The difference between wondering and wandering.

First, a note on the last entry. It has recently been brought to my attention, by Beth, that "wondering" and "wandering" are in fact two different words. I wonder how I got through 12 years of public school and two years at a real university without ever finding this out. Sorry. We weren't wondering around the streets of Mumbai, we were wandering. Or were we...

And now...

After our brush with Bollywood fame, Beth and I spent a few more cafe filled days in Mumbai, and one day at the nearby Elephanta Island, home of the first of a string of cave temples, which houses a giant three headed shiva sculpture. One of shiva's heads seems mad for some reason. Maybe it's the fact that his hair is made out of a writhing mass of snakes, or simply the fact that he's responsible for the destruction of the universe every 3.14 billion years. I don't know. I really liked Mumbai, but we were there just long enough that I was really really ready to hop on a 4am train for a 7 hour ride northeast to Aurangabad. Aurangabad was the staging area for two day trips to nearby cave temples of Ajanta and Ellora. It's been an archaeology-tastic few weeks. Apparently it doesn't matter how far away from my roots I get, Archaeology follows me like a fine at Blockbuster. The Ajanta caves, which we scoped out first are all Buddhist temples and monasteries cut into the side of a cliff overlooking a bend in the now dry river below. They were abandoned and forgotten for over 1,000 years until a team of British hunters found them while tracking a tiger. Thank you British colonialism! Not only did they re-discover the cave temples, but they got rid of that horrible wild-animal infestation in the area. Whew. Anyway, Ajanta is famous for it's paintings, which are lovely and actually quite well preserved, but hard to see as they're all inside caves which aren't lit up so as not to damage the paintings more.

Ellora, which we visited the next day is a collection of Buddhist, Jain, and Hundu cave temples. Apparently the idea really caught on in this area. The centerpiece of Ellora is the giant cave 16, for which the word cave is something of a misnomer. It's more like an open temple surrounded by rock face which has been carved as a copy of holy mountain Kailash, where Shiva and his wife Parvati shack up. It's supposed to be the largest monolithic structure in the world, carved out of the hillside from the top down. I'm impressed. I couldn't do it.

We happily left Aurangabad, not a great urban center of the world, on a overnight bus to Goa last Wednesday. Buses are hard to sleep on, but the seats are still a lot softer than most of the beds we've encountered here. I have a theory that the total lack of mattresses we've found here is responsible for the popularity of massage. I think it holds some water. Anyway, we rolled into Arambol Beach on Thursday morning planning to stay a few days and haven't left yet. Goa is wildly different than the rest of India. It's a tropical string of Beaches and home to a ton of ageing ex-pats, and most startling of all, it's Catholic. It reminds me a lot of Guatemala actually. Goa really belongs in Latin America. It just ended up in India somehow by mistake. I love it, but it's not the real India. There's something about spending all day everyday reading on the beach that makes it easy to stay. It's a much needed break from the craziness and stress of travel in India. Last night was our fifth beach sunset in a row. How will we convince ourselves to move on?

We'll do it somehow. There's still a ton of stuff to see. Here's a few pictures to catch you up. Sorry there's not more!
Ohhh no! Who is it? It's the camel I rode across the Great Thar Desert!







Jaswant Thada, a Maharajah's tomb in Jodhpur, Rajasthan








Jodhpur - the blue city in Rajasthan from the fort.








Our fave, the ghats and holy lake in Pushkar, Rajasthan.
Check it out- this is where Gandhi's ashes were spread after his funeral.