the train took us from varanasi to
aurangabad. it's a small and relaxed place almost in the middle of india. it's also an excellent point of departure for the world famous ajanta and ellora caves.
ajanta caves is a group of 27 caves, carved out of the rocks by buddhist between 200 b.c. and 650 a.d. the caves are beautifully situated around a horseshoe-shaped gorge, a little bit above a river. the famous thing are the various paintings on the walls for paintings aren't that common in india. on the other side of aurangabad, the
ellora caves can be found. they are completely different to the ones in ajanta. there are 32 caves which belong to the buddhist-, hindu and jain-religion. many parts of these caves are not carved into the hill but carved out of the hill. the main attraction is the kailasa temple, which is the biggest monolith building (means built out of one single stone!) in the world.
our next stop was
mumbai, bollywood city of india. bollywood means that mumbai is indias most important film industry centre and as you might know, india does have the biggest film industry in the world. one can feel mumbais glamour all over the places in the city-centre. this place is completely different to what we have met so far in india. it looks clean and tidied up. traffic flows much less chaotic than in for example delhi. there are many parks and a small beach where people relax from the city-life. and last but not least, this town is full of victorian buildings of the english. we were really surprised and enjoyed staying in mumbai. there was also a little bit of sightseeing to be done. we explored "elephanta island", "the gate of india" and the world-famous "taj mahal hotel". of course we also went to the movies. although we didn't see a bollywood-blockbuster (instead we enjoyed ourselves at an austin powers "goldmember" venue) it was good fun.
our next destinations were the famous beaches of
goa. manuela and i had never stayed for a longer time on a beach so far, but this time... we felt realy in love with this paradise-like place called
palolem beach. so instead of staying two or three nights, we enjoyed the sea, coconut trees and white beach for 7 nights. even after such a long time, we didn't have enough and it was very hard for us to leave. the special thing about palolem beach is, that there are almost no houses. all you find on the beach are coconut-huts. as accommodation you also get one of these huts, some of them even stand on pillars. so if you need a time-out
contact babu, from the found things bar & restaurant, the place to be at palolem bach.
goa has been for almost 500 years controlled by the portuguese. that's why we headed to
panji, goas capital, and
old goa, the formour goa capital. it's very strange to find in india such narrow streets and houses which just look as if they were in portugal. old goa is full of cathedrales and monasteries - the majority of goas population is still catholic.
about one week ago we have made our way down south to the state of kerala. we are staying here for about one week, for i have to do some work on the internet. the people here are very open-hearted and helpful, which makes us almost feel at home. we have even found the first supermarket in india with many products of the western world (as a matter of fact most of them are very expensive for india) and a small coffee shop with delicious pasteries... hmmm, thy are so good, we have to go there every day;-)
posted by christoph 16:48
