Ramniwas Hotel Jalgaon

... the restaurant, only to be saved by 2 waiters the Indian equivalent of batman and robin! At first glance they thought we were mad running away but then got rid of the beast and we carried on eating our delicious curry!... Neither the first or the last monkey that has put us into SVT on this trip!

On our way down from Delhi Jo had her bag pinched from the hotel or on the train- which was a bummer as it had all her valuables in it- thank goodness ...

... in a crowd with 20 other people - with us however, by the time they picked out who they wanted there was only about 6 of us or so. Lach and I made the cut - which in hindsight was not a good thing (perhaps the result of Lach's curse?). However, we sat on the fake train and took direction and gaped at the Bollywood star while she pole danced on the train with the laptop as they did take after ...

... The owner (I have forgotten his name sorry) was so so helpful he advised on good restaurants for us so tonight we had an excellent thali (tin plate with lots of little pots of different curries, pickles, raita and dal etc) nearby. This is a thali restaurant where no words are spoken you just sit down they place the dishes in front of you and you keep eating till you are full as they keep topping up the pots and the parathas. All up the meal ...

... s very wrong in our family, we don’t have much money; showed our 'empty’ wallets. He said we have lots of ATMs and we should get the cash out of it. We said we spent all the money on fuel. We outdid ourselves to appear as the ‘Victims of Circumstances’.

He then thought for a moment and said “main idhar chhodta bhi, to bhi agey tum log nahi bach paate, aagey bahut traffic check post hai”.

We said in unison “ bas kismat ke ...

So it was finally time to leave Goa, and man was it difficult. Both of us had such a sweet time chilling out in our little house by the beach and taking in the gorgeous sunsets, that we could easily have stayed for longer. But plans were made and we had to move on. This time we were heading north, back up to Mumbai, and from there to the dusty little railway town of Jalgaon. Little by Indian standards is still about 0.5 million ...

... right! The manager was extremely polite and friendly and was very concerned that we should enjoy our stay. In fact everytime we saw him he would ask us "are you satisfied with the room?". The room was in fact perfectly clean and comfortable and very good value for money - but it was nice to find someone who was taking pride in his hotel. A day of rest and recovery followed, and the next day we got up early to get the bus to the caves. After getting off the bus at Ajanta, we each ...

... are in english and no one except hotel employees speak english. Even the english spoken by the hotel employees was very limited. I spent the next day relaxing because I didn't have much sleep the previous few days and I needed to catch up. I boarded a train at 10pm on the night of Jan 13th for the 8 hour ride back to Mumbai. Jan 14- I only had about 2 hours of sleep during my night train because there was a baby in my car that was screaming ...

... their prime they would have been jaw-dropping! There was still alot of the painting there when i saw them, and even the reminats of the 10-30 feet tall stone buddahs, but each cave took atlaest 100 years to hand carve and paint with colours bought from Italy, and far china... it can really show just what sought of devotion these monks must have experienced, especilly with the thought that they'd probably never see a finished work in their lifetimes.

... people don't nod normally, they move their heads like the bobble head dolls given out at sporting events. They just sort of bob them around from side to side with a little forward and backward motion mixed in for good measure. It's pretty amusing to watch. Net/Net I'm enjoying the food, the attractions and the company, but I find everything very depressing and I can already tell that a month will be plenty of time to have spent here.

Fabulous archeology site from long ago, discovered late 1800s by British officer hunting tigers. Memorable. Not too well known. One of high lights of our travels as was nearby Ellora with temples, Buddhist and Hindu carved out of rock out crops. Incredible.