India - Sanchi to Jodhpur

I bumped my way on the bus to Jalgaon feeling like I was finally getting the hang of India. Made my way to the train station, bought a ticket to Sanchi and sat down in the station. A German couple, Felix and Christina approached me wanting to have a look in my guide book. We ended up down at a pub drinking pepsis and laughing at the craziness of India. They were heading way across the country to Rajastahn but there didn´t appear to be any easy connections there, so they started going North on the same train with me. Unfortunately they picked a bad time to follow me as I appeared to have picked up the black ribbed nobbler. The train left at 5.45pm from platform 3, so we waited until sure enough at 5.45 a train pulls in to platform 3. We all tried asking people if this was heading to Bhopal but had little success in any kind of response. The train started to pull out so we decided we´d better jump on. Unfortunately it was jammed full of people and we didn´t have a seat reservation, so we were shunted from carriage to carriage until we stood next to the toilets and started talking to someone that spoke some English. The train was actually heading to Madras, in the far South of India, pretty much the complete opposite direction of where we were heading. Fortunately the first stop was common so we were able to jump off and make it onto the right train. We still had no seat reservations though, I came close to making a deal with a dodgy looking guy who wanted to sell me his seat reservations but thankfully F&C weren´t keen on the idea. We actually managed to find some spare seats and reserve them through to Bhopal via the conductor so we could get a bit of sleep. Next thing I knew we were surrounded by an Indian family throwing their bags around and demanding to see our tickets. Of course our tickets didn´t actually have reservations, just some scribble from the conductor which I was trying to explain to the father of the family. It seemed the only thing he understood was Bhopal as he kept saying it. Then it clicked and I spun around to see a sign saying ¨Bhopal¨ as the train slowly pulled out of the station. The conductor had told us it would arrive at 1.30am and it was only 1am. Once again we shuffled our way to the toilet standing zone and contemplated what to do. Within about 10 minutes we had a couple of armed guards on us wanting to know what we were doing and where our seats were. After about 20 minutes of explanation they managed to find us a seat and explain that I had to get off at the next station then get the 3.45am train back in the other direction. F&C decided they´d stay on the train and try to make it all the way to Agra. So I bid them farewell, managed to get about 20 minutes of sleep between waking frantically every time the train stopped (which it did every 10 minutes for some reason). Sure enough I managed to find my way onto a train at around 4am heading back in the opposite direction, and eventually arrived around 5am. Unfortunately my destination was actually Sanchi, another 20km away not serviced until 8am or so the next day. I surveyed the station and found rows of people covered head to foot sleeping on the platform. I decided it looked like a good option at this stage and if I could cover myself completely they´d never know I was a stupid foreigner! It actually worked and I got an hour or two of sleep in between the incredibly piercingly loud train horns that were blasted as each train flew through the station. I later figured out it was probably to scare all the stray cows away.

Just to break up this neverending stream of boring text, here's a picture of what's happened to my arms after 2 months of constant sunshine. I don't think they've changed much in the last month through Egypt and Spain, they're just solid brown now. I think I look pretty silly with my top off.



The next morning I had one of the nicest moments of my trip in India. I had half a pack of biscuits left in my pack, which I decided to share with the homeless family that I slept next to. It was lovely sitting and eating with them. That day was the one and only day in India that I had my wish come true of never being approached by a beggar. I don´t think I´ve ever been so dirty, completely covered in dust from head to toe with a strange peaceful look on my face. I made it to Sanchi and had a great time wandering around the 3rd Century BC stupas dreaming of buddha while the rain slowly streaked the dirt down my clothes. When I returned to the train station to decide where to head to next I noticed a train leaving all the way to Jodhpur which was where F&C were heading to next. I decided I´d surprise them by meeting them there. I'll throw this photo in of a Hindu temple in the town I woke up in as it's almost unbelievable that such tacky theme park style decorations could be associated with a place of worship.



I had about 5 hours to spare so headed to the next town on the train line. It was really pouring at this stage and a funny looking man on a bicycle approached me at the station saying ¨market¨ while he signalled at the canopy behind him. Sure I thought and jumped in. I had to laugh at the situation, it was raining walls of water, I could barely keep myself dry in the back with my umbrella and the canopy and this guy was completely saturated, pumping away towards the market. After about 10 minutes we came to an intersection and he stopped, signalling to a liquor shop. I was confused, asked him about the market, he just pointed at the liquor store again. I shrugged then made the sign for food. He hussled me over to a run down shack on the other side of the road where I struggled to order anything and resorted in a Thali again. Drinks were a problem, they continued to pressure me for beer or whiskey. What the hell, I hadn´t drunk in weeks, so I returned to the liquor store and bought myself a long neck, then looked at the rider, water trickling down his chiselled face and bought him one as well, then decided I´d have another one. The rider signalled that he wanted another too, but I told him he was pushing his luck. We returned to the restaurant where I decided to order the rider some food too. We cracked the beers and he skulled his glass. I poured him another, he skulled it instantly. I slowly finished my glass, poured another each and he skulled again then poured himself another and skulled. Hmm, fair enough I thought. He ended up downing most of the beer himself. Then the uncomfortable time came when he wanted to take me back to the station again. I decided I wanted to walk, and couldn´t work out if he just didn´t understand that or he was demanding more money. He was asking for 20 rupees for the round trip. I tried to just give him 20, but he wanted me in his cab for some reason. In the end a street seller that was standing next to us just told me to give him 10 and be done with it! By this stage I had a crowd of about 20 people around me, this was a pretty down and out town in the middle of nowhere. I started walking back to the station, and ended up chatting with some of the crowd that had formed and were continuing in the same direction. There were a group of drummers from a band that were great fun but spoke very little English, I really wanted to hang out with them and watch them play but they didn´t understand. I managed to get them to give me a little demonstration at least. You can see one of the drummers here, along with the usual chaos of an Indian road.



It was a great walk, I talked with heaps of people along the way, but when I made it to the train station I realised I still had nearly 3 hours left to wait. So I jumped back on another rickshaw into town much to the bemusement of everyone that I passed on the way back. After a few hours of waiting in a restaurant thinking they couldn't have forgotten my order as I was the only one there, my train finally came. Alas the nobbler was still with me, a whole night of mistakes culminating in me sleeping on the train platform not enough to shake it. I was wondering why no matter what I said I didn´t appear to be able to get a seat reservation, it turned out there was only 2nd class available on the train. So I had to squeeze in to a small seat beside 5 others and start to hallucinate with tiredness. After a couple of hours I was staring at the floor, sloshing with water that had seeped through the windows, muddy and filthy from everyone's shoes, yet there were squares of dry ground where maybe I could rest my head. I cracked and bent down to embrace the muck when the man on the top berth tapped me on the shoulder and offered it to me. A gift from the heavens! The 2nd class trains in India have a top berth above the seats which usually just houses one person to lie down, if you're up there nobody seems to mess with you. I didn't realise how much of a gift this was until 20 hours later the train was still chugging through the now desert.



For some reason it stopped at every station for 10 to 30 minutes, I can't for the life of me work out why and it drove me completely mad. Finally after nearly 24 hours I arrived in Jodhpur to a very welcome shower and bed. The next morning I walked up to the imposing fort, the most impressive I've ever laid eyes on. This picture gives a bit of an indication of the immensity of it, the bluff it's built on is over 20 metres high, then they decided to build another 20-30 metres of castle wall on top of this. The fort was never taken by force.



The other great thing about Jodhpur is the rooftop terraces; sitting on the roof as the sun sets is an amazing experience. Here you can see why Jodhpur is called "The blue city", all of the houses have a light blue colour from the limestone paint used for cooling which also helps keep the mosquitoes away apparently.



I think I'll leave it there for now, I don't want to dredge up the horrible camel experience for a little while.

India - Hampi, Bijapur, Ellora, Ajanta

By now I realised a mosquito net would have been really handy. I had originally intended to purchase one before I left Melbourne but never got around to it. Most nights I'd lather myself in Rid, but this usually lasted about 5-6 hours after which I'd wake up with a new pair of nipples which gave even greater pleasure when played with. I only thought of this when a mosquito managed to bite me twice, directly below each nipple.

The train journey from Goa to Hospet was beautiful, it wound its way up through hills and under waterfalls before cutting across plains, the scenery rapidly changing from lush, mountainous forests to flat, scrubby farmland. I even passed an iron-ore operation, this one's just for my workmates, check out how they load ore in India.



I had a great chat with one of the young kids selling samasos on the train (they were the best samosas I've ever eaten), swapping jewelry and giving him a listen to my walkman. The last few hours of the train journey were rather unpleasant though as more and more beggars entered, including a group of rather large aggressive kids that snatched all of the leftover food I had (I tried a vegetable sandwich that tasted rancid, I think they used week old milk as cheese) and another kid that wouldn't go away and continually kissed my feet. Then a group of old men took over my compartment to play cards. It was interesting at first as I tried to work out the rules of the game they were playing (it turned out to be a variation on Gin Rummy), but it became a bit much for me when they nearly completely squashed me out of my seat and started smoking bidis in my face (in the non-smoking compartment).

I decided to save the $4 rickshaw fare to Hampi when I arrived in Hospet and opted for the local bus instead. This meant I was inundated with school children, all bustling to know my name and where I was from. I felt a little like a toy or doll by the end of the ride, they even tried dressing me up in their glasses, followed by them commenting how handsome I looked with them on and would I like to buy them for 50 rupees? This marked the first time I was asked for a pen too. All the kids were constantly asking for pens. As the bus pulled in to Hampi, a couple of the kids started asking me if I wanted to stay at their guesthouse. I thought they were joking at first but I quickly realised they weren't. They asked where I was staying, I said I was thinking about Shiva (recommended to me by another traveler earlier in the train station), to which one replied that was his friend's guesthouse, pointing to another kid who promptly nodded. Then I checked my book once more and decided I wanted to head to Sudha guesthouse. The two boys walked with me all the way, until a 3rd joined the fray and said that Sudha was his guesthouse. So I arrived with an entourage of 3, which I later decided meant I paid 3 times the price for the room, a commission for each of the kids. I was slightly shocked at the price of the room (450 rupees ~ $15), it was twice the price of what I was used to paying and even more expensive than the place I stayed in Mumbai, which is notoriously expensive and I even had a TV there. I should have walked out and tried somewhere else, or called earlier to confirm the price, because even though I had been 'led' there by 3 kids, I'd actually decided myself that that was where I wanted to stay. So much commission goes on in India, as I said earlier, you only need to know one person, he'll have contacts for anything you want. The place itself was pretty nice though, with a beautiful rooftop restaurant. I was just in time to sit back and watch the sun set.



I hooked up with a German couple after eating a little and went together, firstly to register at the local police department as required (apparently there has been a lot of robberies out around the ruins, they had mug shots of locals that had been caught, along with a hilarious shot of an Israeli and Swiss hippy that had been caught 10 years ago with drugs on them. I have a feeling this was in fact just a scare tactic to encourage you to take one of their guides along, some of the photos looked up to 20 years old). We then went to the main temple where a festival was being held for the 'black moon'. This involved some magnificent drumming, swiftly drowned out by a crazy looking guy banging two bells erratically, followed by a parade led by an elephant. The elephant was trained to 'bless' you (by tapping you on the head with its trunk) if you gave him a rupee. I nearly jumped out of my skin when they started letting off deafening fireworks about 5 metres from the elephant, I couldn't believe how unphased it was by it all.

The next day the three of us decided to head out with a guide. We didn't actually get the main one who was selling himself last night in the police station as we arrived a little late, but we had another official guide. Unfortunately his accent was rather strong, for the first hour I don't think any of us really understood a word of what he was telling us. It wasn't helped by the fact that most of the sentences he was speaking contained Hindi names that none of us had ever heard of, and we were unable to separate the names from the thickly spoken English words. After an hour or so I adjusted to his accent though, and began to recognise the names of the kings and gods that he had already told us about. I was very thankful we took a guide, I learnt an amazing amount about the history of the region, along with lots of Hindu mythology. Hampi has some amazing ~16th century temples and palaces, although a lot of the palaces were sacked by Muslim invaders. As there was a marriage to a Muslim princess from the neighbouring Bijapur, some of the buildings were built with an Islamic style including this beautiful building for the Queen to relax in. These Islamic influenced buildings were all left in tact.



This building even had a built in cooling system with water pipes traveling through the walls. Most impressive was the Vitthala temple though, carved completely from solid granite, including this amazing building with musical columns. These columns aren't hollow, the vibrations caused by hitting each column with a stick, or even just your thumbs produces a single note. There were hundreds of these columns, each producing a slightly different tone, it took many men to play. Originally, before the roof was destroyed, the music could be heard for more than a kilometer. The carvings were incredibly intricate, I particularly liked the style where depending on which angle you looked at a carving, it turned into a different animal or scene. Here are some of the columns, with the German couple on the right.



Unfortunately we were a little pressed for time and didn't make it across the river to the Hanuman (monkey god) temple. There is also a huge cave complex there which apparently runs for kilometres underground and can actually pass through the mountain. Sadhus (holy men who have forsaken their family and livelihood for religion) used to roam the rocky hills and live in the caves. The whole place had a magical atmosphere, I loved the many boulders lieing around, particularly with the palm trees. The next morning I woke early to have breakfast at the Mango Tree, a place a few hundred metres down the river that was extremely peaceful. This was the view out over the river from my table.



Unfortunately my breakfast jaunt meant I missed the bus into Hospet by 2 minutes. Rickshaw drivers swarmed over me, telling me it was an hour until the next bus and they'd take me for only 80 rupees, a good price. I told them 10 rupees was even better and sat down in the sand to read my book.



They receded as soon as I sat, but after a couple of minutes, a group of men started to form around me. I thought to myself that anywhere else I would most likely find this incredibly intimidating. The usual questions of name and origin were asked, then they asked if a photo was ok. I decided to take one for myself as it was obviously an occasion worth remembering.



Perhaps it will come back to haunt me as the shaking of the hands signified some bizarre deal. Once the men retreated I had about 30 seconds of peace before the children approached. We had a brief chat about cricket before they asked if they could be photographed too.



I decided it was all worth the extra hour wait. It did however mean that I just missed a bus from Hospet to Bijapur, requiring another 2 hours of sitting around in Hospet, being stared at and force fed nuts by young kids while I worried about not knowing which bus to get on and whether it had already left. Also, one of the worst things about traveling alone is that you don't have anyone to look over your luggage while you explore or go to the toilet. So you have to lug everything with you everywhere you go. The 10.45 and 11.00 buses never came, so I was left with the 12pm bus, which unfortunately meant I didn't arrive into Bijapur until 6pm. I was originally planning to just spend a few hours looking at the sites in Bijapur, but they all closed at 6pm. So the extra hour and 70 rupees I saved probably cost me a day. I reread my books and decided Bijapur could be bypassed, I was running out of time. So another 2 hour wait at the bus stop was in order. I hiked my bags around the streets, found some food, then was fascinated by a 2nd storey place that had Hindu pictures all over it and looked like it might be a restaurant. I just felt like drinking some tea and relaxing for a while, so I climbed up the rickety ladder. Unfortunately the guy spoke no English and had no chai. After some confusion and hand signals I ended up being sat down with another thali (basically a dish with a few curries, some rice and a chapatti, usually all you can eat). This one was the spiciest dish I'd eaten in India though. I felt bad about not wanting to eat even a bite of it though, so forced as much as I could down, then went to the toilet. When I returned he'd filled the dish up again, so I forced some more down, then had to fight him off as he tried to fill more and more onto my plate.

I returned to the bus station and waited in my usual state of confusion as to how the buses work and which bus was going where. By the time 8.30pm arrived (departure time of my bus) I had asked 5 times whether the bus that just pulled in was going to Aurangabad, so one of the guys working there assured me he'd tell me when it came. I had a really bad first impression of the guy I was sitting next to for some reason. We'd gone through the usual conversation people ask in India:

"What is your name?"
"What is your country?"
"What are your qualifications?"
"What is your job?"

When I informed him of my qualifications, he told me he was a lab chemist and brought out a written reference from his employer stating that he was a competent worker. The guy sitting in front of us that was listening intently then proceeded to pull out his drivers license to show me proudly. After some other prattle from the lab chemist, I decided it was time to utilise the golden suggestion from Nick to give at least 2 people a month a 2nd chance at making a first impression. So I reset my feelings, smiled and tried talking to him some more. An hour went by, my bus still not appearing, the bus man having no explanation but assuring me it was still coming. I bought some water but realised the seal was broken on it, most likely just recycled and filled with tap water. The chemist took a real liking to it though and downed more than half of it over the next hour. My bus had still not come and it was nearly 11pm. Mind you, the chemist's bus hadn't arrived either, although his was only 1 hour late. Either my reset didn't work, or this guy was a twonk, as by 11pm I was completely fed up with him. I decided my bus could actually never arrive and the next one wasn't until 6am, so I spent the night in a hotel. As I left, the chemist asked if he could have the rest of my water, so that ended up working quite well.

I stayed at a really nice hotel, I think it was a king size bed, TV, towels, soap and hot water! It was cheaper than Hampi too. The next day I was able to see the sites of Bijapur: Golgumbaz, a HUGE tomb, with the 2nd biggest dome in the world, which worked as a whispering wall. I had about 2 seconds where I could really appreciate the beauty of the dome, being able to hear quite clearly a young Indian couple talking quietly to themselves 38 metres away from me. The rest of my time in the dome was spent desperately trying to escape the whooping, screaming and clapping, all echoing 10 times over.



I decided a bit of relaxing was in order for the next few hours, the previous day of frustration had taken it out of me and the constant interactions with strangers on the street was getting extremely draining. I was beginning to really wish I could have just one day where nobody would ask me what my name was, or even better be able to walk down the street without having every second person stare at me. Everyone was so friendly, you just can't get angry at them for wanting to talk to you, but I was beginning to have fantasies of being incredibly sarcastic to people. What's more I was now calling myself "Penless" to any children that asked my name. In the afternoon I visited the Ibrahim Rauzid, another mausoleum combined with a mosque.



You can guess what that little girl was after. This place was a lot more subdued and it was really nice standing in the mosque and having a little boy come in and sing a prayer.



I tried again for the overnight bus to Aurangabad and thankfully it arrived. It was an interesting journey, 12 hours with my legs pinned to the side of the bus by my backpack. I sat next to a few nice guys though, one a high school teacher that I got on really well with. I found it slightly uncomfortable when he kept touching my leg, but I was consciously uncomfortable of my uncomfortable feeling as I knew it was just a sign of affection. Funny though that when we laughed, he'd slap my leg instead of his. You often see boys and men walking around holding hands. I really loved when he had to leave though, I'd told him I found it strange that all the kids kept asking for pens (I was wondering if he'd say anything about this rumour I'd heard that the kids sell the pens to their teachers), so he gave me his pen as a present. The person to replace him kinda stunk unfortunately and kept falling asleep with his head on me, which meant, given the seemingly complete lack of any suspension and the terrible condition of the roads, every 10 seconds his head would bounce up and slam down on my shoulder. I felt really sorry for the guy on the other side of him though, as he was putting his briefcase up on the rack, the bus took a huge bump and he dropped it onto a poor man in the back seat. He apologised then sat down. One minute later the old man in the back stands up, he's the spitting image of Snoop Dogg, wearing a turban that looks more like a headband (kind of the style from this region) and an Orlando Magic jacket from the early 90s, probably the strangest thing I've seen anyone wear in India. He has blood pouring out of a cut above his right eye and he's making a fuss to the guy that dropped his bag. Eventually he grabs the conductor and there's a huge verbal fight. Fortunately we stop for dinner at this point, but the argument continues, with the perpetrator eventually handing over what looks like at least the equivalent of $30, which is a lot of money in India. He looks like he's on the verge of tears. I give Snoop a band aid, which he stares at as if he's never seen one before, so I try to show him he can use it on his cut (which is still crying blood into his eye). He gives me a cracked smile and says "Thankyou". Eventually I arrive in Aurangabad around 5am, head straight to a Hotel and try to get a few hours of sleep before I head to Ellora.

The check in procedure seems to take forever, and the clerk says he needs my passport to make a copy for the government. He also insists on filling out one of the forms himself. So I leave them with him and head up to my room. Just as I'm starting to drift to sleep the phone rings. I can't understand what he's saying so I go back to reception. He doesn't know my address, so I fill it in then notice he's made a mistake in the form, putting in the wrong dates. So he pulls out a new form and starts filling it in at the speed of a turtle. I take the pen off him and tell him I'll do it, I know all the numbers by heart by now anyway, but he grabs it back from me and insists he'll do it. So I go back to bed, but sure enough 5 minutes later he calls again, not knowing where my passport was issued. I crack the shits with him and tell him either he gives me the form to fill out, or he doesn't interrupt me for another hour because I'm going to sleep. So thankfully I get an hours sleep then he calls again to tell me my passport is ready for collection. I take it and head off onto another bus for Ellora.

Ellora has a group of Buddhist, Hindu and Jain caves cut from ~600-1000AD straight out of a mountain. They're completely amazing for the sheer amount of work that would have been required.



I haven't really taken any photos that demonstrate the immensity of these carvings, this temple is unbelievable, you can see the remains of the mountain in the background. This is barely a cave, they've pretty much just carved a huge 3 storey temple from one piece of rock, and the detail on the columns are incredible.



I met up with a funny Indian guy wandering around the caves, he too was alone but was obviously quite uncomfortable about it. He was here on a business trip from Punjab. We explored the caves together and he kept commenting how much better it with someone else. A common thought I've had expressed (that traveling alone is no good). He was very nice though and invited me to stay at his house if I ever made it up into Punjab. He also invited me to continue with his tour (he had a personal driver) as he was heading to a few other temples around the area, but I wanted to explore Ellora to the full extent and he didn't have time (his driver had to celebrate the Ganesh festival after 2pm). After many hours of exploring the caves, I emerged to another salesman trying to sell hand woven silk goods. I was sucked in a little as he had been quite helpful throughout the day, showing me around, he even joined me through the Jain caves and told me about a lot of them. So somehow I ended up buying more products .. at least this time I bargained a little, I don't think I was ripped off like last time but I still had a sick feeling in my stomach as I weaved through the streets on the way home. They seemed so nice, I didn't feel like hammering them for a real bargain, but then I didn't even want what they were selling me.

The next day I was supposed to head to Ajanta, another set of caves, these all Buddhist, with a few carvings, but a lot more paintings. Unfortunately they were closed, in contrast to what the hopeless hotelier had told me the previous day. So I had to decide whether to stay for another day or miss them. It was then that I discovered my flight out of India was on 4th September, not the 1st, so I had 3 extra days! So I decided to have a relaxing day, catch up on the blog and my diary and avoid too much interaction with strangers on the street. Unfortunately it was inevitable, I was even scratched by a small child trying to get money from me. Next morning I woke at 5am to check out and head to Ajanta with all my bags. Another really nice man sat next to me on the bus, this guy was traveling from Aurangabad to Jalgaon where his office was, and he again left me his number and address if I needed a place to stay in Jalgaon, he was staying in a flat by himself there he informed me. Once I reached Ajanta, I was greeted by another salesmen being friendly, setting me up with breakfast and holding my bags for me while I explored the caves. Oh well, I'd have to deal with him later, maybe I could just buy a small necklace or something. As I approached the caves, a young boy told me it would be best to go up to the lookout while the morning light was around for the best view. So off I went up the hill to the lookout, with the kid in tow. Once we reached the top, he signaled that there was a waterfall over here that was nice and started leading, attempting to take my bag for me. I was really wanting to be alone, to contemplate the Buddha, enlightenment and what not, but wasn't sure how to tell him. The waterfall was beautiful, many nice pools pouring into each other.



A few hundred metres beyond the waterfall, the kid led me to his village, which was interesting, then we circled around and went back via the other side of the gorge. He wanted to take me up to a hill which I was tempted to, but really wanted to get down and see the caves. We got to the end and of course he asked me for some money. He'd been telling me previously that the guides in the caves charge 700 rupees and don't even show you around to the village or the waterfall. He then told me a group of Americans had given him 2000 rupees a few weeks ago. I figured all he'd done was point out his village beyond the waterfall, which was clearly visible from the lookout which I was intending to go to anyway. He'd said absolutely nothing the whole time except for answering one question I had about the genus of a particularly tree, and the whole thing had taken less than an hour. So I offered him 50 rupees. He looked insulted, I checked my wallet and only had 30 in change so said that was it. He said 30 rupees is like baksheesh for saying thank you and he wouldn't accept such a piddly amount. I said exactly, I never asked you to take me around anywhere, I thought you were being nice. He then repeated that guides in the caves charge at least 600 rupees. I told him they actually study the history of the caves, you gave me pretty much no information, if you want to call yourself a guide, get some information. We sat in the drizzling rain for a minute or two, a strange energy brewing, then I just walked off. He followed me down and asked me to get some change so he could have the 50. The feeling this left me with was quite horrible and shared with almost all of the travelers I met, people often seem really friendly, but in the end most of them are just after money. It makes it really hard to trust anyone, and you are constantly trying to gauge people's intentions.

The setting of these caves was more majestic than Ellora and the paintings were beautiful, but unfortunately they were quite hard to see. There were ropes preventing you from getting closer than nearly 2 metres from the dimly lit walls. I did have a torch but it was very difficult to make out the scenes, even when I knew what I was looking for. They were all still very impressive, but hard to photograph as flash was disallowed.



I headed back, grabbed some lunch and entered into the den of bargaining as I retrieved my pack. I had selected some carvings that I was interested in and begun the bargaining process. I'd had a fair bit of practice by now and was ready for the game. I think I did quite well, but I'm not entirely sure I really wanted so much. As I left, I was pounced on by another salesman, ladling me with a huge beautiful chunk of raw amethyst and requesting my presence in his store, just a minute! I sat, looking pretty fed up as he showed me the same carvings I'd just been examining in the other store. I tried standing up and leaving 3 times, but was continually sat down, chai thrown in front of me. I showed a little interest in some tiny metal figures, but they were asking ridiculous amounts for them. Eventually I made it up and walked out to the bus stop. The guy wrapped some stuff in paper and followed me out, sitting next to me while I waited, slowly decreasing his price. He started at ~4000 and had got down to about 900. I was getting really fed up with him, I just wanted to sit in peace, which I'd had none of all day and really didn't want his goods. 700? 600 .. my final price, I really need this sale, first of the day (I heard this all the time) good luck for me! By this stage I was so annoyed that I said 500, just so you'll leave me alone. It was honestly an incredible price, I later saw the same piece he sold me in Delhi for 4000. Then you'll never believe it, yet another guy sits down next to me and attempts to sell me a smaller version of the same carving, along with another piece I've already bought. I'm flabbergasted, but he ends up offering them both for 300, so I pay him again for some peace of mind. So the key to bargaining is just to walk away, they often so badly want a sale they'll follow you out and give it to you no matter what.