Jesus is my protector!

We finally got the opportunity to venture off the Kothara campus on our own and do some traveling this weekend. Kothara being such a small community, everyone knew we were leaving and several people offered to help us plan for the trip, including Mr. Ravi Gaikwad, w

ho is one of the administrators of the hospital. He and his wife have been so kind and helpful in so many ways, especially planning for travel to Aurangabad and Mumbai. Now although no one said it outright, we got the sense that they were apprehensive on our behalf since we constantly got advice and comments about EVERYTHING: what to wear (the traditional salwar), where to stay, what kind of city transportation to take ("never take the taxis!"), where to visit and what to see. Always stay together. Never go off on your own. Take this list of home and mobile phone numbers of several people from Kothara in case you get into trouble. Some were surprised that it was just the two of us girls going on this long journey. I honestly thought that they underestimated our travel savvy and saw us as inexperienced foreigners. Little did I anticipate how overwhelmed we would be!

On Thursday evening, Pastor Silas and his wife drove us to the private bus company stop, where we got on a "luxury" overnight bus, a one-way ticket for two in hand (all for about $5 a piece for an 8 hr trip). But, no return ticket! We had to buy them when we got there, but...we were cool. We were grown women with travel experience, and we could handle it....or so we thought. Well, the bus had twin-sized bunk-style beds down each side of the bus, with a narrow aisle down the middle. (We thought one bunk for each of us, right?) Pastor Silas said that we were fortunate that the two of us were going together because if we'd been alone, we'd

 have to share the bed with a stranger! (What?!) Ours stated 4A on one end, 4B on the other. Pastor S talked to the driver to make sure we'd make it to Aurangabad and then came back with his wife and asked us if we would be OK. (We hope so!) We then shut the curtain and tried to get our stuff situated on the bed. Laurel didn't want to risk losing our expensive shoes below our bunk, so she brought them up and set them in the corner of the bed. Needless to say, we were a bit cramped, but Laurel much more than I. Guess this was one of the very rare instances when I was grateful to be short! Now, our American sensibilities of privacy had to be abandoned because when other passengers began boarding the bus, several of them swiped the curtains open to...I don't know...check to see if anyone was inside? These passengers (mostly male) just stared at the two non-Indian girls, even peering through the spaces between the curtain and the wall from time to time. We waited till the bus departed Paratwada to change into our PJs and climb into our sleep sacks.

The luxury bus made several stops during the night, as I vaguely remember Laurel getting off the bus for a bathroom break. After her description of the toilet, I happily held off and waited for a bathroom in Aurangabad. In the morning, the bus stopped and I woke up to see men and boys at a roadside stand, serving tea to passengers outside and through the window to those inside. L & I munched on our Marie Gold sweet biscuits and drank our bottled water. We finally arrived in the city of Aurangabad around 7am and gazed at the mixture of wealth and poverty, of modernity and traditions through the window. Apartment buildings. Tattered tents. Open fires. Car dealerships. Goats in the streets. Colleges. Hindu temples. Mosques. Supermarkets! (Praise the Lord!)

The driver pulled over on the street and abruptly yelled "Aurangabad! Off here!" There was no bus station or sign to be seen, signifying our stop. Should we get off? Were they too cheap to drive us to the station? Well, we couldn't exactly argue in Marathi, so we frantically grabbed our stuff and hopped off. A group of five autorickshaw drivers swarmed us and tried to get us to go with them. "Where you are going?!" "You want hotel?" "You go Ellora? Ajanta?" Lord, please protect us, is all I could think! Though Laurel was wary of these guys, we had no idea where in the city we were, nor how to go look for hotels. So, we ended up taking an ARS (autorickshaw) after insisting on the "metered rate" and asking for the Classic Hotel, one we'd read about in Laurel's Lonely Planet. Of course, our driver drove past several hotels, asking us if we wanted to stay there instead (he'd get commission if we did), but in the end, he took us to our promised destination. We had no change to pay the 20 rupees, only a 100 rupee bill. He said he couldn't make change, but it was a lie since he gave back 80 rupees when I gave him the 100 rupees. We walked inside and he followed us, badgering us about taking his ARS for a

 tour around the city and to Ellora. (Uh, no. We weren't stupid.) As we were discussing rooms and prices with the hotel desk clerk, he suddenly pulled out a 100 rupee bill ripped in half! He said something about giving him a ripped bill and that I needed to give him 100 rupees. (Ha! Nope, not falling for this one!) Laurel suspected he was lying as well, so she told him sternly, "No! No!" But he kept insisting to us and the hotel clerk that he had been given a torn bill. We decided the best thing to do would be to just go up to our room, so we left the guy and started walking up the stairs. On the way up, I suddenly thought, what if he's right and I have a torn bill in my wallet? I'd better check. To my utter dismay, the other half of the bill was sitting in my wallet. It'd probably ripped against the zipper. I ran downstairs and took the torn one from him as I handed him a whole 100 rupee bill. He was finally satisfied and smiled at me. I felt extremely guilty as I walked upstairs. I'd learned my lesson: don't distrust what someone says before verifying the truth, even if there is good reason to be suspicious!

After dropping off our things in our room, we had breakfast at a nearby restaurant and then took off to the Nirala Bazaar area, near the Muslim part of the city, in order to find some of the recommended shops and restaurants. We were trying to find Cafe Coffee Day, one of the major coffee chains in India, which we'd gone to in Nagpur a month ago and knew was somewhere in Nirala Bazaar. We just didn't know where, since the book listed no address and the streets were unlabeled anyway. We walked down one of the streets, asking person after person where it was, but no one knew. One young Muslim woman pointed in the opposite direction and said it was behind that bend. So we turned around and walked back the way we came, but still no CCD. We were excited to see a Cafe Coffee Break but couldn't believe the guy who told us they weren't open (at 11am!) Anyhoo, we gave up our search and took an ARS to the state bus terminal to board a bus to the Ellora caves. At the station, we saw a Caucasian girl carrying the exact same Lonely Planet India book Laurel had. We saw several more travellers during the trip carrying the same book. I could just imagine what the Indians thought of us backpackers: "welp, there comes another one with a big pack on her back, a lost expression on face, and that strange purple book in hand." Anyway, the girl was Polish, didn't speak much English, and wasn't going to Ellora but we were still glad to see another foreigner. On the hour-long bus ride to Ellora, we were the only non-Indians on board, and of course, we were stared at the whole time, as we were everywhere else in Aurangabad. :)

The Ellora caves were breathtaking! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellora) So much beauty yet the burden of serving all these gods hung over the place. It was interesting to see the Hindu, Buddhist and Jain caves/temples existing in one area, many of them built around the same time period. The awe-inspiring Kailasa temple is the centerpiece of Ellora, and it's twice the size of the Parthenon and carved from one piece of rock. Wow. In one of the Hindu temples, I met one of the keepers, and he told me he worked there for over twenty years. He worked shifts in the temple caves, rotating through them every month and working nights every 3 months. There was no electricity in the caves, so he'd have to walk through with a flashlight! They were creepy even during the day; I couldn't imagine guarding them at night! The temples were functioning temples, so there were people going inside the Hindu and Buddhist temples to worship. There were altars and pits in the ground so I couldn't help thinking of all the sacrifices that were offered in the past millenia and a half in those very places.

We saw some Asians in one temple, and they dutifully eyed me, the other Asian in the near vicinity, as I returned the favor. (for those unfamiliar with this protocol, please see http://www.asian-central.com/stuffasianpeoplelike/2008/03/05/25-staring-at-people/). We kept on seeing them in the other areas and I finally heard them speaking a familiar language, so eventually (after several more mutual eyeing rituals) I approached and asked if they were Korean, in Korean. The three travelers, one guy, two girls, were surprised when they heard me speak, and asked if I was backpacking around India. I told them that I was working at a hospital for a couple months and they told me they were travelling around the country for a month. After the pleasantries, L & I walked to other caves, where we saw them later, and then saw them again in a restaurant near the caves. We were absolutely worn out with walking up and down the temple steps and the roads leading up to them that we set out on one last Hindu temple that was one of the most impressive. It was beautiful. On our way down, we ran into the Koreans again, and I joked about them following us. Thought that was the last we'd see of them. We went back into town, showered off the three inches of dirt + sweat that'd accumulated and changed into a fresh salwar. We were absolutely faminished but we were just ecstatic about trying out a tandoori restaurant near the hotel that the LP book said was the best in town. We arrived at 5:30pm but the door was locked. The men sitting and staring nearby said that it would open at 6pm. A security guard said, no, it opens at 6:30pm. 

We spent the next hour exploring the Vishal supermarket nearby and finally came back to a still closed restaurant. Boo. While 

waiting for the place to open, I mentioned that it'd be crazy if the Koreans showed up at this very restaurant for dinner. Well, just before 7pm, who shows up but that very same trio? They were as flabbergasted as we were. I thought they'd want to sit with us for dinner but for some reason L & I couldn't figure out, they preferred not to. Well, at least I got a snapshot with them before they got away. Dinner was AMAZING, the waiters was hilarious, and our bellies were happy. Thank you Lord for an amazing day.

The next day, we explored Nirala Bazaar and the Muslim quarter of the city. We had lunch at a place called Smile, where I had "dosa", which looked like a version of pizza, and Laurel had a veggie cheeseburger and fries (with a Coke). Yay! While eating, a guy on a motorcycle with "Jesus is my Protector!" on it pulled up and sat there long enough for us to take a pic. :) Earlier in the day Laurel also saw an ARS with a "Jesus Loves You" window sticker on it. This sounds cheesy, but we could see how God was assuring us of his presence in our lives, even at that moment, and showing us that his children are everywhere, even in that city. More of the story and pics to come later...