Thursday 14th February

Thursday 14^th February

Happy Valentines Day to one and all!

 

We loved the Wooden Boat Show – three times.  (Thrice, as darling Angus would say – he has taken up the cudgels on behalf of these fast-disappearing words… Thrice went long ago, and both once and twice are fast vanishing as well… Too sad, such nice, useful little words!)

On our third visit we were making our way through the milling crowds and we heard a father, saying in just slightly exasperated tones, to his whingeing offspring:

Yes!  Every now and then Mummy and Daddy also like to do something which they enjoy!

More India 2006 – Elephanta Caves

There were 120 steps to negotiate to get up to the caves after we – finally – disembarked.  I had been dreading this because it was so very hot, but in fact it was a pleasant walk because there were thick leafy trees lining both sides of the path.  Some people were carried up on rough sort of wooden sedan chairs.  This didn’t cost much, and indeed the bearers were very keen for business, but we all looked askance at this – definitely infra dig!  And coming back down we could see that the people in the chairs had to sit backwards, facing up the steep hill so they wouldn’t topple out – even more undignified!  Lining the sides of the path were – you guessed it – sellers of wares.  Many elephants, of course, plus all manner of souvenirs one could never want.  Our Chinese Jeff ambled along with us, swigging from a large bottle of coke.  This made him an instant target for the naughty monkeys who were watching us all with beady eyes.  He was just about mugged; they tried to swarm up his legs to snatch the bottle away from him.  No these were not cute monkeys; we all kept a wide berth and didn’t coo lovingly at them.  They looked as if they would bite and give us very nasty infections.

The caves, when we finally reached them, were huge and dark, from about 600AD.  I wasn’t quite as interested as the other three so I had a decent look then went and sat in the doorway in the shade where I could watch people come and go.  A young bloke called Sonu came up to talk to me; he was very worried to find me sitting alone.  I indicated to him that I did have friends, three of them, wandering around in the gloom, and he was very relieved.  He went inside to check and came out beaming; he had identified them and could release himself from responsibility for my safety.  In fact he didn’t speak much English at all, I’m not sure why he was so keen to spend time in my company.  Later when we were sitting sipping from our water bottles outside some other caves, he came up to give me his card.  He wanted my phone number so he could ring me when I returned to Australia.  He was sure I would want to do business with him; he sells submersible pumps in Ahmedabad….

 On our way up to the caves we had cannily identified the place where we would be able to buy beer on the way back down.  And rarely has Kingfisher beer been so welcome or tasted so wonderful; it was icy cold and just what we needed.  We sat there very happily with Chinese Jeff, a couple from Sydney and an Indian family with a darling baby.  The monkeys stayed on the sidelines, brooding darkly and plotting ways to mug poor Chinese Jeff again. 

Our boat trip back was swifter and safer, but by then an ominous yellow haze of smog was low on the water.  It felt as if every breath we took was poisoning us most foully.  It was also incredibly busy on the water, like a big city street in rush hour, with boats big and small looming up out of the smog in every direction.  Absolutely fascinating.  Pete and I sat near a group of British women whose husbands were at a conference in Mumbai.  They were not impressed with anything at all.  Mumbai was hot, smelly, dirty, – well it was ready for the scrapheap.  Lovely company, this lot!