^ We and about 40 people all met at the train station in Secunderabad. This event was sponsored by the Twin Cities Expatriate Association. Some were familiar friends, many became new friends. Excellent company....
^ There were a large number of hijra in the station, I think that part of town has quite a few of them. Here are a couple from the back. If you are not sure what hijras are, check out an old blog post.
^ The little boys had a good time on the train, and you can see above that they were enjoying the company of their little friend from school.
^ Here we are at a pit stop in the countryside of Maharashtra.
^ Cows at the pit stop. Painting the horns is a more humane way of saying whose cow is whose - as opposed to branding.
^ Aidan relaxing at the hotel with some friends.
^ Here I am ready to go up the side of the hill to the Ajanta Caves, our focal point for day one.
^ Then, we arrived at Ajanta Caves.
^ As is the custom in India, all place of religious observance, including churches, are expected to be entered without shoes. This included certain of the caves.
^ Standing Buddhas in one of the caves.
^ Some sort of small creatures were all around the feet of the statues.
^ Some of the typical ornamental art outside of the caves.
^ In typical form, there were many Indian people who wanted their pictures with us - mostly Tara. Oddly, again, it was our camera most of the time that we took the photo with. But a few times it was their camera....
^ This is Liam in one of the caves.
^ Tara and Jonah took a ride in a palanquin, manned by four porters. She is a bit afraid of heights and they ran up stairs at one point, which caused her to scream. Funny...
^ Liam got a ride, as well.
^ As did Aidan and I.
^ A stupa, which is used in Mahayana Buddhist worship (and probably other types). The acoustics in this place were amazing, as you can imagine. Our guide stood behind it and did some chants (Hindu chants) for us to show how great the sound was. It was pretty neat.
^ Our group.
^ Some more of the ornamentation.
^ A reclining Buddha of substantial size. Note Tara and Jonah at the other end.
Well..... there are more photos, but those are the highlights of Ajanta. More to come....
