In India

My brother suggested that I am not acctually in India (what is it with my family not believing me), that I have grown out my hair and am masquerading on American Idol.

My alleged stage name (or possible doppelganger) is known as 'Bucky'....
He's some NASCAR fan from down south.....

The crew over here agrees that this is what I look like
I invite you to make your own decisions.

http://www.americanidol.com/contestants/bucky_covington/

Keeping with the theme of escaping Pune. My man friday here arranged a wekend to Ellora and Ajanta, but to get there was quite an experience.
We set out for 4 in the morning to Aurangabad. The road at this timeof night/day is truely terrifying. Indian traffic is horrible, and even though it's 200 km to Aurangabad, it's a 5 hour ride, here's why.
(It was a long ride, so I had time to write)

The road to Aurangabad
To get ther you can take a:

• Rickshaw - You've already met our friend the rickshaw ( see earlier posts). He occasionally put-puts his way out of town. They also come in extended cab vaireites ("the six seater", in which willbe no less than 10 people). They are prone to tipping due to thier 3 wheel design.
• Tempo - When you take a little rickshaw engine, optionally put another wheel on the front and attach a mini-truck bed to the back, that's a 'Tempo'. This in no way can be an effiecnt way to move freight.
• Motorbikes - They have very narrow wheelbases ( not much more then bicycles), and are the most vunerable of the road creatures...so they don't go too fast. They are also normally carrying at least two people. A guy, his wife riding sidesaddle in the back (fearless ladies, absolutley fearless), perhaps holding a baby, or if the kid is too big he can go in-between his parents.
• The Great Indian Tata Truck - King of the road, an indian classic ! Get a Tata truck ( they look like Volvos) paint it red, put some chrome bars on the front (preferably molded into heart shapes). Throw some christmas lights around the window, or even more christmas lights over the windows! Add some christmas tree garland and flowers across the grill. Orange hindu flags on the side.
  Wait it does'nt stop! Add some hanging chains and bells around the bumper. Get some lettering done up and down the side, hindi phrases, or warnings to smaller vehicles. It takes a little getting used to seeing the swastikas painted on thetrucks ,but it's a hindu symbol, not the 'seig heil' kind.
  Top it all off with the great Indian slogan on the bumperEncouraging other drivers to beep, alot because you're not moving.

Horn OK Please

And these are just the conventional modes, out in the country it gets worse......

(I told you it was a long ride......)

20th century just not your style? You can go with:

• The diesel tractor - Hey you have to get these onions off the farm somehow...a car?Why bother? This plowing thingy has a motor and wheels. Not a lot of gears, but it'll move.
  
• The bullock cart - Get two big Brahma bulls, they've got this hump on their back that was just made for a yolk. Paint their horns birght colors ( blues, reds). Put a rope through their noses. (How you get them to sit still for the painting or the rope I have no idea). Hook 'em up and hop on. You can now slow traffic to a 3rd century crawl!
  

Oh..and don't feel bad for the bulls with the rope through thier noses, they get treated better than most people out in the country. Blankets, boquets of flowers, there's a holiday for them....oh and THEY DONT GET EATEN!

Now that you've chosen a vehicle, you can play the game.

Indian Driving Strategies

The playing field: One lane in each direction. Road about 12-14 feet wide. No lights on the road at night.

Strategy: Generally swerve around things larger that you.

If you're in a truck, bullock cart, or tractor you're big enough that you can do whatever you like.

If you're in a car, you should tailgate the first truck you can find, it'll shield you from smaller things. Stick your arm out the window and look into oncoming traffic. Your arm serves as a signal. Now...and this is the critical part. Beep like mad, zip into the other lane. The truck will beep in response, either supporting your wrong lane hop-skoch, or cursing you.

If it's night put on your highbeams to blind the oncoming folks into submission. Then pass the truck ( which is not hard because they're really slow), get back in your lane .Remember other people on the other side are trying this as well.

Just try to grab some sleep it's 5 in the morning......yeah right.

Why do all this? Well the trucks, tempos, and rickshaws seem to have an average of 30 km/hr. And on hills they just crawl. If your dirver gets it up to 50 or 80 km/hr you are flying.

I know you're tired of reading, but it's hard to take picutes in all this, next post mucho pictures, I promise.

Elephanta is a fantastic ancient Shiva cave about 6 miles off the Mumbai peninsula. You get to it by getting a boat off the Gateway ( apparntly that neighborhood is called Appolo Bunder becuase that's what it says in the tourbooks, but there's nothing toindicate that here). it's about an hour each way.

My frined has boat!
So I'm looking around for where to get the boat to Elephanta, I'm expecting this to be like the Statue of Liberty in NY.
WRONG!
It's not like there's some ticket booth run by the state or city.

"Hello want Elephanta? my friend has boat ticket"
>>"And you are ?"

Before he can answer, there are like 5 dudes around me trying to sell me tickets...I just walk away and go to the boats.

Sure enough the dude is legit, you just find a boat and buy these poorly printed tickets to get on. You can't take pictures from the boat ,and that's a shame because the view of mumbai is great. The reason for this is apparant once you go out, because the first thing you see is an Indian naval base.

Elephanta is a up a hill which has been taken over by another shopping bazzar ( just nick-nacks, little statues and cheap t-shirts you could get down onCanal Street, although probably even cheaper here). The island is also filled with monkeys.

Do not believe the guides at the dock"you can't possibly see it all""caves are hard to find...and very far"There's one great cave and a smaller okay cave to the left, they're allon one path an it's a 10 minute walk up the hill.

This stuff is right out of Indian Jones ( or Indiana Jones is right out of it)
The Entrance ------>





Shiva,Shiva and more Shiva
The whole cave is dedicated to Shiva, although he's the destroyer in this cave he's everything.

Dancing Shiva - This is one of the 20 foot wall murals.
This is when shiva is called Nataraja ( Lord of Dancers) ...it's pretty much a rule when Shiva does anything he's the 'lord of' it.

Shiva's guardians -These immese figures guard multiple little shrines within the cave. There are lots of guardians around the cave 12-15 of them, mostly they fram doorways.

And the prize, gigantic three-headed Shiva, absolutley awesome. Here Shiva is the creator, preserver and destoryer. This representation is called "Mahesamurti" .

The heads are about 14 feet tall in black rock, it's really stunning. And really hard to take a good picture of ( black rock on black backround in dark), I think this is as good as I got of it. Really amazing stuff.

Shantaram
So there's this book Shantaram that my friend gave me to read, the protagonist is white dude trying to get by in India,like me. Okay, he's an escaped convict and heroin adict...aside from those two points I share alot in common with him. I had to put it down after reading about the cab driver being beatenby an angry mob...and the packs of dogs attacking them.

To my coworker back in January:
>>"So I was reading this book and there's a scene in Mumbai where an angry mob beats the cabdriver up,that's just crazy movie like fiction, crazy right?"

My coworker (totally straight faced):
"Was he driving poorly? Such thing can be happening"

At that point I could'nt read any more....or sleep well. This is soon to be a movie starring Johnny Depp, and not me, which is a shame because I'm totally prepared for the part.

So if anyone ever tells you:
"Yeah i read this book ....Shantaram"
you can be like
"Yeah, I know this dude who lived out that book!" ( aside from the mob scene)


Leopold's
So in that book alot of the first few chapters take place in a place called Leopold's. Which is described as a smokey,seedy bar. The tour book says "it's a great place to stop in and grab a pint". This sounded like the perfect little dive bar.
It's not a f@#$@# bar...It's a cafe you can smoke and order beer there. Other than that it's a diner. India has this problem with bars...they just don't get it. Like a place that only serves liqour, has billiards darts, drunk girls dancing...etc.

I think that the problem is that while everything else is 1/10th the price of the US , booze is still like 60%-75%. So getting drunk is relativley more costly ( and this is monatary I'm not talking about your liver or your self-respect here).