15. [updated] Choral rock cave temples, Victoria & horseshoe crabs - relics of a bygone era

Kolkata

From the jungle paradise of Maghalaya, I headed back around Bangladesh and down to Kolkata, my 2nd major Indian city.

"Holy imperialism, Batman, The Victoria Memorial!!". Kolkata gained greatly during British rule, growing in size, prestige and wealth. But it may have also suffered the most when the Raj left, with 2,000,000 poor, Hindu immigrants flooding the city from Bangladesh. The museum in this building had a good background on the Bengal background, including the eventual elimination of the practice of Sati where a wife is burnt along with her husband upon his death.

More Victoria. Despite my shivers, these monuments make for majestic photographs.

Another side of Kolkata: while I didn't take photos in the slums (I got shouted at in the Mumbai dockyards for taking a photo without permission), this unattended baby asleep on a building step was too much for me.

I managed to find a great place to stay: the Kolkata Backpackers B&B Homestay. It's run by Rishii, a "super" friendly and knowledgeable local resource. There I met Stephanie and Sam who had volunteered at a school in Tamil Nadu. They liked being in India, but the teaching was a challenge: so much of how they had to reach was boring memorization, which didn't engage the kids at all of course, and if the kids stated writing with their left hand, they would get beaten. 

Another city, another fantastic food market. This one was tucked away near the B&B. The vendors all began to ask me to take photographs of them. Unfortunately, while they all have cell phones, from what I gathered through broken English and Bengali, not too many had email accounts I could send their photo to, but I tried.

One of the many street foods I enjoyed was cut coconut. Boys would rush up to halted buses and offer two thick slices of freshly-cut coconut for 20¢. I couldn't figure out how they cut the coconut so clean until this vendor did it for me: with the back edge of his mini-machete, he cracks the nut clean in two. Then, instead of carving slices, he carves a spiral inside and then divided the "peel" into clean portions. Delicious, and a good addition to my cross-country train ride picnic basket.

Sundarbans Wildlife Park

The most famous attraction around Kolkata is the Sunderbans park in the Bangladesh delta, a World Heritage Site. Because solo logistics for the multi-day trip are very difficult (access, homestay, license, police check, boat transportation, and mandatory guide), I booked with a service. 

This is me with our escort, Rakesh. :)

Our group was small - only 5 plus Rakesh. With me was Udi, a retired Israeli undercover cop. You figure he would be pretty no-nonsense, but he loved to travel, had an earring, and two leopard tattoos, his favorite animal. In his retirement, he was considering starting glass blowing or archeology. He taught us how to play Yaniv, a fast card game kinda like hearts and rummy together.

After a SUMO from Kolkata, then a boat across to an island, a tuk-tuk across the island, then another boat, we reached our homestay. One evening we took this skiff across to the other shore, climbed out onto the pure clay of the mangrove forest and I found a horseshoe crab burying itself from our approach. One for the history books as horseshoe crabs have stayed the same for hundreds of millennia!

This is what the mangrove forest looks like at almost high tide, so little chance of seeing tigers or crocs unfortunately. It was still interesting crossing the channels of the 20,000 sq. km. estuary on our houseboat. And the on-board meals by the local cook, like fish curry, were out-of-this-world.

One evening in our homestay, they arranged for an incredible local music group to play for us. Amazing singing, and a fascinating single-stringed instrument called a Khamak, kinda like a bluegrass tub-bass and talking drum where you pull the string taut through the drum and pluck it with a pick to change the note. The songs reminded me of Turkish village music.

In the evening, the villagers tossed nets into the river to catch fish. Keep in mind the ecology is unique. Although we are in mesh of rivers which wash out to the Indian Ocean, on the Indian side the current is weak enough that there is a significant tide - and therefore a high saline content - so there an interesting mix of marine life.

We never saw tigers or crocs, although a family we met at a lookout tower said they saw a tiger 10 minutes beforehand. We did see monkeys, monitors, spotted deer and countless kingfisher and other birds. And the interaction between the jungle and the tides was fascinating. Again, no expectation, no disappointment :)

While I was in the park, it was Thanksgiving at home and family and friends kept posting images of Canada in the autumn - the red & orange leaves and sweater-wearing weather! I gave thanks for all I had in my life, but I could not relate as the temperature was between 25° C and 30° C twenty-for hours a day.

The Caves of Maharashtra

I'd originally planned to go down the east coast of India and complete a clockwise loop back up the west coast towards Delhi and my return flight. But a cyclone and the tail end of monsoon season convinced me to change my plan and cut across to the southwest coast first.

I'd earmarked the Ajunta Caves as an interesting place to visit, and this served as good mid-way stopping off point on the 30-or-so hour journey across from Kolkata to Mumbai.

Stopping at the small village of Phardapur meant getting off the tourist track for a change. This is refreshing and wearing at the same time. Locals are surprised and happy to meet you, as this jubilant group of school-age kids show, but you are also regarded as something like a movie star. Everyone - OK, men only, this was a Muslim town - feel completely entitled to come up to you and interrupt whatever you're doing and ask you the same questions every traveler had heard a hundred times, almost always in this order: "Halo!! Whatt iz yourr neeme?", "What cuntrry?" ("Canada - kold cuntrry!"), and "How long een India?". They they will then walk along with you asking more genetic questions until you come to their shop or find some other reason to interrupt their accompaniment. I appreciate after these times being a 'famous movie star' gets tired pretty quickly.

Best is if you have something to do together. The boys told me of an old fort that is not on any travel guide. Here we walked around the top of it and felt the air, threw stones at the aggressive monkeys, and took in the gentle sounds of the village in the evening.

The Boys of Phardapur.

The next day I made my way to the Ajunta Caves. The Ajunta caves include a significant amount of paintings preserved on walls. Accordingly, the caves are controlled for humidity, lighting and number of visitors. There are informative plaques describing most of the caves. Inside, as there are no windows to speak of, dim lighting provided ust enough to see the paintings and the beautiful carved walls. There were many guards ensuring visitors removed their shoes inside the temples and did not using flash photography.

Ajunta Caves view.

Inside one of the better preserved caves, with dim lights revealing the ancient paintings. 

The "Carpenter's Cave" (no.12), so called because of the wood like beams across the top.

This was a guide chanting inside a cave similar to the "Carpenter's Cave" with large seating areas for a choir. Imagine a hundred or so Buddhist monks doing the same in this architectural marvel.

The ones below are from Ellora, about 50 km to the west of Ajunta. While these caves carved out of the bedrock  also do not have windows (presumably torches would have illuminated them during use), there was no lighting inside. Also, I couldn't but be a bit put off that most of them smelled of urine the farther you went in.

'Pharaoh' and 'Humpty' (companions since Ladakh Markha Valley trek) taking in the Kaileish Temple, the largest monolithic monument in the world. 

Detail from one of the Buddhist caves at Ellora.

Ellora has three sets of caves: Buddhist, Hindi and Jain, all executed over separate periods. All took a tremendous amount of planning and complex construction. I got a kick out of the Buddhist ones; I mean, think about it - Buddhism teaches us that nothing is permanent, to not get attached to material things, yet what could be more permanent and material than a temple built of solid rock??

The 3-story Buddhist Tin Tal cave carved out of solid rock.

Celebrations in the town of Ellora, Maharashtra, where Modi's BJP party has just won the State election. Groups of men in this Muslim town get mass-doused in pink powder, the colour of BJP party. The rat-a-tat-tat of firecrackers explode while a banner has been replaced on the roundabout flagpole. Everyone is proudly showing me their inked finger which shows they voted (and only once!)

Later, I watched evening firework celebrations in this non-tourist town (non-tourist give-aways: 1. unilingual local-language signs, 2. everyone looks at you like a movie star just strolled by, as if! and 3. you can't see any other tourists among thousands of other pedestrians).

I love walking the streets in every town I arrive in, perusing the markets. You never know what animal part you'll see on a vendor's table, what they'll try and stuff into a tuk-tuk, what fruit will be locally available, what local delicacy a street vendor will whip up for you with his drum-kit of legumes, veggies, oils & spice.

Like Phardapur, I am seemingly the only white person seen in town. Most people stop talking to others and stare at me walking past. Younguns have a look of fear. Teens a look of excitement, and always "how are you!" "wutz urr nime?" Unless all they can manage is an esperanto grunt "HUH!"

It's different and tiring at the same time. If you've ever wanted to know what its like to be a famous movie star, just come here (or any other small foreign town much different than your own). You'll be the centre of attention (bad for introverts) and asked for things over and over - to buy somethingsomething typically. You actually feel kind of generic since the questions are routine and I think you learn more about their characters than they yours. It's not so great after the second or third or fiftieth time. 

In the boot of a relatively large triple-seat tuk-tuk. For perspective, it has maybe a 200 cc engine, about 1/10 of a small North American car, but we're carrying 10 people. Think of this the next time you say 'I need a bigger car". 

Food insert: about half my lunches were a"veg thali", basically a mixed vegetarian plate for $1 to $2. All menus in India are separated between drinks, veg dishes, "non-veg" dishes, and international menu items (Italian, Thai and Israeli being the most popular) in the larger establishments. The veg thali is a safe bet and varies region to region. In addition to 3 or 4 veg staples like several small portions of dahl (lentil), a thali has maybe a small salad, a sweet like curd for dessert, along with rice and maybe a chapati, naan bread and or papad (chickpea / chana crisp biscuit).

In one minute of video: the little Muslim town of Ellora, friendly kite fighting among neighbours, a rooftop view on town life, evening meal preparation among the animals, and the evening call to prayer.