Aurangabad and Goa

Turns out I slept quite well on that night train to Aurangabad, so having arrived well rested we headed straight to the caves of Ellora. They're called caves but in reality they are impressively ornate temples and houses carved right into cliff faces. Walls of rugged rock give way to intricate carvings of women, men, animals and Gods in surprisingly good condition considering they were built over 1000 years ago. Squint your eyes enough in the dim light and you also start to notice the remnants of elaborate paintings on the walls, pillars and ceilings long faded by the passing centuries. Trunkless elephants lead you up worn stairs with big breasted women and big bellied men awaiting your arrival surrounded by flora and fauna all carved right out of the rock face. Ajanta is a similar story but pre-dates Ellora by another 1000 years or so... Keeping in mind these sites took about 200 years each to carve out I guess a millennia is not all that much and although Ellora is more impressive (in my opinion) they do have a similar quality. To fail to be awestruck by something that was built 2000 years ago is a crime but the fact is that they would be impressive in their own right even if they had been built yesterday and it was well worth battling the intense heat to enjoy them.
After all the palaces and forts and temples we were bloody looking forward to hitting the beach so Goa had some high expectations to live up to that unfortunately weren't exactly met... We stayed in Anjuna which is a nice enough touristy beach town but the nicer beaches were a short rickshaw ride away. Our favourite beach was Vagator which was isolated enough to be relaxing but popular enough to have a good vibe... Now although the beaches were lovely, I have to say that I did get the impression that Goa is overrated - I would imagine it is because we were there at the end of the season but it could just be because I'm just feeling rather jaded now. My feelings for India had been teetering on the love/hate side of things since I got here but I am sad to have to confess that there has now been a total breakdown of our relationship due to irreconcilable differences. The proverbial camel's back is lying on the side of the road in a thousand splinters. The novelty factor of everything kept me going for awhile but the charm has now died a definitive death and all that's left is negativity. It's not that we haven't seen amazing things, or had any good moments - the history here is rich and beautiful as are some of the places we've been, but India's present is failing to inspire any sort of enlightenment in me... This is supposedly the cradle of spirituality but god knows I can't see it anywhere... Ghandi himself (though not the original source of this quote) said 'A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members' and nearly 3 weeks after standing next to the spot where he died I'm left wondering if he was the only Indian to have believed that. The lack of humanity here is shocking, the lack of hygiene is disgusting and the lack of beef is just plain driving me nuts! What on this great earth possessed me to think I might like a country where they don't eat cows is beyond me! The burping, the spitting, the coughing, the excrement on the road, the piles and piles and piles of rubbish everywhere, the lack of rules on the road, the constant badgering from people trying to extract money from you - it's enough to fray the most settled of nerves and I've lost all my good karma somewhere between the endless piles of shit from these herds of stray unedible cows. I'm afraid I might never recover!

I clearly must be missing something here because I've spoken to so many people who 'love' India and go on and on about how 'amazing' it is and it's a great shame that I just can't see it. I do apologise if this offends but it's just the plain truth as seen from my perspective... Seriously if you are sitting in an air-conditioned office right now, I won't go so far as to say I envy you but please, please take a moment to inhale the clean cool air, feel the padding in your chair hugging your arse, share some banter with a workmates - hell, tell them how nuts I've gone if you like - when you leave the office, have a nice strong cocktail with ice in it and eat yourself a huge juicy steak. Please, just do it for me.

On the plus side, the food here is genuinely lovely despite the lack of beef... That's about all the positivity I can muster right now! In the meantime if you happen to find the part of me that I lost (my mind, I think) please post it back to me asap.

Ranthambore and Agra

From Jaipur we headed to the dry jungles of Rajasthan to search for tigers in Ranthambore national park. About 20 tourists piled in to a giant canter jeep which bumped and trundled and tossed us along dirt tracks. the car sounded like the rumble of an earthquake and I was a a little sceptical that we'd see anything at all thundering through the wilderness like that. After about an hour of spotting birds, deer, crocodiles, lizards, mongeese and monkeys, our sore butts were rewarded with the sight of Shere Khan himself, taking a very public rest from the searing heat next to a lake. Apparently we were very lucky to spot a tiger on our first and only excursion - some people take up to 5 trips and don't see any of the 32 resident striped cats. The park is over 1000 years old and was originally the hunting ground the maharajas and wasn't opened to the public until 1970. As well as wild life you can also spot clues as to its former life with the odd palace, fort, temple or hunting pavilion scattered around.
The grand finale of our road trip was a visit to the city of Agra and a 5am wake up to see the Taj Mahal just after sun rise... My goodness do you see and read a lot about that darn building before you get there but I don't believe it diminishes the experience of stepping through those gates and seeing that glittering (literally -it is inlaid with semi-precious stones) white marble facade with your own eyes. The Taj Mahal was built by the emperor Shah Jahan for his 3rd wife, Mumtaz, who died giving birth to their 14th (!) child. It was originally intended to be a live-in palace which came to him in a dream. He told Mumtaz about the dream and described the palace that he would build for them but sadly she never survived to see work on the structure even begin and so it became her mausoleum instead - he is now also buried there with her.
I think of all that we have seen so far, what has actually left the most lasting impression on me has been the roads themselves. There is nothing quite like the circus that is India's road system with cars jostling for position amongst goofy camels, uninterested cows, proud horses, rabid dogs, scampering monkeys, wide-eyed goats, and brave, brave rickshaws, mopeds and cyclists. As well as all that there are scores of lorries heaving at the seams with all sorts of goods and urging you to 'blow horn' in ever more elaborate and colourful designs - turning highways into death defying high speed art galleries with their paintwork and their baubles. With horns as the only weapon on these crazy battlegrounds you can bet that they are used liberally and vigorously - I think the highway code here is about one sentence long and reads something like 'He with the loudest horn shall pass first.'.
We are now on a night train going south to Aurangabad and although I can't say I'm as entertained or as comfortable, I definitely do feel a lot safer!