we took a night train from mumbai to aurangabad...the town is named for aurangzeb, one of the formal mughal rulers...there are three reasons to go to aurangabad...one, bibi qa maqbara is located there...(otherwise known as the poor man's taj)...two, the caves at ellora are only an hour away...and three, the caves at ajanta are only 2-3 hours away...our first day we arrived in the early morning, so the three of us (ben joined us) slept in our hotel room for a few hours...nothing is open at 6am anywho...in the afternoon we walked to bibi qa maqbara...apparently no one else walks in this town, because we got a lot of strange looks...then again, we are three foreigners, two with long hair...(ben's got long blond hair...i'd kill to have his hair)...the poor man's taj is quite a lot like the better known taj mahal in agra...but it's cheaper, and smaller...as has happened several times previously, many of the indian tourists there asked to take pictures with us...
the second day we arranged to go to ellora to see the caves...since the caves at elephanta island were my idea (i'm the one of the three of us that always reads the guidebook) and those weren't all that great, ben and layna weren't super keen to see these caves...i myself wasn't too confident...but these caves were AWESOME...there are 34 of them at ellora...the first 12 are buddhist, the next bunch hindu, and the last 5 are jain...i should explain that none of these are actual caves...they're all man made excavations generally in a line...the entrance ticket booth is perpendicular to cave 16, you have to walk to one end to see the buddhist ones, then come back to the middle and walk all the way to the other end to see the jain caves...cave 16 receives the most attention of all of them...it's HUGE...according to lonely planet, it's twice the space of the parthenon in athens, and 1.5 times as high...the temple in the middle is still an active temple...there were a LOT of people there, and it was by far the loudest cave...yet again, we took pictures with more random people...ben and i were invited to take a picture with a school group that had arranged itself on some steps...after a while of feeling like celebrities, we finally had to just walk out...we ended up spending 3.5 hours at the caves, and even skipped a number of them...maybe it sounds rude, but after a while, all buddhas look the same...so do shivas, and every other god...we were caved out...
the third city to which we traveled with ben is called hyderabad...layna and i hadn't originally planned to go that far south...but back in the states, ben worked with a guy who had lived in india for 3 yrs (is that right?) and had a lot of friends, and he passed on a lot of contact info to ben...ben convinced us to go to hyderabad with the promise of meeting upper class indians...hyderabad is also sometimes called cyberabad...together, hyderabad and bengaluru make up the IT center of india...hyderabad definitely doesn't have a lot of tourist sights, and there weren't any touts in front of the train station...the first night there ben called up one of his contacts, he and layna went out and joined a birthday party...i'm not going to repeat their stories...hee hee...
the second day those two slept in...when we left the hotel room to do our normal walking around the city, i aimed toward the one landmark that sounded slightly worth seeing...charminar...it's not all that exciting, but oh well...along the way, an indian guy fell in with us, and kept trying to talk to us...he hardly spoke any english, and after a while, we tried to lose him...but as soon as one of us would get away, he'd fall in with one of the other two...as we walked into the charminar area, he tried to walk in with us...but the security guys stopped him...then he tried to get layna to pay for him...but she didn't...charminar is a big tower of sorts, and as we got up, we looked down and saw the guy waiting for us!!! he waited for quite a while...so we hatched a plan...whoeva went down first was going to take him on a wild goose chase, and we'd all meet up on the steps of a mosque (men's only mosque, said to be able to hold 10,000 people)...but the guy didn't follow ben when he went down first!!! when layna and i walked out, i walked in one direction, she walked in the other...he followed her...it took her half an hour to get rid of him...and even so, she had to tell him directly to go away...which he did, finally...or so we thought...after finding each other on the steps, we started walking back...and the guy showed up again!!! we told him again that he needed to go away, and he said that he would, or at least indicated that, but he wanted to shake the hands of layna and i first...fine...after shaking my hand he poked me in the boob, hard!!! he knew he had done wrong, because he took off, fast...argh...
hyderabad is known for one other thing besides it's IT world...a food called biryani...biryani is steamed, spiced, fragrant rice...apparently hyderabad has the best in india...from both ben's friend and another random indian we met in mumbai, we were told about a certain restaurant...our last evening in hyderabad, we decided to see what it was all about...after trying three different rickshaw drivers (one of whom thought we wanted to go somewhere else then couldn't even get us back to where he picked us up) we finally found the restaurant...HUGE portions...and good...but it's rice, and i've never gotten that excited about rice...tasty, but rice...
one more thing to see in hyderabad is a buddha statue in the middle of the lake...i've again forgotten the specifics of the story, but after it was carved, as it was being transported, the boat sank, along with the buddha..."miraculously" when it was raised a number of years later, there was reputedly no damage...so a small island was built in the middle of the lake, and that's where it has stayed...you can take a boat out to get a little closer...
the tourist quota on the night train from hyderabad to bengaluru is 2...only 2 tourists per class on the entire train!! which was a bit of a problem, since there were three of us...howeva, ben wanted to go out again, and volunteered to stay in hyderabad an extra evening, and meet up with us later...
Showing posts with label jain temples. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jain temples. Show all posts
31 January 2009
22 January 2009
india part 4
after jaipur we went to another "ur"...there seem to be lots of them...udaipur is named for udai singh, a maharaja...it is built around lake pichola, which is supposed to be really pretty...according to who knows who, udaipur is the venice of the east...i wouldn't really agree with that...the monsoon has been pretty crappy for the past two years, so the lake is pretty low, and doesn't look very pretty...not at all...there are two islands in the middle of it...one is a palace, and one is a hotel...they're both lit up at night, and quite picturesque...it's pretty at night than during the day...at least that's what i thought....there is another lake on the north side of the town, called fateh sagar...that lake is low as well, and looks just as icky...
when we arrived in udaipur my foot got caught as i was getting out of the rickshaw that delivered us to a hotel...i didn't think anything of the cut on my hand at the time...
there are a number of temples around town, and the first one we discovered was nearly completely deserted...of course, as we walked in to explore, two locals came with us, each trying to be our guide...udaipur was the place where we had the most people who would walk along with us for a little while telling us facts and showing us places, then ask for money, even though we hadn't asked them for anything in the first place...frustrating...anywho, this temple was indo-aryan, with exquisite carving...we went to another one as well, but it was covered in people, and somehow that made it less interesting...
our favorite part of udaipur was a cooking class we took from a lady named shashi...having been in india for nearly a month, we had tried a lot of different foods, and were really excited about learning how to make some of them...she started the class by telling us her life story, which was awesome...she's a widow, and by the laws of her caste, she's not allowed to remarry, ever...she also told us some other details....she's a very strong woman...anywho, 3 hours later, we had prepared a FEAST, and got to attempt to eat it...that was probably the first and only time in india that we weren't able to finish everything in front of us...so much food...and such good food...as part of the class we received the recipes of everything we made, and now we're both really keen to have "indian night" with some friends after our trip....at the end of the class shashi also gave us earrings, a keychain, and a friendship bracelet...fantastic experience...
we left udaipur on a bus one morning, and arrived that afternoon in mt abu...it's a hill station, and the road up the mountain is windy...surprisingly, i didn't get sick...we hired a paddleboat and paddled around nakki lake for an hour, which was nice...at one point on the lake a couple indian guys in another boat attempted to make conversation, and one even climbed over onto our boat...the only problem is that they spoke only a few words of english...i'm not exaggerating...when we said we were going to keep going, i had to indicate that it was time for him to get out of the boat, because he didn't understand...he also asked us for our mobile numbers, which of course we don't have, and wouldn't have given him...that would be a conversation of total silence!! anywho, the other reason to go to mt abu is to see the jain temples at dalwara, a few kilometers away...they are made of white marble, with incredibly intricate carving...you're not allowed to take a camera in, so i don't have any pictures other than the ones in my head...there are 5 temples, and to someone like me, they all look somewhat the same...they are awesome though...temple #5 isn't finished...according to someone who works there, while it was being built, a war broke out, and funds that were supposed to go to the temple were diverted to the war fund...sad...
on the bus ride from mt abu to ahmedabad, i did get motion sickness...at least i felt awful on the way down the mountain...but after our first food stop i felt a lot better...that was our first time (and only time) in a sleeper bus...when we arrived in ahmedabad, it wasn't clear at all when we were supposed to get off the bus...we asked, and got conflicting answers from the same guy..."last stop"..."this stop"..."next stop"...we're used to miscommunication by now...ahmedabad is one of the more muslim areas of india...there are quite a few mosques, and quite a few women who are almost entirely covered...the street market is huge, and keeps going and going and going...we saw another bollywood movie, chandni chowk to china...we didn't like it as well as our first movie, rab na bana di jodi...there aren't many tourists in ahmedabad, i don't think we saw any other foreigners...
when we arrived in udaipur my foot got caught as i was getting out of the rickshaw that delivered us to a hotel...i didn't think anything of the cut on my hand at the time...
there are a number of temples around town, and the first one we discovered was nearly completely deserted...of course, as we walked in to explore, two locals came with us, each trying to be our guide...udaipur was the place where we had the most people who would walk along with us for a little while telling us facts and showing us places, then ask for money, even though we hadn't asked them for anything in the first place...frustrating...anywho, this temple was indo-aryan, with exquisite carving...we went to another one as well, but it was covered in people, and somehow that made it less interesting...
our favorite part of udaipur was a cooking class we took from a lady named shashi...having been in india for nearly a month, we had tried a lot of different foods, and were really excited about learning how to make some of them...she started the class by telling us her life story, which was awesome...she's a widow, and by the laws of her caste, she's not allowed to remarry, ever...she also told us some other details....she's a very strong woman...anywho, 3 hours later, we had prepared a FEAST, and got to attempt to eat it...that was probably the first and only time in india that we weren't able to finish everything in front of us...so much food...and such good food...as part of the class we received the recipes of everything we made, and now we're both really keen to have "indian night" with some friends after our trip....at the end of the class shashi also gave us earrings, a keychain, and a friendship bracelet...fantastic experience...
we left udaipur on a bus one morning, and arrived that afternoon in mt abu...it's a hill station, and the road up the mountain is windy...surprisingly, i didn't get sick...we hired a paddleboat and paddled around nakki lake for an hour, which was nice...at one point on the lake a couple indian guys in another boat attempted to make conversation, and one even climbed over onto our boat...the only problem is that they spoke only a few words of english...i'm not exaggerating...when we said we were going to keep going, i had to indicate that it was time for him to get out of the boat, because he didn't understand...he also asked us for our mobile numbers, which of course we don't have, and wouldn't have given him...that would be a conversation of total silence!! anywho, the other reason to go to mt abu is to see the jain temples at dalwara, a few kilometers away...they are made of white marble, with incredibly intricate carving...you're not allowed to take a camera in, so i don't have any pictures other than the ones in my head...there are 5 temples, and to someone like me, they all look somewhat the same...they are awesome though...temple #5 isn't finished...according to someone who works there, while it was being built, a war broke out, and funds that were supposed to go to the temple were diverted to the war fund...sad...
on the bus ride from mt abu to ahmedabad, i did get motion sickness...at least i felt awful on the way down the mountain...but after our first food stop i felt a lot better...that was our first time (and only time) in a sleeper bus...when we arrived in ahmedabad, it wasn't clear at all when we were supposed to get off the bus...we asked, and got conflicting answers from the same guy..."last stop"..."this stop"..."next stop"...we're used to miscommunication by now...ahmedabad is one of the more muslim areas of india...there are quite a few mosques, and quite a few women who are almost entirely covered...the street market is huge, and keeps going and going and going...we saw another bollywood movie, chandni chowk to china...we didn't like it as well as our first movie, rab na bana di jodi...there aren't many tourists in ahmedabad, i don't think we saw any other foreigners...
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