Godawari

	This guy sort of adopted me during a walk round Delhi. He spoke near perfect English and a little German but claimed never to have had a days schooling -- saying he could neither read nor write. He didn't seem to want anything -- unlike the vast array of touts in the city. He just seemed to want to chat. If he was selling anything including he was a lousy salesman. He pointed out the state tourist board offices (which were, as he had said, closed due to a national holiday -- so even there he had no opportunity for commission). In a city of shysters and frauds he seemed to be just a nice friendly guy.
	India Gate. Took a auto-rickshaw out to see the place but ran out of time. Basically did an American tourist visit (passed it without getting out of the taxi.

	Me at Ajanta. This place is up in the hills behind Bombay. It is a series of Buddhist temples cut into the cliffs of a hidden valley. The site was lost for many hundreds of years -- rediscovered by British officers out on a tiger hunt.







	My outside guide. They apparently have a taxi rank system -- so each guide gets to have a go at picking up a suitable looking tourist. This guy took me round the whole site -- about a 10km walk round the valley (see photos above). Taking these 'guides' (here they were registered -- he was number 39 -- but in most places they were unofficial and variable in quality from shysters & hustlers to knowledgeable) was always a bit hit and miss. With a guide you could sometimes see more and understand more of the place. But it could take longer and normally ended with some retail opportunity!! This guy was definitely worth his corn. On my own I would have just done the caves and missed the wider context -- and a very pleasant, if fairly strenuous, walk.


	Sorry about the fogged corner. I only had my little point & shoot Olympus with me and I often seem to get a thumb in the way!!

	My inside guide (left) and outside guide (who comes in to hold your shoes & bag so as not to let you miss the retail opportunities!! The inside guide is part of the staff of the place. Again -- well worth his corn. The next day I am slogging up a long and pretty steep hill (complete with hairpins to give an impression of it. This was a serious mountain climb) -- or more correctly sat on a rock trying not to have a heart attack when the inside guide goes past on his motorbike, recognizes me, turns round and comes back and has a chat.

	One retail opportunity the guides obviously benefit from is using up your film. If I had not stopped him he would have shot many more photos of me. I know what I look like so these are of little interest!!


	After the big hill described above the land plateaus out. There I was riding quietly along when I come to a fork that is not on my map. The GPS was programmed but it takes a few hundred meters of travel to be sure if you are right or wrong. Anyway, while checking the map a guy on a motorbike pulls up and asks if I would join him for a cup of chai (tea). It turns out to be his tea stall a few meters away in a poor looking village. My host is in the right foreground with the glasses. Of course my presence quickly attracts a crowd.
	Photographic conditions were awful in the chai stall so I go out to get some photos.
	There is one little girl in this picture -- to the left of the guy in the orange shirt. I tried to get her to come to the front. Her first reaction was to assume I was suggesting she should not be there, to well up with tears and scurry off towards home. Once I managed to call her back she brightened up no end -- but she would not come to the front.


	Aurangabad and its environs. The fort is the second largest in India -- contemporary with Norman castles in Britain and sharing many of the same defensive features. But, where a European castle is relatively small this place is massive -- more like a walled city with a central palace. The guide kept saying it had never been defeated in battle -- but, like many European castles, it did fall to siege!!

	Still the fort.
	Now to a Hindu temple -- one of 12 of a particular sect. All a bit strange. Hindus on the tour got quite excited. Just a different form of mumbo jumbo as far as I was concerned.
	A second set of cave temples -- this time at Ellora. Here there is a mix of Buddhist, Hindu and Jain.
	The Buddhist were the oldest.
	The Hindu the largest. This one is massive.
	Though described as a 'cave' this temple was open to the sky.


	And the Jain temples the newest. Jainism seems to be a cross between Buddhist and Hindu though it falls within the Hindu family of mumbo jumbo.

	Last stop on the tour -- the so called mini Taj Mahal. Not a patch on the real thing but pretty impressive all the same.

	Back on the road. These guys seemed to be itinerants. They packed up their wigwam like structures -- you can see the flexible wooden poles on the horses.
	The area was big on sugar cane. The labourers build these huts from the cane leaves in the fields to live in during the harvest.

	Sugar cane on its way to the factory.

	OK -- I got carried away with photos of bullock carts!!
	Paithan. This looks like a Hindu temple but turns out to be a Moslem cemetery.
	On arriving in Paithan I try to find a particular hotel just out of town -- but fail dismally. On cycling round I am joined by this lad and a couple of friends. He challenges me to a race -- presumably the belief is that a geared bike is somehow faster. This would seem to ignore the 30+ years, several kilos of luggage and even more of waistline I was giving away to compensate. Anyway, my handicap proved sufficient and he won. He then asked how the gears worked and what was the advantage of them (I think, his English was not much better than my Mastrati). So I swapped bikes with him for a few minutes. He was like a pig in shit. I could not believe anyone could actually cycle on the wreck he had -- and I hadn't realised what a small bike he had -- squeezing on to it was 'interesting'.
	I look knackered!!
	The two at the front also joined us -- the younger lads seemed a little wary of them as if they were the local toughs.

	The toughs turn out to be the local body builders!! Why they insisted on taking their shirts off I cannot imagine.
	I got my own bike back!! This 'action shot' got a bit fogged and does not show how awful his bike was!!
	The mighty Godawari River. Considering I would spend the next few days cycling down the river valley I actually saw the river only about twice. At the turn of the year it is not exactly in flood!!
	Downtown Paithan.
	Next morning on my way out of town. A second view of the Godawari.
	With the inevitable Bullock cart crossing the bridge over the Godawari in the early morning light.
	Looking back to the temple (the blue one above showing nearer white here.
	After about an hour -- at around 8:30 I stopped to put on some sun cream and to have a drink and an orange -- to be hailed in near perfect English by the white haired gentleman in a bullock cart. He is the local landowner with some of his labourers (and children) on there way to town.
	A few hundred meters down the road (which was a dirt road little better than a bridle-path) the guy in the dark jacket hails me from the middle of a field, dashes over, and insists I take his picture.
	I cannot remember this group. I must have stopped somewhere and attracted the usual crowd.
	After a long ride on the very rough roads I find a chai stall. The usual suspect gather. This stall was in the middle of nowhere -- presumably serving the field workers -- but still a creditable crowd managed to gather.

	Next day the terrain turns more desolate.
	though there is a dam.
	This lot serve me lunch -- and I am the only customer!! And it cost about 20 pence!! They did offer me chicken but the options both looked very scrawny so I left them running around and stayed with the veggie option.
	A wide load. Taxis the world over don't give a shit for other road users!!
	If the poor benighted Indians are not under the jack-boot of enough home grown religions the Christians turn up with there own mumbo jumbo. This is Nagpur and the end of phase one of the holiday. Tigers next.