The first weekend here, Kel and I were feeling a primal urge to explore our surroundings and familiarize ourselves with the city. Naturally, we had made it our business to acquire a copy of the comprehensive guidebook INDIA, from Lonely Planet. Not a bad place to start trying to sort it all out.
We'd broken down our explorations into a few loose categories (or at least I had in my head). Ancient history, colonial history, markets, food, and shopping. We are both very keen on ancient history, so that seemed a prime place to start.
With that in mind, we headed out on a Saturday morning. May in Maharastra is blazing not, and this was no exception. We hadn't found sunscreen to buy yet, but surely there would be some in one of the shops around the touristy areas of South Mumbai. We grabbed our Chaco's and met up with our driver Amol.
The drive from Malad East to South Mumbai only took about an hour and a half in the early morning. As stated elsewhere, Bombay is not city comprised of early risers. Anybody that calls this place a city that never sleeps has clearly never been out and about in the hour or two before dawn. This sometimes redounds to my benefit.
We soon found ourselves off the flyover (the local name for a highway) and winding past the grand Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus on our way to the Gate of India. The Gate is a mammoth structure of big basaltic blocks that was built over a hundred years ago to commemorate a visit of the benevolentish oppressors from the British Isles. It is a very impressive arch. It is at the seaward edge of a paved courtyard that must be about 40 acres. At the southern edge stands the even more impressive Taj Mahal Hotel. At the northern edge the impressive colonial architecture stands in full and varied display for kilometers.
The courtyard at 10AM is India's version of tame and relaxed. The multitudes have not yet arrived and the crowd density is still less than one person per square meter. However, the touts and hawkers in South Mumbai are earlier risers than most; the low total head count simply means that that one is likely to be accosted by these chipper folks about dozen times on the walk from the taxi loop to the India Gate itself. They offer services like express boat rides to the near islands and taking low-quality Polaroids for an exorbitant rate. Some of them are just offering the appearance of a service as a lead-in to a beggar's pitch.
After strolling around the Gate for a while and taking the requisite selfies, we figured out that the guys selling legitimate tickets for the legitimate ferry were the ones wearing fluorescent green vests and carrying clipboards. We figured this out by observation; people were going up to them and buying tickets - they were not chasing people down around the square to foist tickets upon them.
We made our 400INR ticket purchase and had the good fortune to time it perfectly so that we simply walked over to a gangway and boarded 5 minutes after purchase. The ferry was very old, but in good repair. It had fresh paint and an engine that did not sound distressed. The same could not be said of all the boats in the harbor. We boarded by making a short jump from the concrete gangway into the gently rolling ferry. No pansy safety rules here! We paid the extra 10INR each to sit on the upper deck. And just like that, we were ready for our first sightseeing trip in India: Elephanta Island.
The ferry ride across the bay takes around an hour. You can take in an unusual perspective on Mumbai, see the cranes for unloading deep-water vessels to ferries, and look at some shallow-water oil drilling platforms. There are also various fishing boats and crabbers cruising around. You'll see what looks like some random detritus floating around that is actually markers for crab pots. You'll also see some random detritus floating around that is actual garbage, but it wasn't as bad as I expected. That certainly didn't stop a well-dressed young fellow of about 8 from polishing off his soft drink and chucking the bottle directly over the side. Sigh.
Anyway, upon landing one finds a small pier that takes them ashore. Alighting upon the pier, you can expect to be greeted by numerous young men with slicked back hair in polo shirts. They are there to tell you that you will need a guide to fully take in the splendor of the area. Did you know this is a UNESCO Heritage Site? Etc, etc. There are guide pamphlets at the ticket counter, so unless you want extra local flavor or a more comprehensive experience you can probably keep walking.
On shore there are, as one comes to expect, the line of tourist stalls. The prices here weren't gougy, which was nice. After you pass the first line of tourist stalls, you begin the kilometer trek up the hill. This is where the real tourist gauntlet begins. To shelter from the sun, the stall keepers have stretched tarps over the walkway. Given to local humidity, this has the undesirable effect of turning the the uphill march into kind of a loud steam bath. Being short on sunscreen, the humidity trap was probably preferable to the direct rays, but a breeze would have been welcome nonetheless.
The ticketing line went quickly, and we paid our 600INR each (foreigners have an up-charge at attractions in India). As we came through the gates, the caves sat under the brow of a low mountain on our right and the sea rolled away into the foggy reaches on our left. Closer at hand, some macaque monkeys were busily depriving tourists of anything that looked edible. Note: do not bring food and drink around the macaques unless you'd like to try your hand at monkey-wrestling.
I was not prepared for just how impressive the caves were. The ceilings in the main chambers are about 4-5 meters high. Mammoth pillars support the structure, spaced about 6 meters apart. The carvings of Shiva get the most prominence, but there are many other representations as well. Most of the carvings are in large wall reliefs with very particularly Indian styling. They are beautiful. For a Westerner like me they also hold a kind of mystery in their mysticism.
There are 3 main caves that are accessible to the public. There are others further down the mountain, but those haven't been opened as of summer 2019. Here's a good video giving the overview from UNESCO.
It took us about 2.5 hours to explore the caves to our satisfaction. Add in the trek up and down the hill and the ferry ride, and that gave us about 5 hours invested, plus a little over 2000 INR (or just shy of $30 US). Not too shabby at all! True, we skipped the souvenirs - even though there were some pretty good-looking ones - and we didn't ride the weird little train from the ferry to the base of the hill, but I think we still got a pretty well-rounded Elephanta Island experience!
Word to the wise, though - bring sunscreen and plenty of water.
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