Buddhas and Monkeys and Bats, oh my!

After about a month in Pune, we were getting tired of the city life. While it's unbelievably convenient to walk two steps to get my first of many cups of tea each day, there's something to be said for a suspended moment of silence that is not interrupted by horns of all pitches and styles. Speaking of which, I can't believe I haven't mentioned the Christmas carols yet.

Surprisingly, I'm pretty sure that I've heard more Christmas carols in India in the past month than I've heard in all of my American Christmases combined (and that's saying something). Allow me to explain. As I mentioned in previous entries, horn honking is essentially an art here. However, what I haven't mentioned so far is that besides the personalized (and frequent) horns, cars also sing a song when they back up. Think of the beep-beep-beep that big rigs make, but then turn it into a 1990's-cell phone-ring. I've heard everything from Fur Elise to the theme from Titanic. It was especially weird for the first few weeks before I found out what it was. Anyway. Christmas carols are especially popular choices for the back-up song, as I call it. My baba explained to me that the vast, vast majority of people over here recognize the songs but have no idea what they are. So, picture my surprise when I'm weaving my way through cows and children on a warm August afternoon in India and all of a sudden I hear "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" or "Frosty The Snowman." It's something out of a bad Twilight Zone episode, I tell you.

But anyway, on to the point of this entry! I just got back (as in ten minutes ago) from a long weekend of cave exploration. In true ACM style, our enthusiastic program associates planned cool activities for us without actually giving away much information about the upcoming adventures. All that I knew is that we were going to some caves for a few days. I pictured something out of Batman Begins, complete with stalactites and angry bats. Turned out I was only half correct.

On our way to the caves, we stopped by a fort (sorry, in my excitement I've forgotten the name). To me, it could've passed as a cave. It's a huge stone structure on top of this hill overlooking a gorgeous valley. It was fortunate that we had an amazing view to look forward to at the end, since our journey upwards went through the sort of caves that I was picturing, complete with absolute darkness, bats swooping inches from my ear, and serious slippery rock. When we first walked into the darkness, I heard the chirping sounds of what sounded like several thousand crickets. Once our guide lit his torch (not a flashlight... an actual wooden torch out of Disney's Aladdin), I discovered that the crickets were actually bats. About two feet from my face. Thank God they weren't tarantulas, of else you all know what would've happened. However, once I got used to the smell of bat guano (which I will never, ever forget), it was pretty cool.

Quick tangent... The internet cafe that I'm in just started playing Bryan Adam's "Summer of '69." Over here, he's still considered a "God of rock." I've heard this song so many times I might start confusing it with a Christmas carol.

Anyway! We spent a few hours at the fort and then headed back to the bus for the final three hours. On our trek down, I saw monkeys. Yes, real monkeys. As in not in a zoo. Needless to say, I freaked out. A few parakeets decided to join in by chirping and dive-bombing the monkeys. As if this wasn't enough, I heard a peacock calling nearby. I tell ya, I almost fell over. Don't be surprised if I bring a monkey or an emu (oh yeah, we saw those too) home with me. But not bats. For all of you I promised presents to, get ready for it.

So, after a lovely night of uninterrupted sleep (with a real pillow!!!!!!!!!!!), we got our cave-ing shoes on and set off not knowing what to expect. For those of you who haven't been (there might be somebody somewhere), the Ajanta and Elora caves are located about six hours away from Pune. They're Buddhist caves from around five thousand years ago, and they're absolutely breathtaking. Instead of slimy walls and limbo-worthy low ceilings, they're cavernous temples carved directly into a mountain. We went to the Ajanta Caves the first day, which are most famous for the painting work that has somehow survived five thousand years of monsoons and angry bats. Apparently these caves had been forgotten for several thousand years before some nosy British guy out tiger-hunting wandered over a ridge and saw this huge valley ten times the size of a football stadium full of caves and stone bridges. Crazy Brits.

We spent two days wandering through the caves, one day in Ajanta and the other in Elora. It was so cool to be in Buddhist caves, especially since Buddhism is such a small religion in India. As far as I know, less than 1% of the population is actually Buddhist. But these caves remain as a reminder of what I'm sure was an excellent Buddhist heyday a few centuries ago.

We spent a few hours with a guide as we wandered through the more famous and precious caves (in other words, you use a camera flash and you're tortured and decapitated. Ok, so they just yell at you and take your camera away). There were carved stone Buddhas ranging in height from two to twenty feet, along with a whole host of other deities and historical figures. The paintings were absolutely amazing, especially since with my limited art background I remembered that certain aspects of their paintings (such as the use of perspective) had been thought to be more modern developments. The paint hasn't been redone or touched up, so even though chunks that are missing give the whole thing an unfinished jigsaw puzzle effect, I was astonished that so much of it remains.

We spent a good amount of time oohing and aahing at the history, but as most college kids do, we got antsy. Fortunately for us, there was a huge waterfall nearby. After scampering over rocks of varying degrees of slipperiness, a few other students and I made it behind the waterfall.

Now, when I saw waterfall, I'm not taking about some wimpy little ten-foot thing. I mean a serious, Indiana Jones-style column of crashing water. We sat behind it, totally soaked, just staring in silence. We could just barely see around the edges of the waterfall, catching glimpses of the greenery and (more!) monkeys. Pictures will come, I promise.

As we left the caves, our program leaders explained that we'd be making our way through a cool although somewhat tourist-y market where we could bargain for necklaces and stone idols and the like. What they didn't tell us is that we were going to be literally assaulted by a hundred men, each one begging us to come see his shop, just for a minute, please madam, you will like, you like I cut price only for you, where are you going, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello! It was insane. It was such an assault on the senses that I almost just panicked and left. However, once I got ahold of myself, I was able to get excellent bargains on some necklaces. It took some yelling of "NAKO!" to the men shoving necklaces in my face to regain my sanity, but I knew that if worst came to worst, I could always shout "COCKROACH GO!"

The Elora caves the next day were no less spectacular. These caves are more famous for their stone carving work since no paintings have remained. Huge elephants, Buddhas, and everything in between seemed to stare at us as we walked past. We didn't stay for quite as long, since we were all exhausted from the first day. However, I ended up having the experience of a lifetime that evening.

After a long, luxurious, and suprisingly cockroach-free nap, I decided to grab some friends and wander through the small town that our hotel was in. We ran into the Anjus (Anju and Anjali, two of our program associates), who asked us if we wanted to go to a temple nearby. I pictured something similar to the caves that we'd been to, so I was quite surprised when we arrived at an active temple teeming with people. One man working at the temple grabbed our group and ushered us through the two-hour-long line simply because we were white. Talk about feeling awkward... Either way, we removed our shoes and stepped into the most terrifying and wonderful experience that I've had so far. Men had to remove their shirts, and women had to remove anything covering their head. We walked to this stone carving in a room, which is apparently a representation of Ganesh, one of the Hindu gods most popular in Maharashtra. We placed flowers and an auspicious coconut (sounds like a band name, doesn't it?) onto the altar as people around us shouted, rang bells, clapped, and so many other things. I say that it was terrifying simply since I had no idea what to expect before I stepped into the colorful cacophony. It was complete sensory overload, and after I got ahold of myself, it was like nothing I'd ever seen before.

I have to interject again... It's been about fifteen minutes since they played "Summer of '69," and it's playing again.

After we walked out of the temple and regained our shoes, we stopped at a stand that was selling Hindu rosaries (sort of. It's hard to describe). While we were looking, a well-dressed little boy of about eight came up to me. I braced myself for a sales attempt, but he simply said, "Hello. What is your country?" After I told him where I was from, he said, "America is a very good country. How long are you in India?" I told him that I was here to study Marathi for five months, and he said, "You study Marathi! Very cool. You are quite cute, madam, you know." And he shook my hand and walked away with his family, beaming as they patted him on the back. "Thank you!" he called over his shoulder. I have to say, it was one of the strangest and happiest moments so far.

I took approximately 29,872,869,692 pictures (give or take), but actually getting them onto my blog is incredibly frustrating. I'll do what I can, but for the time being you're going to have to use your imagination or send me a laptop. Your call.

I hope all is well back on the other side of the world. We start our actual classes tomorrow (political science, environmental science, and more Marathi), so I should have more to write soon. Thanks for reading :)

Love,
Sarah!