Ajanta Caves

June 26, 2011

Holy Moly!! Carved by hand... and I thought building a retaining wall was hard.

Today we saw the Ajanta caves.  They are one of the world heritage sites in India.  As the photos show they were remarkable!  We hired a taxi driver for the weekend to drive us the 5 hours to the caves.  It took about 6 hours because our driver got lost in the Indian countryside, which gave us a chance to see India without the tourist gloss.  The countryside was absolutely beautiful.  At one point we saw an elephant being ridden through a small rural town.  It’s face and trunk were decoratively painted, but I think it might have been being used for work.  We drove by pretty fast so I’m not sure, but I think it was hauling something.  How crazy is it that elephants are used like horses here and it’s normal to see one walking down the road!

Because we woke up at 6 to catch the taxi the caves were pretty exhausting when we finally arrived at 3 (after eating and checking into hotel).  It reminded me of my family vacation to Mesa Verde in Colorado.  There were 32 caves with the final cave holding an entire temple completely carved out of the cave’s rock.  They were made in the 17^th century and I’m not really sure how the Indians made something so fantastic with so little technology (aliens?).  I guess that’s why it’s a heritage site.  By the end of the day I was beat.  Walking up and down the stone stairs and taking what seemed like hundreds of pictures with the local tourists was tiring.  Everytime we stopped walking our “followers” would politely ask, “xcuse…picher picher?”

Mom, dad, Laura, Rachel, Aunt Deb... just like Mesa Verde?

My medical school secondary applications have just started coming in as well.  This is bitter sweet news because it’s an exciting time but each secondary requires an entirely new application with unique essays for each.  It’s good to reply to them within 3 weeks once I receive them so I’m going to have to work pretty hard filling them out while I’m here.  I applied to 12 schools so that’s A LOT of applications.  Prayer for the medical school stuff, my new program coming up with new people, and safety in a crazy country would be appreciated!  Hope all is well.