The first six months of lockdown- My experience

 

While we go through this tough phase of the Covid-19 scare, I thought I should write down my experience from the last 6 months. The next 6 months will come later.

We shut our institute on March 12 2020, much against my wish or thought process at that time. I was not following the Covid-19 issues in China and other places. During breakfast on one of those days during March 1st week, I realised that Europe was getting affected, and a few cases had started in India. We had booked a flight to Mumbai for the 1st week of March and were supposed to return back to Bangalore on the 8th. This is when the airport screening had just started, and a report of a Hyderabad techie catching covid was making news. I started to read about the disease, its impact and so on. We somehow decided to cancel the flight, and stay in Bangalore inspite of losing most of the money of the flight booking.

The schools in Delhi were being shut, and I felt it was an over-reaction. Few days later when the cases started to rise, instructions were given to shut institutes. I was still not completely convinced, but thanks to some of my colleagues, it slowly started to sink in. We shut our institute on March 12, and I told a few students that we may return back only after 3 months (so carry with you everything you need). Then the lockdown was announced in India around March 23 2020. It completely began to sink in, and my mind began to see the reality as it was. I started to follow the "scores" everyday (as I my dad calls it) through https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries and https://www.covid19india.org/. I would do this diligently everyday, the first thing after I wake up.

We soon understood how "not" to wear masks (that is, wearing it properly, not touching the outside of the mask, disposing it off correctly, handwashing for 20 seconds etc), how to sanitise, how to bring vegetables, wash them, quarantine them for a day or two. Maids were not available, so we had to soon adjust to getting things done ourselves. We saw how people were not following any distancing guidelines, but soon all medical stores, grocery stores, small shops began to enforce masks, distancing and so on. Suddenly discipline was being enforced.

How has it been staying at home? It has been a good experience so far. A lot of people felt it was tough to stay home. Yes, if you have nothing to do, and if you are watching the news all the time it is tough. A few things that helped me keep occupied were:

1. The bottom line was stay indoors. So, regular exercising in the morning and evening was needed. To push up the immunity and strength, I started climbing up and down the stairs to overcome my difficulty of being exhausted after doing stairs.

2. Started the lemon honey with warm water in the mornings, Chyavanprash, Dabur Honitus hot sip, and a couple of other ayurvedic "lehyams" so much that even our neighbors would develop immunity!  Basically, being disciplined with exercise and building immunity, and being focused on it, helps us in the positve direction

3. I had enough work to catch up with, building course content, reading papers, writing papers etc- so it kept me busy with a sense of achievement

4. I started exploring connections with other institutes to build the network and expand my knowledge. Did a few online courses again to enhance my learning

5. Reading books, meditation in the evenings continued, and yes, Ramayana and Mahabharatha on Doordarshan kept me so completely occupied as long as it lasted. It was 3 months gone by now. 

6. Can we explore cooking? Soon youtube videos started piling up in my library, and cooking became an exploratory hobby!

7. Cleaning up the house, to eliminate dust was important. At the same time, precuation was needed so that we do not start sneezing and coughing!!

8. Setting up an exercise cycle, adding more exercises such as Suryanamaskar, skipping helped keep fit

9. Helping those people who were going through a tough financial phase was crucial

 I still did not feel lonely, or the need to get outdoors. How long will we stay indoors? As long as the pandemic is peaking, is my answer. The last pandemic Spanish flu peaked till about a year, so I guess, the "Shaarvari Samvatsara" need to pass. The previous "Durmukha", "Vikari", "Vilambi" etc sounded so dangerous in their meanings, but the Shaarvari which has a pleasant meaning has turned out so terrible to the entire world.

What were the other changes:

1. Everything moved online. Meetings, classes, discussions, signing papers, exams, grocery purchase etc etc. Zoom meetings with "Do you hear me", "You are on mute", "Can you see my screen" etc became a common language

2. I had to setup a monitor, spikebuster, USB hub for mouse/keyboard, headset, tablet, and a suitable background curtain to make the workplace comfortable

3. Finding a suitable time during the day to record lectures, without the dog/cow/street vendor in the background still remains a challenge!

Was there never a negative thought? Yes, there were. There were cribs about how the people in the house opposite mine had not kept their house clean. That I need to see this everyday! How there was so much traffic in the other house's locality. How this dog keeps barking non-stop. Does it not get tired. How this cow is screaming for 2 hours, and the owner has not attended to it until I intervened. How untidy are the rooms and kitchens, and how long should I keep cleaning it? Why is the door of the house open for so long, why is it closed now? Strange but valid questions which did not have place in my mind before. Because, earlier, the only question that existed was, Traffic, Traffic, Traffic in Bangalore that I need to go through!

I guess these are the side-effects of staying at home. It is impossible not to observe these.

Safety precautions:

1. People visiting home are not encouraged! If they do, they need to sanitise themselves. Leave the mask outside. Leaving the mask on the table, on the sofa is a strict NO.

2. After they leave, we sanitise the area where they were seated.

3. Newspapers should be discontinued

4. Any courier that comes, stays in the quarantine room for a day. In fact, anything that we buy, stays there for a day

5. Buying from street vendors is discouraged. Flowers, vegetables etc need to go through the wash first and the 1 day quarantine rule!

Yes, I am paranoid about covid, but I am not scared of it. I want to take the needed precautions, I keep seeing the rising numbers everyday, but I do not want to go in the negative frame of mind, being scared of life. It simply does not help. Overall, keeping oneself occupied is the most important thing (irrespective of the covid's presence or absence)

A wonderful experience in China

I was told by my brother who visited Shanghai recently that- look, our credit cards dont work there- so carry cash, veg food is an issue- so, carry ready to eat food, language is an issue, more importantly- Google does not work in China- so, buy a local sim there and install a VPN to get everything working. That was enough to scare me off.

I started planning the whole trip, including how to get to the hotel from airport, snapshots of maps (you cannot download offline maps in the China region!!), carry cash in multiple wallets, carry a power adapter and so on.

Of course, when we landed in Hangzhou, China, it met my expectations, in the sense, not a single person understood when I said "Bus", we were looking for the airport bus to reach the hotel. Luckily, I had a print out of the airport shuttle timings which had a photo of a bus- and that helped! Nobody could read English, and my hotel name/address was in English- nobody could guide us. To let us in to the bus stop, they did an explosive detection check!! Luckily, the airport bus stopped diagnoally opposite to our hotel; the hotel had the name in Chinese too- and there you go, we arrived. I must say that the Huachen International hotel was extremely good. It was like a 4-star hotel- a price of Rs.3500- we were on the 15th floor, they lent us travel adapters since ours did not work. And there were fake markets right behind the hotel! We were very close to West-lake and what else do you need!

 Then, we started exploring the place. We figured that people smoke a lot!! My God, I must have inhaled so much smoke in the one week! And the people are so uncivilised, worse than Indians! They would just barge into you, unintentionally of course. I was in this convenient store looking for a yogurt. A girl just pushed me aside, took the thing she was looking for, and went away. Many more such instances. People were jumping lines, and the worst thing was in the railway station. Guys whose train was coming up half an hour later blocked the line of the train which was coming up in 15 minutes. And there were people arguing, shouting at each other! At another store, they were just about to close, at 8.30pm, and I was still looking for some food stuff to buy, of course, trying hard to find if there was any English word written there. The lady just shouted at us in Chinese, luckily, we could not understand. But, we figured that she wanted us to buy quickly and leave. I have not seen such a thing in India. The last experience was that the cab guy managed to cheat us at least 50 Yuan (Rs 500). The station was 25 km away from the hotel and would cost 80Yuan, we knew it. The meter showed 50km and charged us 133Yuan!! And I told him that- "Look, we know it costs only 80Y and your meter shows 130Y." He quickly pointed us to another taxi and said- "Look, that one is 80Y", and as if doing charity, he charged me just 130, and not 133 :) I did not want to get into an argument in an unknown language in that country, so we got away from the situation. Anyway, he got my point that, we know he cheated us.

Anyway, coming back to tourism, we went to a place called "West Lake"- which is a popular tourist spot- and we saw nearly 5000 people there, only to realise that they were seated there for 4 hours to watch the musical fountain!! Just too many people in this country, and too many kids! We took the Dragonboat cruise on the lake- and it was so rich inside!

 We visited Lingyin temple- and it was probably one of the best tourist spots I have visited ever, We found a temple premises and thought that was it. Then we found stairs by its side- to only find that there was another temple premises above this one. Then we kept going- and found that there were 5 different levels of the Buddhist temple premises. One of them had about 100 Buddhas carved on a wall.

This temple was in a park which had rock carvings- of Laughing Buddhas etc. There was another hall which had 500 statues of Buddhist monks. We had already walked nearly 6 km and I really cannot believe I completed this visit. There were still couple more temples in the park- for which the ticket was already included, but I had no fuel left to tour. But, this is a must visit- if you are around this area.

We were to take the bullet train to Shanghai at 4pm next day and we had to collect tickets at the station. My conference was to get done at 2pm, so we thought we will take a cab, reach the station at 2.45pm, collect the tickets and leave. Then, I suddenly realised that the print out I had did not have the ticket pick up number. I then logged in to trip.com, but it sent an OTP to my gmail id which I had no access to. I had to call my brother over watsapp, give me my password which luckily I remembered, get the OTP, signin and get the pickup number. We then saw a picture of the Hangzhou railway station- it had at least 10000 people.

Then we felt, there might be huge lines for ticket pickup, so we better wake up early, get the tickets and then go to the conference. This really saved the day for us. It took an hour in the line for us to get tickets- esp because were were "aliens" (thats what they call the international passengers), and our passports had to be verified. And and, the station was atleast twice the size of Bangalore airport. The north going and south going trains were in different station terminals!! The station itself was so easy- you get through security and arrive at waiting halls on ground floor. This floor has entry to all 30 platforms. The gates open 15mins before departure and close 3 mins before. You can only enter your platform, not any other one. You go through the escalator to the -1 floor- and wait for the train, The train arrived at 4pm, people got out in a minute, and it departed at 4.03pm!! A train carried a max of 500 passengers!! The bullet train experience was cool- we traveled in first class- for about Rs.1000 at a top speed of 306 km/hr. It did not really feel like 300+.


Shanghai, no wonder, had many more people. We went well prepared, got the hotel name and address translated to Chinese, showed it to the cab guy- and yes, we had learnt the trick- how to survive and communicate in China. We went on the Huangpu river cruise- what a sight at the Bund! The Pearl tower, Financial center and there was an ICBC bank- which had 30 floors.

Then there were these fake markets outside the Science and technology museum metro stop. The museum building was so huge- with a central globe. There were at least 2000 shops at that metro- fully air conditioned- I couldnt believe it. And we had so much bargaining. I looked for a handbag- the price she quoted was 300Yuan (3000Rs). I said 30- she was shell-shocked. She said- are talking about 30 dollars? I said 30 Yuan- no kidding. And I finally got it at 35Yuan.. Ridiculous.. I bought some 2Yuan, 10 Yuan stuff, some really nice handcraftef souvenirs.

And the metro is so so phenomenol. They had 17 Lines- I could not print it out! The central People's square stop had 20 exits!! That single stop was as big as our Bangalore airport with so many facilities. On the inside of the metro, they had a good plan for showing the route- a red light would blink at the stop we were going to arrive. Green lights were blinking at the stops we have already travelled. Names of the streets, exits, metro stops were written in Chinese and English- thank god!

Lastly, we went to Zhujiajiao water town- called the Venice of the east, about 40km away from Shanghai. We traveled by metro line 17- for atleast 20 stops- cost us just 8 Yuan!! It had a Tibetan cultural museum, an old post office, a park and so on- easily you can spend the whole day there. You can wear the Chinese traditional wear for 10Y, click photos!!

Roller coaster ride!

Since it has been nearly a year since I posted anything here, it is probably worth noting the roller-coaster ride that I have had since then. I thought my PhD experience was not really as bad as described by my other fellow beings. When I joined in this programme 6 years ago, I did not know what I was planning to do with it (not that I really know now). One year into it went pretty fast with the aggressive coursework. The 2nd year went through with some initial experiments. The next 2.5 years went through with my mind mostly focusing on hostel and institute activities (council activities and a host of other related committees that I was part of), with PhD becoming a part time job. I now realize I probably did not know how to work while conserving my energy. There was no need to be so emotional and aggressive. Anyway, it is always easy to look back and say that. What happened was the right thing to have happened- is the only sure shot way of moving ahead in life!

When I ran out of energy at the end of it, I was left with probably the last leg of the PhD- a few experiments and then the writing up. The experiments were done in a month, but the paper writing seemed like never ending. It is hard to write what I went through next. But, I guess it might be useful for all those who face similar things. I was in a Womens day function and when I got out of it, my fingers started trembling- I had a sudden rush of negative energy/anxiety whatever you may want to call it. I was told that it is called - panic attack. I did not know what I was panicking about. I took some anti-anxiety pill, my BP was high etc., I do not want to relive the whole thing, but I want to write the positives that came out of this terrible experience. Trust me, you do not want to go through this.

I sat down to ask myself what is going on. In addition to this PhD, there were other things going on. I previously had so much energy that I was emotionally supporting a few people in distress not realizing that I had only finite energy and I can do only so much.
Lesson 1: First wear you own oxygen mask, before helping others with it. You need to be alive before you can rescue others.

I got it this sudden realisation (of course, not instantly. It was after a few weeks) that worrying about something is not going to help me solve the problem. The paper will finish when it has to, and my worrying about it will harm me mentally and physically and not help me in anyway. This was Lesson 2. Peace began to dawn on me. World began to look beautiful again, until I was in for a test again.

In this process, as I sat with myself, I began to realize some tendencies I had. I always used to repeat in my mind all the bad experiences I have had, and literally fight with the other person/situation in my own mind. Many of us do that- that is the nature of the mind. You see- that is such a funny thing. You are imagining yourself in a situation and fighting it in your own mind- which really only builds so much negativity in you and does not really solve any problem. That was Lesson 3. Say for example, you are at office and you are being treated unfairly by a colleague about whom you have high regards. You are completely shaken. If you are like me, you will fight for "the right cause". Too much of expecting things to be correct.. Unfortunately, the world is not so. People will do what they feel is right.. There is absolutely nothing you can do about it. I read somewhere- There is nothing you can control except your attitude towards something. That is absolutely true. How many things in this world can I control? My work, my surroundings, my friends, my boss? Yes, most of the times, you can. You can quit the job, so the surroundings and everything that comes with it will change. But when you are left with no option, the only thing you can do is to prevent it from affecting your own mind. It is no doubt tough, but it has to be done.

You can read about the issue you have, you can talk to people about it, in fact you SHOULD, you can do thousand things.. but until you have sat with yourself to ask- "What is your problem, why are you in trouble"- kind of questions and address them with a positive mindset, trust me, nothing will change. The problem in not outside, it it is one's own mind and it has to be solved using your own intellect. That was Lesson 4- and the biggest lesson.

These experiences are tough for someone who has especially not undergone really tough times in life- I mean, emotionally or mentally tough times. For whatever reason these came in, Lesson 5 was: Take the positives, forget the rest. What a ride it has been!

A trip to Assam

It took longer in a flight to reach Assam than it would to reach Singapore probably. We were travelling from Mumbai. But having gone the distance, it was worth it! I have never seen such lush-green scenery from the flight, before landing in an airport. We landed in Guwahati, and it was hard to find a place which was not green. I later realized that, it is green not just around the airport, but it is green probably anywhere else you travel in Assam! The first thing I noted was that, vehicles had an "AS" registration :)
I had a similar surprise when I first landed in Mumbai six years ago, to find "MH" everywhere. It was a huge surprise, especially given that one is used to seeing "KA" all life!

From there, we went to the railway station and then to the Umananda temple. It was really disappointing to see that the station was in such primitive conditions, the drains were not well maintained, the Brahmaputra was probably overflowing, but had garbage in it. There is huge scopes for development, and at the same time, people who visit should also be responsible enough to throw garbage in the right place. It is NOT ok to throw a banana peel out on the streets from your vehicle and it is NOT ok to be spitting on the road every 5 minutes.

The Umananda temple is the world's smallest inhabited riverine island, and it takes about 10 minutes for you to reach it through a boat. They will charge you huge money (~Rs 500) to get you there and get you back, unless you go on a shared boat. The ride is beautiful if it is not raining!

The best part about the trip was the tea estates, which you get to see everywhere. On our journey from Dibrugarh to Kaziranga (~250 km), I saw tea estates on either sides of the road for nearly 200 km. And they really look infinite. I never knew that the color 'green' could be so appealing to the mind. Every house I spotted had a green path to the entrance of the house from the gate. And every time I spotted a cow, it was a set of at least 100 cows, and I kept thinking that they are them ost fortunate of all other cows to be eating grass and not paper or plastic. The tea estates and the cows are the best part of Assam, which I would remember for a long time.


We stayed in a 'United 21' resort near Bagori range of Kaziranga. Kaziranga is spread across 4 ranges (~100 km in total). The hotel arranged for a jeep safari, and the entrance is about 2 km from this hotel. Its an "Open" jeep safari. It is ok to spot a rhino or an elephant or a wild buffalo, but am not sure how people are so daring to see a tiger from such a jeep! I am glad we did not spot one! The whole safari took about 3 hours and they charge you about Rs.2000 per jeep. The more the people per jeep, the better for you, you can save some money. And again here, you will just seen green, green, green everywhere, apart from the water!

This national park apparently hosts 75% of the world's one-horned Rhino population. Probably, there are more Rhinos here, than there are humans! The Rhino really looks so majestic. And yes, the national park is open on Sundays too, unlike other posts we had read saying that it is closed on Sundays. Then there are 3 slots for an Elephant safari: 5am, 6am and 7am, and it takes about 1 hour. They charge you Rs. 875 per person. And oh yes, the sun rises in this part of the world at around 4am :) You can hardly sleep beyond 5.30am, as the room gets so bright! We really need to have a different time zone setting here! And beyond 6pm, you can not do much, its dark, and may mostly rain (April to Nov)

If you are near Kaziranga, there is a must do thing apart seeing the Rhino. You need to see the Orchid park, which was ~16km from the 'United 21' resort. They have really promoted tourism the right way. They have the best collection of orchids in the North-east. By the way, while I was in Assam, I heard the word 'North-east' so many times.. I did not know it was a heavily used word here, and that these states are called 'North-east'. I did not know they had such a terminology.

Coming back to the orchids, they have a HUGE collection in the greenhouse, and have a huge park outside the greenhouse, where you can spot orchids. The photo along-side (the yellow flower) is called the 'dancing lady" for obvious reasons, and the one above is known to look like a lady's show! There is also a photo gallery of orchids, and a seed-house that shows the 200 varieties of rice that grows there! The best part of this Orchid garden is, there is a Bamboo dance and Bihu dance performance that goes on every one hour. The bamboo dance is really worth watching. They portray the harvesting season, and collection of seeds from the plants. I was really happy to see all of these things in one place, and the Rs.200 entry fee is really more than worth it.

Coming to the resort where we stayed, the 'United 21' resort, it had an extremely well maintained garden. And if not for this resort, we would not have any other place to eat, around that place! And the food was unbelievably good, and reasonable given that all ingredients and vegetables have to come from a place which is at least 30-40 km away. And since this resort is situated in a "remote" area, with absolutely no way of transport apart from the resort jeep, the commuting costs you a lot, so have some cash along with you! You may need to travel ~10 km to find an ATM :)

Lastly, we did see the famous Kamakhya temple. We were in fact lucky that we went at 1pm, and the main entry was closed, so we did not have to stand in the long queues. We got to see the main deity from inside another adjacent entrance. But, the sights in the temple such as the goddess holding animals in her hands, and goats being carried for "sacrifice" is something that we South Indians are not used to seeing or not comfortable with, to be honest. There is a HUGE difference in the "feel" you get in visiting a South Indian temple and one in the North. A "priest" was giving the pooja flowers, and the next thing he asked was to put money in the plate next to him. There were only 100 and 500 rupee notes on that plate. Of course, I did not give.

One last thing to mention is, we returned to Mumbai via Kolkata airport. And I must confess that I had not seen such a huge and beautiful and well maintained airport in the recent past in India (apart from the Mumbai airport T2). It was pleasing to see that it won the 'best improved airport in APAC region' in 2012 and 2013. No long queues either in the checkin/security counters. Things are improving and it is glad to see..

Ajanta- Ellora

Who does not want to visit Ajanta and Ellora caves?
A small problem in planning a visit to these caves is that, they are not really close to each other, they are about 4 hours apart. So, in order to visit Ajanta, we reached Jalgaon, and traveled for about an hour to reach Ajanta caves. You are welcomed by a huge set of shops that sell amazing items- glasswork, pottery etc., You will be then led to the caves by a guide. It is highly advisable to hire a guide, else you will not be able to figure out much! Be careful to carry enough electrolytes and water with you, especially in summer. It can be terrible!

Ajanta has about 30 caves, and you can see a view of almost all caves in this picture. Its an amazing view. You wont have time to visit all of them in detail in a single day. The guide will take you through at least 10 of them.



The key highlight of these caves, is the painting on the ceilings, but they were destroyed by people who attacked them long ago.. And there's a really HUGE Buddha statue in the last cave. Save your energy, till the end! The journey through the caves involves some amount of climbing up and down, and you can really feel like you will not make it to the last cave, which is really the amazing one!





One sad part of these caves, is that it is not really as well maintained as it should be. The entry fee is very minimal, something like Rs.50 or so, (don't really remember). And some caves can be really suffocating. These kind of caves are really the treasures of our country, which are unfortunately not well taken care of.

We then took off to Aurangabad which is nearly 4 hours from Jalgaon. The bus transport system is really pathetic there. You can hire an auto from Aurangabad to Ellora- which is about 30km away.
Ellora is a different type of cave than Ajanta. You need to use transport to travel from one cave to another. We were really able to see just one cave- cave number 16- apparently the biggest one, and the most amazing one.
 

It took us few hours to just complete this one cave. Again, mindblowing art-work and sculptures. Very intricate work can be seen in these caves.
 
You can also see bats flying around you, which is unfortunate. It was disgusting to see poorly lit caves.. we had to use the flash in our phones to find our way inside some parts of the cave. The air was so stale, and there is hardly any ventilation inside some caves. Again, an indication of some poor maintenance. The entry fee was Rs.10. I would strongly recommend to the tourism ministry to consider increasing the fee, and providing some better maintenance and facilities for visitors.
If you are at Ellora, you may want to visit Ghrishneshwar Jyotirlinga temple, which is just a 10 minute walk from the Ellora entrance. They wont let you carry your phones inside the temple! You will need to deposit them outside.. Dont bother buying flowers.. I have a doubt that they recycle it :)

Overall, Ajanta- Ellora is a must watch if you appreciate sculptures and understand art. You can easily cover the whole trip in 4 days, if you are travelling from Mumbai.

Ajanta- Ellora

Who does not want to visit Ajanta and Ellora caves?
A small problem in planning a visit to these caves is that, they are not really close to each other, they are about 4 hours apart. So, in order to visit Ajanta, we reached Jalgaon, and traveled for about an hour to reach Ajanta caves. You are welcomed by a huge set of shops that sell amazing items- glasswork, pottery etc., You will be then led to the caves by a guide. It is highly advisable to hire a guide, else you will not be able to figure out much! Be careful to carry enough electrolytes and water with you, especially in summer. It can be terrible!

Ajanta has about 30 caves, and you can see a view of almost all caves in this picture. Its an amazing view. You wont have time to visit all of them in detail in a single day. The guide will take you through at least 10 of them.



The key highlight of these caves, is the painting on the ceilings, but they were destroyed by people who attacked them long ago.. And there's a really HUGE Buddha statue in the last cave. Save your energy, till the end! The journey through the caves involves some amount of climbing up and down, and you can really feel like you will not make it to the last cave, which is really the amazing one!





One sad part of these caves, is that it is not really as well maintained as it should be. The entry fee is very minimal, something like Rs.50 or so, (don't really remember). And some caves can be really suffocating. These kind of caves are really the treasures of our country, which are unfortunately not well taken care of.

We then took off to Aurangabad which is nearly 4 hours from Jalgaon. The bus transport system is really pathetic there. You can hire an auto from Aurangabad to Ellora- which is about 30km away.
Ellora is a different type of cave than Ajanta. You need to use transport to travel from one cave to another. We were really able to see just one cave- cave number 16- apparently the biggest one, and the most amazing one.
 

It took us few hours to just complete this one cave. Again, mindblowing art-work and sculptures. Very intricate work can be seen in these caves.
 
You can also see bats flying around you, which is unfortunate. It was disgusting to see poorly lit caves.. we had to use the flash in our phones to find our way inside some parts of the cave. The air was so stale, and there is hardly any ventilation inside some caves. Again, an indication of some poor maintenance. The entry fee was Rs.10. I would strongly recommend to the tourism ministry to consider increasing the fee, and providing some better maintenance and facilities for visitors.
If you are at Ellora, you may want to visit Ghrishneshwar Jyotirlinga temple, which is just a 10 minute walk from the Ellora entrance. They wont let you carry your phones inside the temple! You will need to deposit them outside.. Dont bother buying flowers.. I have a doubt that they recycle it :)

Overall, Ajanta- Ellora is a must watch if you appreciate sculptures and understand art. You can easily cover the whole trip in 4 days, if you are travelling from Mumbai.

The beautiful islands of Madeira - a travel blog

Well, you must see it to believe it. Initially, I thought, an island must be really having nothing but sea on one side and beaches.. What else can it have?

The city is literally carved out of the mountains. Its quite easy to catch a look at these houses on the mountains.. they have the typical orange brick top, that is, they are thatched roof-houses. I was wondering how did these houses get on top of these slopes.. only to realise that, whoever built the city, have literally carved roads on these mountains. 

Something very common to every house is the huge balconies, the typical thatched roofs, a ventilator- the dark green one (almost 99% of the houses have this and only this kind of ventilator). The apartments have huge balconies and are extremely well ventilated, that is, they have sliding doors and windows along the length of the wall.. Almost 99% of the apartments you can see around in this place have this feature.
And the blue ocean will follow you everywhere..

And my goodness.. on the mountains, along with the houses, you can see banana plantations everywhere. No, in fact, there are banana plantations in a step-wise fashion on the mountains, and amidst these plantations, houses are situated. The houses are just flanked by these plantations.. and the size of these bananas is about 10 inches long!!

Its a picture-book city.. if you ever did a painting or planning for a movie depicting to set up a city, this is how it would be.. everything seems perfect, everything in the right place! There are tunnels carved into these mountains, and roads built for accessibility. And they have made the best of the place, by converting the entire island into a tourist spot. They have divided the island into different parts and the maps show different tours you could do. You can find a souvenir shop in almost every shop and every street.. which is quite remarkable.

Apart from the bananas, they grow grapes.. and from there comes their wine!! Vegetarian food- they do not know what that means.. so if you are a vegetarian, carry your food.. or survive on fruits, juice, dry salad and some yoghurt. Water is unheard of.. just kidding. They take more alcohol than water, so you have to pay for water!!