This is a long one and you may not get to the end unless you're one of our parents. If you do though, leave a comment as our comment box is looking and feeling rather neglected. You don't have to be signed up or any of that nonsense. Go on. Do it. Also, Richard's not going to be able to get any of photos up before he gets back in July, at which point he'll be doing a mass upload to Facebook. In the meantime, Ashley's uploading hers to Facebook, which you should be able to see by clicking here and here. If you can't see them, add her as a friend. She wont mind.
An overnight train took us from Hyderabad and on to Aurangabad, where we arrived at 4.30am. One of the trains passengers, who we had spoken to earlier in the evening, had taken it upon himself to wake himself up (he wasn't getting down at our stop) in order to wake us up and kindly ensure that we didn't miss our stop. Thankfully, the hostel we were staying in offered a free pick-up service from the station and 24 hour check-in - and all for the reasonable price of £10 per night. We turned up to find the reception staff asleep on the floor, which was a bit of a surprise.
Aurangabad is cave country and over the next 3 days, we spent our time time exploring the incredible Aurangabad, Ajanta and Ellora caves.
Our first stop was the Aurangabad caves, a collection of 10 modest Buddhist caves carved out of part of the towns hillside in the 6th and 7th Century AD. There were more monkeys wandering around the temples and caves than there were people, making for a quiet atmosphere and allowing us to slowly make our way through each one. The next step up were the Ajanta caves, which we visited the following day as part of a group tour. As we arrived at the caves, our bus was immediately surrounded by touts bearing shiny minerals, postcards and other tourist toot and, once off, we each had one of our own salesman. Some had even gone to the trouble giving themselves english aliases, including Ross and Gary. Our guide for the day was incredibly militant, giving the tour the air of a school trip - "stand here", "come please", "closer sir. Sir?" - but he provided constant entertainment as well as the odd bit of insight. One factoid was that all of the colours used for the paintings within the caves were sourced locally, apart from blue which was sourced in Persia.
The caves themselves were magnificent. Built in 200BC, the 30 caves consisted of Buddhist temples, monasteries and dining halls and assembly rooms and were carved completely by hand into the rock face. Many lay unfinished as during construction a nearby lake overflowed, flooding the area and forcing the buddhists to flee. They weren't discovered again until 1819, when the blandly named John Smith saw them from a hilltop whilst on a tiger hunting expedition.
Also on the tour with us were Jonny and Ali, an awesome couple from Manchester who'd spent the last 7 months travelling through South East Asia, Nepal and India. Over an amazing dinner of tandoor cooked chicken the following night, we tapped into their knowledge and picked up some excellent tips and recommendations for the next parts of our travels.
The final set of caves were Ellora, a collection of 34 hand carved caves that had been built over 5 centuries (AD 600 - 1000) and were categorised by religion - Hindu, Buddhist and Jain. The highlight was undoubtedly the Kailasa Temple. After creating 3 trenches in the rock face, 200 tonnes of rock were removed to create what looked like an ancient, long lost city worthy of an Indiana Jones film. We both walked round this ridiculous structure open-mouthed and shaking our heads - it was almost too much to take in!
Whilst in Aurangabad, we also visited the hilltop fortress of Dalutabad, which had daunting doors covered in protruding spikes to prevent elephant attacks, and the Bibi-Qa-Maqbara, better known as 'The Poor Man's Taj' (ironically, this was built by the son of the builder of the actual Taj - King Aurangazab - after he had overthrown and imprisoned his father for the decadence and extravagance he had shown in building the original).
A 360km round trip also allowed us to take a walk around Lonar Crater, a 2km wide crater that is 170m deep and "the only hypervelocity natural impact crater in basaltic rock in the world". We can't help but feel as though that claim to fame is pretty niche. As we wandered around the lake, we came across various Hindu temples and, with no people around, it felt as though we were discovering them for the first time.
What the crater lacked in people, however, it more than made up for with langur monkeys. Our path became blocked a couple of times by groups of about 20 monkeys, which are normally un-intimidating as humans tend to massively outnumber them. Here though, we were hugely in the minority! Halfway around the river, having powered through a couple of groups of monkeys already, we heard a rustling in the trees up ahead before an enormous langur (were talking 3ft off the ground when still on its all-fours) jumped down and blocked our route. Our path was probably only about 2ft across, so there was little room to squeeze past, although as the big bastard showed us his teeth, any thought of trying to move past him quickly vanished. This was a fight or flight moment and, as our hearts and stomachs launched themselves into our mouths, we turned around and unashamedly flew! On the way back up to the top of the crater, we met a group of 3 schoolchildren who can't have been older than 10 that were visiting to do some research for a project. They spoke impeccable English as they told us how they "always enjoy speaking with foreigners". We bet they had the nuts to take on the enormous langur monkey.
Just 3 hours by train from Aurangabad sits the beginning of India's wine revolution, which is being driven by Sula Vineyards. As a special treat, we booked ourselves into it's newly opened, immaculate and very plush Beyond Resort for the night. We felt unworthy pretty quickly as we turned up to the hotel in an auto, put-puting our way up the drive and, upon arrival, beginning to argue with the driver over the ridiculous price he was trying to charge us. The hotel staff quickly got involved in the negotiations and, after listening to his excuses - "we agreed a price at the station" (no we didn't) and "I won't pick up any passengers on the way back" (yes you will) - we emerged victorious, if not slightly embarrassed.
The hotel had water features running through its ground floor and each of it's rooms was named after a wine. We stayed in Malbec and savoured the warm water, immaculate bathroom and free toiletries, as well as the now unfamiliar sensation of sleeping whilst covered in a heavy duvet. A lunch, dinner and breakfast buffet was included in the price, serving up both Indian and Italian foods and which Richard happily went town on, as well as a tour of Sula's wine factory and a tasting session. We did this the following day, cycling to the factory (which produces 7 million litres a year using its 140 acres of vines) and being taken through the various stges of wine production before sampling 5 wines - 1 sparkling, 1 white (which tasted of lychee and peach - a particular highlight), 1 red, 1 rose and 1 dessert wine. Unfortunately, there was no way we were getting the bottles into our backpacks, but we took away a brochure and fully intend to order a few bottles at a later date.
Our time in the lap of luxury was over almost before it began and before we knew it, we were on the train to Mumbai, sitting opposite the incredibly English-ly named Alex George, who was proudly sporting double denim and was an Indian English teacher at a college in Mumbai. He quizzed us on all manner of topics, including religion. We enjoyed watching his face as Ashley told him she wasn't christened! Before he left, he gave us his card and kindly told us to contact him should we experience any problems whilst there.
Staying in Bentley's, a hostel based in an old, colonial-style building complete with red and white floor tiles, tall, Victorian staircases and an old, rickety lift, we quickly fell in love with Mumbai. Its architecture, most of which was the work of the British Raj, was astounding - the Gothic/Victorian spires and high, granite towers of CST Station (formerly known as Victoria), the huge arch of The Gateway of India looking out onto Mumbai harbour and the Islamic/Renaissance-style of the super luxurious Taj Mahal Palace Hotel.
Good food was everywhere, with Western food as easy (if not easier) to come by as Indian food. We found one place close to our hotel called Theobroma's, which we ended up eating breakfast at every day. The bakery, patisserie and chocolatier could provide you with anything from a chip butty or a fresh fruit and oat breakfast smoothie, to a bagel with cream cheese or an omlette. They also had a far-reaching selection of brownies which included peanut and toffee, marshmallow and double chocolate!
Having both read Gregory David Robert's Shantaram, as well as other things on Mumbai, we were a little apprehensive before arriving as much of what you read describes a hectic, fast-paced place that is an enormous shock. It's certainly a little crazier than your average high street, but compared to other places we've been through it was very manageable - the vehicles stay within the road markings, there are traffic lights and pedestrian crossings which drivers respond to, the stall holders are less pushy and, overall, it's clean. This is, however, the place in India where we've really experienced the extreme levels of poverty and wealth that exist side by side with one another. As well as the nearby Dharavi Slum (and others like it), which deserves its own post, scenes such as that which we saw 2 minutes walk from the decedent Taj Mahal Palace - a naked teenage boy washing himself in the middle of the road using a a jug and water from a hydrant - are all too common.
One of Mumbai's signature dishes is Bhel Puri. Made from thin fried rounds of dough with rice, lentils, lemon juice, tomato, onion, herbs and chutney, it's like a sexed up Bombay Mix and a dish you can pick up in abundance down at Chowpatty Beach for 20 Rupees (about 25 pence). An enjoyable evening walk along the seafront promenade of Marine Drive took us there, as we watched power walkers and runners pass us by and local couples sitting on the seawall. One passerby, a 60-odd year old man, stopped us at the traffic lights asking us the usual "which country?", "are you students?", "what is your good name?", "where are you staying?", directing almost all of the conversation at Richard. Harish, as he finally introduced himself as, then asked us whether we'd like to join him as his guests for drinks at his local cricket club, of which he was member. Itbalso had a pool and so we were welcome to bring swimming attire. We said we'd love to, but we were meeting friends. They were more than welcome to come along too, offered Harish. We eventually took his number, knowing full well that we wouldn't go. He seemed a well meaning, genuine guy, but we had other things to do, including meeting our friends Sally and Neale...
By sheer luck, it happened that they were flying into Mumbai for a short break travelling around India and, for about 24 hours, we were in the same city. We spent the night in the now infamous Leopolds Bar and Restaurant, ordering pitcher after pitcher of Kingfisher beer, catching up and getting progressively merry.
At 08.05 the following morning, our telephone, which sat on the bedside table directly to Richards right, began to ring. He picked up, saying nothing and waiting to hear if anyone was on the other end of the line. The line was silent and so and so he hung up and rolled over. Moments later the phone rang again: "Hello?".
A voice came back; "Hello, Richard? It's Harish. Do you remember me? I invited you and your friends for drinks at my cricket club." Richard's throat was dry and both of our heads felt heavy from the previous nights beers. "Are you free today?", asked Harish. We felt awful having to let him down, but we were looking forward to spending some more time with Sally an Neale. Richard therefore did the noble thing; he outright lied. "I'm sorry Harish, we actually leave Mumbai this morning". He sounded disappointed as we said our goodbyes. We're bad people!
We met Sally and Neale in Theobroma's, where the latter was mourning the loss of his camera in the back of a taxi, and spent the majority of the day trying to find Chor Bazaar (literally translated as 'Thieves Market', so-called because apparently when Queen Victoria visited Mumbai by steam ship in the 1800s, she found that various possessions had gone missing - a purse, a violin, jewellery - when they were being unloaded from the boat. Apparently, all the items were later found for sale at this market). We also went in search of Crawford Market (the place to go for fruit and veg). After wandering through Mumbai's many small lanes for over two hours, we admitted we were lost hopped into a taxi for Chor bazaar. Lonely Planet had highly recommended it as a place to source unusual antiques when, in fact, it was more like a street of garages, proffering no mor than stripped down car engines, door handles, nuts and bolts with the occasional wandering goat or cow thrown in!
We admitted defeat and went for chai and lime sodas in a cafe called Gaylord's (we know it's childish, but we only went in because of the name and couldn't help but laugh...and take copious amounts of photos of signs, menus and napkins) before saying our goodbyes. It was great to see a couple of familiar faces, catch up, have a few drinks and share a small chunk of our travels with the two of them. We had an excellent time in the city formerly known as Bombay and were pleasantly surprised by how much we loved it (although we resisted buying the t-shirt that would have acted as evidence). One to go back to and highly recommended.
x
An overnight train took us from Hyderabad and on to Aurangabad, where we arrived at 4.30am. One of the trains passengers, who we had spoken to earlier in the evening, had taken it upon himself to wake himself up (he wasn't getting down at our stop) in order to wake us up and kindly ensure that we didn't miss our stop. Thankfully, the hostel we were staying in offered a free pick-up service from the station and 24 hour check-in - and all for the reasonable price of £10 per night. We turned up to find the reception staff asleep on the floor, which was a bit of a surprise.
Aurangabad is cave country and over the next 3 days, we spent our time time exploring the incredible Aurangabad, Ajanta and Ellora caves.
Our first stop was the Aurangabad caves, a collection of 10 modest Buddhist caves carved out of part of the towns hillside in the 6th and 7th Century AD. There were more monkeys wandering around the temples and caves than there were people, making for a quiet atmosphere and allowing us to slowly make our way through each one. The next step up were the Ajanta caves, which we visited the following day as part of a group tour. As we arrived at the caves, our bus was immediately surrounded by touts bearing shiny minerals, postcards and other tourist toot and, once off, we each had one of our own salesman. Some had even gone to the trouble giving themselves english aliases, including Ross and Gary. Our guide for the day was incredibly militant, giving the tour the air of a school trip - "stand here", "come please", "closer sir. Sir?" - but he provided constant entertainment as well as the odd bit of insight. One factoid was that all of the colours used for the paintings within the caves were sourced locally, apart from blue which was sourced in Persia.
 |
| Ajanta Caves |
 |
| Ajanta Caves |
Also on the tour with us were Jonny and Ali, an awesome couple from Manchester who'd spent the last 7 months travelling through South East Asia, Nepal and India. Over an amazing dinner of tandoor cooked chicken the following night, we tapped into their knowledge and picked up some excellent tips and recommendations for the next parts of our travels.
The final set of caves were Ellora, a collection of 34 hand carved caves that had been built over 5 centuries (AD 600 - 1000) and were categorised by religion - Hindu, Buddhist and Jain. The highlight was undoubtedly the Kailasa Temple. After creating 3 trenches in the rock face, 200 tonnes of rock were removed to create what looked like an ancient, long lost city worthy of an Indiana Jones film. We both walked round this ridiculous structure open-mouthed and shaking our heads - it was almost too much to take in!
 |
| Kailasa Temple |
 |
| Poor Man's Taj |
A 360km round trip also allowed us to take a walk around Lonar Crater, a 2km wide crater that is 170m deep and "the only hypervelocity natural impact crater in basaltic rock in the world". We can't help but feel as though that claim to fame is pretty niche. As we wandered around the lake, we came across various Hindu temples and, with no people around, it felt as though we were discovering them for the first time.
What the crater lacked in people, however, it more than made up for with langur monkeys. Our path became blocked a couple of times by groups of about 20 monkeys, which are normally un-intimidating as humans tend to massively outnumber them. Here though, we were hugely in the minority! Halfway around the river, having powered through a couple of groups of monkeys already, we heard a rustling in the trees up ahead before an enormous langur (were talking 3ft off the ground when still on its all-fours) jumped down and blocked our route. Our path was probably only about 2ft across, so there was little room to squeeze past, although as the big bastard showed us his teeth, any thought of trying to move past him quickly vanished. This was a fight or flight moment and, as our hearts and stomachs launched themselves into our mouths, we turned around and unashamedly flew! On the way back up to the top of the crater, we met a group of 3 schoolchildren who can't have been older than 10 that were visiting to do some research for a project. They spoke impeccable English as they told us how they "always enjoy speaking with foreigners". We bet they had the nuts to take on the enormous langur monkey.
 |
| Lonar Crater |
Just 3 hours by train from Aurangabad sits the beginning of India's wine revolution, which is being driven by Sula Vineyards. As a special treat, we booked ourselves into it's newly opened, immaculate and very plush Beyond Resort for the night. We felt unworthy pretty quickly as we turned up to the hotel in an auto, put-puting our way up the drive and, upon arrival, beginning to argue with the driver over the ridiculous price he was trying to charge us. The hotel staff quickly got involved in the negotiations and, after listening to his excuses - "we agreed a price at the station" (no we didn't) and "I won't pick up any passengers on the way back" (yes you will) - we emerged victorious, if not slightly embarrassed.
The hotel had water features running through its ground floor and each of it's rooms was named after a wine. We stayed in Malbec and savoured the warm water, immaculate bathroom and free toiletries, as well as the now unfamiliar sensation of sleeping whilst covered in a heavy duvet. A lunch, dinner and breakfast buffet was included in the price, serving up both Indian and Italian foods and which Richard happily went town on, as well as a tour of Sula's wine factory and a tasting session. We did this the following day, cycling to the factory (which produces 7 million litres a year using its 140 acres of vines) and being taken through the various stges of wine production before sampling 5 wines - 1 sparkling, 1 white (which tasted of lychee and peach - a particular highlight), 1 red, 1 rose and 1 dessert wine. Unfortunately, there was no way we were getting the bottles into our backpacks, but we took away a brochure and fully intend to order a few bottles at a later date.
 |
| Giant wine bottle at Sula Vineyard |
Our time in the lap of luxury was over almost before it began and before we knew it, we were on the train to Mumbai, sitting opposite the incredibly English-ly named Alex George, who was proudly sporting double denim and was an Indian English teacher at a college in Mumbai. He quizzed us on all manner of topics, including religion. We enjoyed watching his face as Ashley told him she wasn't christened! Before he left, he gave us his card and kindly told us to contact him should we experience any problems whilst there.
Staying in Bentley's, a hostel based in an old, colonial-style building complete with red and white floor tiles, tall, Victorian staircases and an old, rickety lift, we quickly fell in love with Mumbai. Its architecture, most of which was the work of the British Raj, was astounding - the Gothic/Victorian spires and high, granite towers of CST Station (formerly known as Victoria), the huge arch of The Gateway of India looking out onto Mumbai harbour and the Islamic/Renaissance-style of the super luxurious Taj Mahal Palace Hotel.
Good food was everywhere, with Western food as easy (if not easier) to come by as Indian food. We found one place close to our hotel called Theobroma's, which we ended up eating breakfast at every day. The bakery, patisserie and chocolatier could provide you with anything from a chip butty or a fresh fruit and oat breakfast smoothie, to a bagel with cream cheese or an omlette. They also had a far-reaching selection of brownies which included peanut and toffee, marshmallow and double chocolate!
Having both read Gregory David Robert's Shantaram, as well as other things on Mumbai, we were a little apprehensive before arriving as much of what you read describes a hectic, fast-paced place that is an enormous shock. It's certainly a little crazier than your average high street, but compared to other places we've been through it was very manageable - the vehicles stay within the road markings, there are traffic lights and pedestrian crossings which drivers respond to, the stall holders are less pushy and, overall, it's clean. This is, however, the place in India where we've really experienced the extreme levels of poverty and wealth that exist side by side with one another. As well as the nearby Dharavi Slum (and others like it), which deserves its own post, scenes such as that which we saw 2 minutes walk from the decedent Taj Mahal Palace - a naked teenage boy washing himself in the middle of the road using a a jug and water from a hydrant - are all too common.
One of Mumbai's signature dishes is Bhel Puri. Made from thin fried rounds of dough with rice, lentils, lemon juice, tomato, onion, herbs and chutney, it's like a sexed up Bombay Mix and a dish you can pick up in abundance down at Chowpatty Beach for 20 Rupees (about 25 pence). An enjoyable evening walk along the seafront promenade of Marine Drive took us there, as we watched power walkers and runners pass us by and local couples sitting on the seawall. One passerby, a 60-odd year old man, stopped us at the traffic lights asking us the usual "which country?", "are you students?", "what is your good name?", "where are you staying?", directing almost all of the conversation at Richard. Harish, as he finally introduced himself as, then asked us whether we'd like to join him as his guests for drinks at his local cricket club, of which he was member. Itbalso had a pool and so we were welcome to bring swimming attire. We said we'd love to, but we were meeting friends. They were more than welcome to come along too, offered Harish. We eventually took his number, knowing full well that we wouldn't go. He seemed a well meaning, genuine guy, but we had other things to do, including meeting our friends Sally and Neale...
 |
| View over Chowpatty Beach, Mumbai |
At 08.05 the following morning, our telephone, which sat on the bedside table directly to Richards right, began to ring. He picked up, saying nothing and waiting to hear if anyone was on the other end of the line. The line was silent and so and so he hung up and rolled over. Moments later the phone rang again: "Hello?".
A voice came back; "Hello, Richard? It's Harish. Do you remember me? I invited you and your friends for drinks at my cricket club." Richard's throat was dry and both of our heads felt heavy from the previous nights beers. "Are you free today?", asked Harish. We felt awful having to let him down, but we were looking forward to spending some more time with Sally an Neale. Richard therefore did the noble thing; he outright lied. "I'm sorry Harish, we actually leave Mumbai this morning". He sounded disappointed as we said our goodbyes. We're bad people!
We met Sally and Neale in Theobroma's, where the latter was mourning the loss of his camera in the back of a taxi, and spent the majority of the day trying to find Chor Bazaar (literally translated as 'Thieves Market', so-called because apparently when Queen Victoria visited Mumbai by steam ship in the 1800s, she found that various possessions had gone missing - a purse, a violin, jewellery - when they were being unloaded from the boat. Apparently, all the items were later found for sale at this market). We also went in search of Crawford Market (the place to go for fruit and veg). After wandering through Mumbai's many small lanes for over two hours, we admitted we were lost hopped into a taxi for Chor bazaar. Lonely Planet had highly recommended it as a place to source unusual antiques when, in fact, it was more like a street of garages, proffering no mor than stripped down car engines, door handles, nuts and bolts with the occasional wandering goat or cow thrown in!
We admitted defeat and went for chai and lime sodas in a cafe called Gaylord's (we know it's childish, but we only went in because of the name and couldn't help but laugh...and take copious amounts of photos of signs, menus and napkins) before saying our goodbyes. It was great to see a couple of familiar faces, catch up, have a few drinks and share a small chunk of our travels with the two of them. We had an excellent time in the city formerly known as Bombay and were pleasantly surprised by how much we loved it (although we resisted buying the t-shirt that would have acted as evidence). One to go back to and highly recommended.
x
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