The next day was met with success! We got up and made it out the door early enough to make the first ferry out to Elephanta Island. The ferry is government run, but in the spirit of enterprise, any tour kiosk can sell the tickets and their kiosks are right next to the government one. Moral of the story: go with the government kiosk and pay the regular fare. It may not seem like a lot of money (yes, we are quibbling over dollars here) but you get a free tour by a government tour guide along with your ticket, so it’s worth it. Oh. And to get into the caves is about 750 rupees if you’re a foreigner. It’s like 50 if you’re an Indian. Eerily similar to the exploitation of the Taj and the other World Heritage sites we visited.

The ride over is about an hour and fifteen minutes, but it takes a bit longer because both trips the ferry acts like a taxi service and drops people off at or picks people up from the boats they work on. It’s really funny because it’s like a line of baby chicks hopping off of one boat and onto the other. Once we got going the ride was fairly uneventful, only one girl got seasick and fortunately she made it to the side of the boat before being thoroughly sick. It’s a pretty ride over, or maybe I just love being on the water. Either way, it wasn’t a hardship and I had fun.

We made it to the island and immediately an independent tour guide latched onto us. And wouldn’t leave. He followed us almost all the way down the dock pitching himself (and it’s a long dock) before Kate finally said, “Yes. I’m sure you’re a great guide. But we don’t need you.” I will say this for the guides we’ve encountered so far: they are remarkably persistent. And I mean, it’s a good thing because after he left us he pitched his services to another guy who took him. Speaking of persistence, after you pay the tourist tax (before paying for the caves themselves) you walk up these cobblestone steps which are more like an upward sloping path. All along this path are people selling things. You can have two men carry you to the top in a chair if you’re too lazy to walk it yourself, you can buy potato burgers, and you can do a little souvenir shopping. I kid you not. It’s an uphill market. Anyways, we made it up the path and there were the caves.

The complex of caves were started in the 10th century but not completed until the 13th century. The caves are a shrine and a temple for Shiva. They’re absolutely beautiful and were excavated by hand over a period of centuries, which makes their intricacy even more impressive. Unfortunately, they’re not in great condition because the Portuguese had a blast defacing them. There are 5 caves, but only the first one is complete so when you have a tour, they generally will just walk you around the first one and give you a really detailed explanation of the different wall carvings and the religion. Our guide was this adorable woman who can’t have been taller than my boobs and she was very good about making sure that we saw and understood everything there was to see and understand about the different carvings. After we wandered down to find the fifth cave (which looks as though it has partially collapsed) we were melting in the heat. Literally. It was really gross. So we decided it was time to head back to the mainland.

We got back to shore and immediately went shopping. Yes, that was more important than going to a museum because I was leaving the next morning to go home. So shopping. I want to bore you with details, but I won’t. I’ll just say that the Cottage Emporium near the Taj hotel is a must for crafts from around the country. And the FabIndia down the street has a café upstairs which serves fabulous coffee and delicious sandwiches.  Oh. And the Oxford Books across from the park where the kids play cricket has really cheap books. It’s kind of amazing.

And what would a day out be without a little drama? It turns out that Kate’s phone couldn’t receive calls or texts all day for some odd reason. And Pinky had tried to reach us because she’d found out that we were just wandering around all day and she didn’t know where we were. So she freaked out and called her husband, who tried to call us and it obviously didn’t work. So she starts freaking out more and calls over to the Elephanta Island tourism office and the security there to check and see if we were in a hospital or in jail or something. And the entire time her husband is like, “They’re fine. They’ve been wandering all over Asia for over two months. Stop worrying.” Because we stop worrying when someone tells us to? Anyway. Long story short, we finally met up with the husband outside of his office and he tells us, while laughing, the saga of what went down that day. I died. Yes, I know, it’s not nice to laugh when other people are concerned for your safety, but that’s not what I laughed about. It was just the husband’s whole attitude about the whole thing. He was so blasé about it and half asleep, it was kind of amazing.

We got home and had a lovely dinner, family style again, and a nice chat. I absolutely adore Pinky and her husband. They are quite possibly the nicest people ever. And it was so sweet of them to worry about us. I mean, we have no real connection to them and they took us in and treated us like family. I am still overwhelmed by their kindness.

After dinner Kate went out for karaoke while I settled in to pack and take a quick nap since I needed to leave at 1am to catch a flight. Oh. And since I was already sick at that point (just a cold, no worries), it made the flight very sad. As in I couldn’t hear I was so congested sad. But I can say that my sadness was eased when I learned that the Bombay airport has a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in the terminal. It was beautiful. Well, maybe that’s going a bit far. And the Doha airport was not my favorite place to rest for three hours, but whatever it was clean. Anyway, I obviously made it back safe and sound and then I slept for three days.

I might do an overall impressions post or something. Otherwise there’s nothing else until I go somewhere. Maybe the Creationism Museum? Oh. And I still need something to do this summer, suggestions are welcome. I’ll even unblock the comments feature for you!