Next stop: Nasik. I have to admit it wasn’t easy for me to leave Mumbai because I like my Indian friends there a lot. But already at my next stop there were another very friendly and interesting Indians waiting for me. I met Gaurav in Auroville who invited me to his house in Nasik. When I went there he was still in Auroville but he told me that his friend Patrik is going to host me. He introduced me to his friends and everybody had interesting stories to tell (poets, photographers, model, movie maker). Together with his friend Sudam we visited the nearby Buddha caves and the holy city of Trimbak which lies at the spring of the holy river Godavari. He always told his mother that he wants to do a road trip through India but she was always quite angry and told him that nobody on earth is going to do that. Haha and then I was parking in front of her door and when she saw my kitchen in the car she could find any argument against this idea anymore. “But first I have to do my driver license” confessed Patrik while he was driving me with his parent’s car through the city…
The Buddha caves close to Nasik was only a taste of what I should see the next days when I visited the giant caves of Ellora and Ajanta which a carved into the rocks. They are located in a remote area of India but in the times people created them it was located at the trade route from the north to the ports of the west coast. Since the 6th century A.D. this place developed to a center of religious and handicraft activities. First it were the Buddhist people who started to carve caves out of the hard basalt. And it weren’t just normal caves. Several pillars, frieze, figures and shrines were chased in one piece out of the rock. After the Buddhist came the Hindu and after that believers of the Jain religion. They didn’t destroy the caves of the other religions and created even more gorgeous master pieces of art. Within 600 years the people created 34 holy places. The most gorgeous is the Kailash Temple. They started in the middle of the 7th century A.D. with the chasing works which ended 100 years later. They removed 250.000 tons of stone out of the hard basalt without having any chance to make some corrections. The result is hard to describe with words and simply fantastic! A 30 meters high temple, carved out of a single rock. Stunning!
The art to transform a simple rock to artful created caves started in the 2nd century B.D. in Ajanta which is a three hours drive from Ellora. Only Buddhist people were living here. This area had very few monsoon seasons and the dry climate helped to conserve the wall paintings of the caves. The people also left this place in the 6th century A.D. and plants were covering the rock front in the following years before a group of royal hunters made one of the most important finding in history. When I was standing on the place where the hunter saw the caves I was imagine how it must be. It was astonishing! Some caves were completely covered with wall paintings. They found one of the oldest existing Buddhist wall paintings here. I was amazed by these master pieces of art and asked myself if we would be able to create something like this nowadays. In times of a profit thinking society it seems to be impossible to create such a time consuming artwork…
After this nice experience came a big boom. An Indian guy was driving too fast into a right curve and came towards my side of the road. I broke and manage to stop but he struggled and crashed frontal into my car and landed on my hook. Shit! I don’t have car insurance in India. I was shocked. Thanks god the driver was okay but had some pain at his side. Within 30 seconds I was surrounded by 2o villagers. I had a bad feeling. I heard stories that after an accident a group of people started to hit the driver. But it was obvious that it was the fault of the motorcyclist. But this isn’t important in such countries. Most of the times it is the foreigners fault because he shouldn’t be on the road and if he wouldn’t be on the road there wouldn’t be an accident. A man of the group of villagers gave me the sign to drive away. I hesitated a moment. I had a big dent in my car but the motorcycle looked worse. Maybe if they call the police they would claim it would be my fault. And also driving without insurance! But who has vehicle insurance in India? “What do you want? Money? How much?” asked the man who saw my pause. But what should I do. The people at the countryside are so poor. The guy with the motorcycle is having a lot of trouble anyways with his bike. How could I ask for money? Shit happens. For both of us. “It is okay” was what I said when I left the place. And I didn’t stopped for the next three hours. In my shock I forgot to take a picture and I was afraid that they might call the police, tell them a wrong story and say that I left the accident. In the car I realized that when I left the car for looking for the accident I stepped right into dog shit which was now all over my gas and breaking pedals. But I saw this as a good sign. Stepping in dog shit brings luck. Luck that I need that it is going to be the only accident at this trip.
молодец, Матиас!!! Удачи на дорогах России!)