Heading to Ellora

An early start today because there's a long drive to our next destination Ellora.this will be the last time we drive south as after this we will need to start making our way back towards Delhi. We left just after 6am with a big send off from a pack of barking dogs. I'm very glad I'm not scared of dogs!!

It was a great drive through the village as everyone was just waking up. Many people were sleeping outside in the traditional type hammock bed just covered by a blanket. I could see at least one bed with three sets of feet poking out. Mothers were waking kids and making chapati, kids were pumping water and the girls carrying it on their heads, people were cleaning their teeth on the side of the road, others were carrying sticks and chickens, goats, cows and dogs were everywhere.

I loved this village but we had to move on....saw some peacocks on the way and lots of agriculture..... wheat, onions, corn, cotton and papaya. Stopped for chai and the toilet at one of the roadside places and the chai was much better than the toilet.

This place also had curtained cubicles for people to drink alcohol in.

For the first two thirds of our trip we were on good roads...actually the highway to Mumbai. Not too much traffic except for trucks.Sometimes they carry interesting things...

We went through several small towns and most of them seem to look pretty similar.

For the last part of the trip the road got worse and we struck lots of bone shaking potholes. We also reached  mountains and that was a scary experience. We were in what seemed to be a convoy of trucks, very big overloaded trucks,  driving two abreast on a two lane road. What happened when one came downhill was an absolute miracle as the ones going uphill seemed to merge like a very tight zip!

I wanted to take more photos but I couldn't hold the camera as I was too busy biting my nails!!! Tarun's reaction  "Why are you scared? This is just normal"

Not for me it isn't Tarun!!!

 

We survived and made it to our hotel in Ellora which is very nice apart from the fact that they don't have good wifi...take a look at Tarun's face!

They don't have comfortable chairs outside either so the ground was a better option... I love Tarun's water bottle pillow.

We can see the Ellora Caves from the hotel. These very famous caves were built over 350 years between the 6 th and 10th centuries. Some are Hindu, some Jain and some Bhuddist. We plan to visit them tomorrow because there are 34 of them and I imagine it'll take some time. It got a bit late today.

Not great pics but you can see them if you look hard.

Just a laze about time for the rest of the day:-)