We left early in the morning knowing full well about the daft Mumbai rush in local trains, skipping our breakfast in the hopes of finding something edible when we reached Elephanta Island. We arrived well in time to get deluxe tickets for the first ferry to Elephanta at 9 am, and were still left with ample time to go into raptures over the grandeur of the Gateway of India and the magnificence of the Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai, made infamous by the 26/11 attacks.
The ferry took off as scheduled and since this was one of the very few times I had traveled by sea, I envisaged the one hour long cruise to be equally, if not more exciting than the destination itself. Nonetheless, we reached the island and boarded a mini train which took us from the dock to the base of the hill where the caves were located. After helping ourselves to some delicious corn and salted cucumber, we decided to proceed further with our trek.
Out of the seven caves on Elephanta, five had been repaired and maintained for tourism purposes, among which the caves numbered 'one' and 'two' were of primary interest. Apart from being the largest of all the caves, they also brandished the heftiest of all the statues of Lord Shiva, the most intricate and elaborate carvings of Hindu deities, and the long forgotten tales of an era concluded. After capturing the astounding beauty of the surroundings in our cameras, we began exploring the direction opposite to that we had just traversed.
Making our way up a rocky terrain, we could see the metallic glint of something huge round the corner. And sure enough it was one of the two mighty cannons which had been outlined in the tourist guide as a distinctive feature of Cannon Hill. We photographed ourselves with this ancient weapon, which in its day would have showered a hail of lead down on any enemy ship, unlucky enough to have ventured into its range.
This marked the end of our fanciful trip to Elephanta, with still half a day to spare. So next we made our way from the Gateway of India to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (also referred to as CST Museum). Besides its staggering size, we were dumbfounded by the sheer variety and range of the exhibits displayed. The Museum had everything from an Art & Sculpture Gallery to a Currency Gallery, all the way through to an Ancient Weapons Gallery. I've made a collage of some of the exhibits that I had captured with my camera, which I'm putting up right here.
There were some other destinations on our hit list too including the Taraporewala Aquarium, which we found out to our great surprise, had been indefinitely shut down for renovations to be carried out. Besides, we were dead on our feet and put Siddhivinayak and Haji Ali Durgah on the back burner. Instead we decided to visit a friend's house, where we had dinner and returned late after midnight, all done in but totally rejuvenated!...
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