'd seen in any of the three cave sites, but there was very little else here besides aggro monkeys and souvenir stands, so we beat a hasty retreat.

    Sailed back across the harbour in the early afternoon and started wandering. The two sites in Mumbai are the Victorian Gothic and Art Deco Buildings, as well as a separate listing for the huge Chhatrapatti Shivastri Terminus railway station.

    Mumbai is actually probably my favourite Indian city, as the buildings are quite interesting. You can really see how important it was during the colonial era, as there's heaps of old buildings like that around. These days they're occupied by government offices, law courts, post offices and so on, but they're dotted around and very interesting to see. More trees here than elsewhere too, plus a large park in the centre of town called the Maidan. It was actually mostly green and of course had about 10 different cricket matches happening.

    Last stop as evening approached was the main railway station. Dating from the 19th century and formerly known as Victoria Terminus, it was renamed after independence for an Indian king of yesteryear. The building itself is magnificent, with Gothic flourishes, sculptures and incredible details all over the front and interior. I'd hoped to do the building tour which ran frequently in the afternoon (and which Shandos had done the day prior), but alas we were just too late. Oh well.

    Back to the nearby hotel where we went to the western-style cafe across the road for dinner. I managed a chicken burger for dinner even though it was way too spicy, but didn't feel up to a beer. Realised I hadn't had a single beer since arriving in India!    Read more

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