Day 3:
(Bhavnagar, India)
Today we are heading to Palitana. It is about 60 kilometers away from the hotel and our guides have graciously lent us their driver for the afternoon. We're told there are over 1300 temples carved out of marble at the top of the hills - to get there, though you have to climb 3,800 steps.
Now, there are 20 steps in our house leading to the 2nd floor. I know this because the day we moved in, Mikie counted them aloud each and every time he ascended them. And for the next 2 years, each time he climbed the stairs, he'd count them out loud. Thanks to that constant conditioning, I too am now a stair counter. It's a silent thing - in my head, but it's nutty - I just can't climb stairs without counting as I go.
So Palitana is like going up our stairs nearly 200 times. And we're going to give it a try in 80 degree weather. At 11am - the heat of the day. Sweet. Oh, and did I mention that, in order to avoid any international incidents, we're wearing "temple appropriate" clothes - i.e. pants and long sleeved shirts.
As you can see, the steps are actually quite wide. They wind, bend and turn with the mountainside, which does tend to help you mentally - I mean you're not actually LOOKING at all 3,800 steps at once. And, in all fairness to the folks that do tough it out to get to the top, it is a pilgrimage, so it really shouldn't be easy, right?
We made it to step 800. Some pilgrims we are, huh? Although we could have gone all the way, we realized that we told the driver - who doesn't speak English - and who we have no way of contacting at this point - to meet us at 12:30 at the bottom. By noon we were at step 800 and realized it just wasn't going to happen. We learned a bit along the way, though.
For example, cows, goats and dogs will start to climb 3,800 steps. We couldn't tell you if any make it to the top, but man there were a lot of them trying. Also, cows, goats and dogs do not heed the "passing on the right" traffic rule - it is not a good idea to test a cow on his or her nerves while above step #100 - you will not win. Nor do said animals get off the steps to do their business (as can be seen if you click on the photo to the right and enlarge). So it adds an extra -- element -- to the climb.
Also, you can hire someone to carry you to the top of Palitana like the gentleman and his lady hitching a ride to the right. They do this so that even folks that are elderly or ailing can make it to the temples at the top. We're pretty sure some of the guys doing the carrying really should have been doing the riding - yikes.
The hour long drive back to our hotel was on a two "lane" road - and I use the term "lane" very loosely because I don't want to imply that there were stripes, curbs, guard rails, or any kind of traffic laws for that matter. There is only one phrase that I think appropriately describes how we experienced driving in India: RECKLESS ABANDON.
In order to distract ourselves from the imminent death that surely awaited us on the other side of the windshield, Michael and I decided to play a game: how many different things are sharing the road at the same time? Our answer: 15. And I'm not exaggerating about them all being on the road at the same time.
1. People walking. 2. 4-wheeled carts. 3. Bicycles. 4. Motorized bikes. 5. Tuk-tuks (basically the auto-version of a rickshaw) 6. Rocket bikes (another interesting hybrid that I don't think would pass U.S. emissions tests). 7. Standard pickup trucks. 8. Goods carriages (dump-truck sized trucks that carry stuff to and from the ship breaking yards). 9. 20' shipping containers that have wheels added to them and have been converted to vehicles. 10. horse & carriage. 11. ox & carriage. 12. cows. 13. pigs. 14. dogs. 15. goats.
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