More Buddhist Caves in Mumbai's Sanjay Gandhi National Park

In this 3 minute video I take you to some large and intricate caves found about 25 km north of Mumbai's city center. To be sure, the entire National Park is encircled by slums, apartments, factories, and bustling urban sprawl. Click the Image below to go to YouTube to watch the video.

(Click Image Above for Video)

There were reports that leopards within the park killed 20 people a few years ago. Finally, the wildlife management team did something by trapping and relocating several large cats. There are small little groupings of squatters all through the park, which is strange to see. You will be walking along and then all of a sudden there will be a grouping of 5-20 hut like houses together in an area with tons and tons of kids running around and lots of wild chickens. It is very interesting, but I presume that some of those little kids did look pretty tasty to some of those wild leopards. Its tough being a kid in India from what I can tell.

However, these caves were really pretty cool and were very well maintained. I think in the video that I said they may be 2000 years old, but in truth I think they are a lot closer to 600-1000 years old. People probably lived in them until the 40's though. Take care and enjoy the video!

A Visit to Elephanta Island!

Here is another video hosted at YouTube. Click the image below to go to the video. Please allow some time for the video to load up if you are using a slow connection.

(Click Image above for Video)

Originally this island had a different name, but the Portuguese renamed it because at that time there was a large stone elephant sculpture which has since deteriorated and been moved and reassembled at a Mumbai museum. This was a very nice place and I should be travelling to some other Buddhist carved caves in the next few days. I believe that there are thousands of caves like these around the country, but many archaeologists consider the above carvings to be among the most beautiful in the country.

Small, but cheap!

Check out my TINY hotel room. Its kinda comical how small this place is! I am sure there are smaller places out there, but this is the smallest place I have ever stayed in.

Hope you enjoyed the video! Ever stay in anything smaller?

One week later...

Hello... I have been in India for a little over a week now. All in all things are good. Check the video below for a quick update.

Also, last night I went to the Hard Rock Cafe of Mumbai. This was the most American-like place I have been so far in India. I looked on the menu and they did have a 100% Beef cheeseburger and hot wings too! I still wouldn't really care to eat them though after seeing the meat markets. I mean, just because this place is swanky doesn't mean that they are getting their meat from anywhere more special than the rest of the city! The main reason I went was because I heard that there was an Indian rock band playing that night. They were ok, but nothing special, kind of run of the mill pop-rock stuff; the guy sung with a strong British accent and their amps kept cutting out during the show. But now I am looking for even more Indian rock and roll venues or shows. I would love to catch some more music while I am here in India's most cosmopolitan city. Once I leave here I doubt there will be much of a modern, western music scene. Ohhhh... and one thing that was TERRIBLE about the hard rock... right before the band went on the all male wait staff of about 12 jumped up on a small wall and did a rather flamboyant dancing bit to the Village People's YMCA. It was so bad only a French person could love it!

First Video Post from India

Click the Picture below to view the Video at YouTube. Again, the video was to large to post on the blog so it is at Youtube... allow some time for it to load up if you are on a slow connection.

(Click Pic Above to Watch Video)

Mumbai is a massive city and the shear amount of humanity here is overwhelming. People are literally everywhere. As I wasn't sleeping so well just yet I got up at about 5:30 AM and walked around the city. At this time you can see the huge number of people living in the streets of Mumbai or sleeping in cars and trucks.

I used a guide named Terance who appears in some of the video to show me around the city. We went to many destinations, some straight out of the travel book and some off the beaten path. At one point we walked for nearly an hour through Mumbai's largest slum settlement housing millions of residents. It was quite a sight to see... an assault on the senses of sight, smell, and sound. It was supposedly the neighborhood in which some of Slumdog Millionare was filmed. I was very impressed by the amount of activity in the slum- people were making things happen, not idly sitting around. You can get just about anything you want in the slum too... they had an arcade full of old skool video games, barber shops, meat markets, schools, temples, plumbers, auto-mechanics, psychics, everything but BEEF! The tour of the city was quite enjoyable, but fast paced and hot. I feel like I saw just about every tourist attraction the city has to offer within a 8 hour day.

All in all things are good... the worst thing about the city is how dangerous the traffic is. The cars, trucks, taxis, motorcycles, auto-rickshaws, bicycles, bullock carts, buses, and pedestrians all participate in a noisy, maddening dance, defying all laws of traffic, in an collective effort to speed down the road in the most dangerous way possible. No hard and fast laws or rules exist and crossing traffic at some of the largest intersections is very nerve racking. Its a mad dash... kinda like the video game Frogger where you guide the frog back and forth avoiding oncoming cars until you cross the road to safety. I'm getting accustomed to it now, but it is still crazy! More video to come soon!

Oh and I apologize for the poor shooting and editing quality of this video. Some of the shots are kinda crappy and I crop out my own head several times! Gotta get better.

Incredible India...

Whew... after a pretty brutal 16 hour plane ride (during which I watched Star Trek, The Great Buck Howard, Valkyre and 3/4 of Bolt) I safely arrived with all my luggage at the Mumbai International Airport. Customs was a breeze and I was able to get money (which goes a hell of a long way around here) out of the ATM. I grabbed a baby taxi (3-wheels open air- just like the movies) and was able to make it to the Hotel. However, at the hotel they were having electrical issues and transferred me over to another hotel that they also own or manage. The room is nice and the AC works great. It has a western style toilet and shower and even has a flat screen TV with 72 channels. So this place isn't exactly a primitive world. Last night a ton of stray dogs were barking all hours of the night and so I didn't exactly sleep well, but I am adjusting to the time change very rapidly. The area around my hotel is really slummy and I will be moving to a better location near the Taj Mahal Hotel of Mumbai tomorrow afternoon. This area of town has more tourist activities and is all around nicer and more modern. I am having some trouble getting the internet connected to my laptop at the hotel so I am writing this from a dingy little internet cafe. Tomorrow I should be able to get a cell phone set up and will post that number here for people who want to call. I shopped around for a cell phone today and found out what documents are required to activate the phone. Also, I registered with the US Embassy, should any problems arise and I visited the Indian National Tourism Office. They gave me some decent information.. some stuff I am going to look over tonite. All in all things are good and I am not worried and I don't feel unsafe. I won't be going out on foot tonite in the neighborhood around my current hotel though. Tomorrow night is Saturday and it is the start of a big annual 10 day long celebration in Mumbai. Tomorrow night I will hit the beach avenues to do some people watching or cultural immersion. Tonite I am just gonna kick back and watch some good old Hindi music videos on the TV and get some sleep. Take care and I will be posting again soon.