Left Mumbai from Victoria Terminus/CST (where some of Slumdog was filmed), like most things I have seen in India so far it is run down and quite grotty which I was disappointed as I was looking forward to seeing this building as it had looked a beautiful building from the outside. There is a class system in India on the train - 1st class, 2AC Sleeper, 3AC Sleeper, Reserved Seating, AC Chairs and General. We were travelling in 3AC, to be fair it was great and we had no issues whatsoever, very comfortable.
We were seated across from a nice Indian family and we chatted to them along the way and played with the children -
they watched in amazement as we played travel scrabble (note for chopper: world scrabble tournment now in place, sar currently in the lead - 5 games to 4!! Get in! sure you can imagine Andrew thrown a few strops as he is being beaten by me, especially with him being the English teacher - HA!). We were heading to Jalgaon which was about 7 hours away by train. Stayed in a small hotel which was very cheap but lovely, the owners were very proud of his room and he helped us with the following journey to Ajanta caves, he was great. We only had about 6 hours sleep as we had to get up at six the next day however got up and the electricity was off (which has become a regular feature of Indian life) which meant that I could not dry my hair or straighten it - arghh!!!! We had to get a bus to Ajanta for a couple of hours - what can I say other than it was pretty f**king scary!!! Indians drive like nutters, drive so fast especially round corners, on various side of the roads, overtake when there is clearly another bus direct in front about 5 seconds away - I found the best solution for this is to not look ahead and it was all good! Finally got to the caves, got surrounded by this India men who followed us down, told us what to do, very helpful, they gave me a present (which I gave back in the end because I think it would have caused us more trouble as it turned out they were shop owners and so started to hassle us to buy stuff and look in their shop - Indians do not get the meaning on NO, I know it is there livelyhood but it gets pretty annoying you must have to say NO about 100 times, I think that they think they can persuade you if they ask you enough times!!
Got to the caves however I was starting to feel pretty rough with a upset tummy/sicky feeling which is pretty much guaranteed for anyone visting India. This does not equal a good time when you have left the luxury of your hotel and a western toilet - Indian toilets are vile - squatting hole, with no toilet roll and they stink!!!!! There was about 19 caves in total (great!!) - I managed to get up to see one and then I just chilled and waited while Andrew had a wonder round.
One nice thing which happened whilst up in the caves was that a load of Indian girls were visting from a school and they kept on staring - you start to get a bit paranoid after a while!!! Anyway they carried on the tour of caves and I was waiting outside for Andrew, they came along and continued staring so I decided to say hello, they giggled and said hello back then about 10-15 girls just gathered round me just as Andrew came from the cave; just looking and giggling (it finally clicked that they hadnt seen white person before) -
they said something in Hindi and then all of a sudden their teacher took a photo. Bless, Andrew has got to send a copy of the picture he took to the girls also which you can see within the blog.Got a 3.5 hour bus to Aurangabad, again pretty hair raising, Andrew road shotgun up by the driver and I think that he may have shat himeself a few times!!!! LOL
Got to hotel - got ripped off by a rickshaw driver again - he told us the hotel was quite far, however what we later found out on way out is that he just drove us round for 15 minues - but in the scheme of things it still only cost 65p!! Apparently the rickshaws just double the price for a tourist, got onto it now though so are more confident in how much we should be paying - you live and learn.
Hotel was a shit - sorry for the swearing but it is the only way to describe the place. We got put in a awful room so asked to get moved and so we had a much better room. Staff we rubbish and no manners with the aim to rip us off I think. The receptionist was dealing with a query I had and he burped right in front of my face - with me not feeling very well I was nearly sick! The plan was that we were meant to go to Allora caves but it just didnt happen due to sickness and still being jet lagged. Aurangabad was so awful that we didnt leave the hotel and decided to leave early to our next destination. I dont think that it helped that we were both poorly at this stage, so everything mutiples when you are ill anyway. BUt I was getting to the stage where India was losing its appeal..... I was praying that the next place was going to be good.
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