Getting up early we made out way via trains again in the specified ladies only carriage to Elephanta Island. This has various caves with Hindu gods carved into it. We got the open air ferry across and walked up to the caves passing different market stalls selling souvenirs. Unfortunately due to my poor observational skills i walked into a solid cement pillar and have consequently broken my little toe....not great when you have to walk up the well known 100 stairs to the caves. So it is now bandaged up.
The caves were beautiful with many stone carving coming from the wall and we were given a guide book so it was interesting to learn about them like the head of Sheba which is the God of creation with 2 heads on either side representing the god of destruction and the god of protection but combined to make 1 God. There are a lot of monkeys around the caves...and they were definitely cheeky! stealing peoples water bottles when they were unaware and then managing to open and drink them in front if them in a mocking way, nabbing food and rummaging through peoples bags.
To get into the caves you had to pay a fee- 10 IRP for Indians and 250 IRP for foreigners so a big unfair difference but luckily we managed to bribe them to get it cheaper down to 175 INR.
On the return to the hostel we stopped in at Juhu Beach as we were told this was a nice beach with good outlets and its were the some Indians go for a night time stroll...on reaching the beach we soon realised they meant ALL Indians come here for a nighttime stroll! There were so many people hassling us and trying to get us to purchase there merchandise. Feeling vulnerable in the situation we decided to get out quick and find a rickshaw, the first one we got into had to shout to him to stop a bit down the road because we could see he was mugging us as he didn't know where he was going then finally found a trustworthy rickshaw( trust your instincts!) that evening we ordered in Indian food as we were tired, sunburnt and a little shaken up.
The next day we got up late a went to a national animal park but found it was shut so made our way to a place called Pagoda where there is a large gold plated relic. There was a meditation class going on so we decided to have a go for 30 minutes....here I found meditation isn't for me as it involved a lot of fidgeting and debating what food i was going to have for dinner whilst the others girls looked quite peaceful. Consequently we had a perfect dinner at an Indian restaurant sharing dishes and getting amazing service having garlic naan and tandoori chicken. After I went to bed early as i have to get an early flight to Juipur in the morning for the Holi festival...the festival of paint..cant wait!!
Inventory 97% although it now weighs 16kg when before it weighed 18kg unsure how.
Belly: 57% ....bit of a dodgy day yesterday.
Xx