Visit to Elephanta Caves

Today on 13^th day of June 2015, I was excited to visit the Elephanta caves  with my colleague.

We decided to meet at Andheri station at 7:00 am in the morning and board a train towards churchgate from Andheri,I was eager for the excitement more than usual as it was a journey with my colleague whom i was going to meet after a year.

All the excitement and the plan delayed!(was in so deep sleep that the alarm just didn’t ranged for a dead person like me!  Got an where about call from friends at 6:50am)

So the day begins with a wake-up call and with no preparations, due to procrastination of packing the required material for trip and the haste of trip in mind moved the things faster than usual, Just got ready within 20 minutes and left to Goregaon station to board a train for Andheri.

Reached Andheri and a small talk with friends happened on the way while boarding the next fast local towards Churchgate from Andheri.

Boarded the train from andheri at 7:50 am don’t remember the exact time of train, reached Churchgate at 8:30 am and loaded some snacks at the Churchgate station to for our journey.

We then went to board a taxi for gateway of India at the taxi stand, decided to take a shared taxi with charges of Rs.10 per head, which took 10 minutes to reach the destination.

After reaching gateway of India at 8:55 am, we purchased a ferry ticket to Elephanta island which was Rs. 160 for round trip, the tickets were sold by the agents standing to the left side of gateway of India there were 2 agents in the morning but while returning time there were around 4-5 agent selling tickets. No need to find them they keep shouting like "boat ka ticket boat ka ticket" or "Elephanta ka tickets".

The first ferry to Elephanta island is at 9:00 am and the ferry from the island to gateway of India is at 12:00 noon and the last ferry is at 4:00 pm and 5:00 pm respectively. These ferries are at interval of 1 hour as per officials timings, but we observed that there were ferries at interval of 10 minutes maybe the frequency got peaked due to increased number of tourists.

After purchasing tickets it was sharp 9:00 am and the boats were ready for their first trip to Elephanta caves, the crews were anchoring the boats so as to make it convenient for everyone to board on the boat. The distance from gateway of India to Elephanta island is 14km(8.5 miles).

We all in haste were the first to board it to manage a seat on upper deck by paying Rs.10 extra to the boat operator but it’s worth the view. There were around total 50-60 persons in the boat with most of the people as tourist and some were local vendors transporting cold drinks and other stuffs to island.

A passenger boat

The enthralling ride through the Arabian Sea started leaving the hustle and bustle of Mumbai to a journey back in time, the ferry gives view to gigantic Naval Ships anchored to the base at various docks such as Mazagaon, Victoria, Pirpau Jetty and Butcher Island.

View of Mumbai

Mazgaon Dock

There is no roof for the upper deck of the boat so as the rain started heavily it was difficult to prevent from getting wet even with an umbrella as the sea winds were too harsh in the middle of the sea added the bobbing of boat makes it difficult to balance yourself, so we just got on the lower deck and the view from there was not bad as we thought and it was a pleasant experience to enjoy the view from the lower deck too.

The color of water resembles the color of mud and the water is completely polluted with the waste in it which you will see throughout the route.

View from Upper deck

View from lower deck

Genmar Phoenix- Crude Oil Tanker

AHTS Excelsior

After travelling for 50 minutes we reached The Elephanta island at 10:00 am, The coolness of the breeze, dense fog and harsh winds of the monsoon season made the footfall on island an pleasant experience.

Elephanta Island

There is a ticket counter that charges you the entry fee for the island (entry fee for the caves is excluded) it is Rs.5 for adult, Rs. 3 for children, Rs.1 per head for children’s who come for picnic arranged by schools. The charges are same for NRI.

The island has 3 temples Shivji, Gaondevi and Someshwar, a Dam and is home for 2000 people inhabiting across 3 villages on the island. The people here depend on the business from tourism, agriculture and most of them come far from the island to Mumbai for education, work etc. The local people have no facility on the island except the electricity which is provided hardly for 4-5 hours, generated using a diesel generator. The island has an Elephanta dam which supplies drinking water to the locals here.

These local people use the boat for travelling to and fro from the island. So these boats are running throughout the year and stops only when the water route for the island experiences harsh winds of the monsoon seasons, But when the last of the wooden ferry boats leaves at nightfall for the mainland 14 kilometres (8.5 miles) away, the villagers who live permanently on the island are plunged into darkness.

After passing the ticket counter there is a toy train available which is hardly 400 metres train journey. Its ticket cost is Rs. 10 and till the time it starts you would reach the train destination point. When we reached at 10:00 am the servicing of train was been performed to make it operational for the day. So we decided to walk along the way so that we could enjoy the scenic view.

At the entry there are many small shops which sell eatable items such as star fruits, java plum, roasted sweet corn, mangoes(seasonal based fruit), raw mangoes and berries sprinkled with chillies and salt and rates are normal and are sold at the same price as what you would get it at gateway of india.

The price is Rs.10-15 on average for chopped pieces of these fruits. The packaged foods such as chips and cold drinks prices are 50% more than the MRP. The charges above MRP are due to the transportation cost to the island.

There is a garden and 3 restaurants adjacent to the stairs which leads to the Elephanta caves. The average meal cost will be between Rs.300 - Rs.400 and the quality is normal and not that cheap.

These stairs are neatly carved and provide a stronger grip so you can walk or run on them easily, there is also a chair service available for persons who have difficulty climbing the stairs. There are troops of monkeys on the first few stairs maybe due to the availability of food items in nearby shops. If you purchase an eatable item here from these shops keep it in your bag before leaving the shop else the monkeys will follow you if they find something interesting in your hand.

Monkeys sitting on a tree

There are around 200 stairs just a guess didn’t made an attempt to count those, finished climbing in 12-15 minutes. There are around 100-150 stalls lined along the sides of these steps selling beautiful artifacts, paintings, jewellery, Indian traditional souvenirs, bags and much more and if you climb on by looking the interesting items that are been displayed by these stalls it would take much more time.Just remember to bargain before purchasing anything.

As you finish climbing the steps you can see the board of Elephanta caves been displayed on your right side this is starting point of caves and you would not see a single vendor or any kind of shop ahead this point.

You need to buy the entry ticket to cave from the ticket counter over here. It’s Rs. 10 for adult and Rs.5 for children it’s free for children below 15 years of age and for NRI it is Rs. 250.

Board put up by ASI near the main cave

I don’t remember the minute details about the carved Hindu and Buddhist sculptures explained by the guide wish I could note down all of them.

The first cave is the main cave with nine carved structures and a “Shiv Pind”, it will take probably 60% of your cave's viewing time. The structure of the carvings is severely destroyed and one could barely understand what they depict by observing it.

The Main cave

Shiva as Mahayogi

Nataraja

Ardhanarishwara

Maheshmurti

It’s better if you avail the guide service for understanding them. The guide service is generally free but we didn’t found a free guide and we paid Rs. 150. The guide explained it well for about 30 minutes in detail and was a bit boring in between to remember the list of names of the people associated with the history of these caves.

One point which stunned me was the excellent craftsmanship of the people who carved these rocks beautifully even before the discovery of metals, they were carved completely using a small hand-made piece out of hard stone and took 120 years to complete it, the geometric aspect of the caves and the angles of the pillars in which they are carved out is amazing.

The main cave is carved with a precise geometrical calculations in such a way that the first ray of sunlight that enters the cave touches the "Shiv Pind" inside this cave, the pillars are constructed in an angle that if you view from any corners of the main cave you will see the face of at least one carved idol.

There is a booklet of ASI(Archaeological survey of India) available at the ticket counter which you can purchase, it contains much detailed description of the caves.

There are security guards protecting these structures from people who write their names on these beautiful historical monuments while some people even climb on these carved structure just to take the close view of the carved scenes around them, No these climbing people are not monkeys these events happen and were described by the security guards when we interacted with them.

Left subcave

The left sub-cave of the main cave was under the probability that the rocky entrance of this cave may collapse and thus you can see the six pillars on which the rocky entrance is reinforced for supportability.

These are the pillars that were built by the Govt. of India later with the permission of UNESCO. As it is a World heritage site the changes here can’t be done directly by the government of India and if there are any changes to be made then the change request is sent to the UNESCO(agency of United Nations). The request is then inspected by the UNESCO officers and if the change is utmost necessary then the request for change is approved.

UNESCO needs that these monuments be maintained as they were left by the Portuguese after destroying and not alter anything as it represents the precious historical details.

The way to Canon hill was closed during our visit for unknown reasons, so we couldn’t see the Canon at the Canon point which is the highest point of island. The trip to Elephanta cave was an beautiful experience and it’s the must visit place for historians.

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