Elephanta Island 🐘

Remember how I said going to Town is a whole ass day trip? Well getting to Elephanta Island, which is a day trip on its own, starts off with us going to Town to catch the ferry. It was a trek within a trek and I was SO DEAD by the end of the day. 

So let me start at the beginning. The Elephanta cave temples on Elephanta island, are a UNESCO World Heritage site an hour's ferry ride off the coast of Bombay.  The OG Marathi name is Gharapuri aka the village of caves. It was renamed by the Portuguese bc of a giant ass stone elephant statue that was a landmark on the island until the British broke it, tryna loot it for one of their museums. Surprise, surprise 🙄 The humpty-dumpty'd statue is now thankfully in a museum in Mumbai.

The temples are straight up carved out of the rock walls on this island and look amazing and unbelievable. I know we've proven that ancient peoples are intelligent and creative but HOWWW this was done without machinery and with such beauty in the details is mindblowing to me. I mean, I'm taking 15-20ft tall statues casually carved into the walls of these hills and mountains. Giant, uniform columns marking the entrance to the caves like it’s nbd and making us humans look puny by comparison.

I'm gonna paraphrase the history from wiki which you can check out yourself if you want more detailed details. 

The main temples are mostly dedicated to the Lord Shiva and different statues depict the different vibes of Lord Shiva like a Lord of Dance (Nataraj), Lord of Yoga, Shiva kicking ass, and one of his wedding to Parvati among hella other displays. There are like a dozen caves and one Main Cave that has the most.. I keep wanting to call them frescoes but I know that's not right. Tableaus maybe?  The caves are mostly Hindu Vedic illustrations with some Buddhist vibes mixed in as well as evidenced by stupas that exist on the island alongside temples. They were there first apparently around 2th century BC. The main shit we see today is dated between the 5th & 9th centuries, and estimated to be completed 550 CE.

We wanted to get an early enough start that we'd get a few hours on the island and not be cutting it close taking the last ferry back, but unfortunately we did have to travel during the AM commuter window which was rough.  Like, I can't even describe the rush when the train stopped at our station. Stg like fifty women poured out and then a couple dozen of us smushed in after that wave. I would've tried to film it but it was a precarious sitch. This shit is not for the faint of heart fr.

By the time we got to the Gateway and bought our ferry tickets (200INR), I was already sweating, dehydrated, dying. I popped some paracetemol for a migraine that was developing quickly, bought a giant bottle of water, and settled in for the hour long ride to the island. I also had the Gilligan’s Island theme stuck in my head at this point. Luckily it was an open boat so the breeze was lowkey soothing on the way. The approach made the island look a lil spooky and I got King Kong vibes until we turned a corner (so to speak) and there was a huge dock with half a dozen tourist ferries.

Once on the island, we took the lil toy train for 10INR from the docks to the base of the ONE MILLION STEPS up to the temples. Thank fucking god that there were tarps covering the stairs the whole way up bc I would've 100% died otherwise. The steps themselves were also carved into the rock face of the hill which was very cool in hindsight. In the moment, I was super annoyed.  There were a million lil stalls selling all the touristy trinkets and we stopped and browsed (a lot) as a way for me to take breaks along the way. My mom is literally double my age but was totally chill with all of this. Put me to shame lmao.

So finally, we get up the hill (aka Everest) and my jaw drops.  Like I said before, the caves are unbelievable feats of artistry and sculpture. We mostly spend our time in the Main Cave bc it's the one with the most intact statues. This is where you see all the tableaus of Shivaji doing his thing. I'm also a huge fan of the shade in the caves lol and we spend a hot min looking at the carvings and exploring this ginormous temple. We overhear some people talking about one giant bust-like statue that was actually saved bc of a false wall that protected it from when Portuguese were Hulk-smashing the temples. So cool!

After the main cave, we hit up caves 2-3 on Canon Hill which were in various levels of disarray, and caves 4-5 were basically damaged beyond any art surviving. At this point, the monkeys of the island were milling about and the sun was beating down on us. Not gonna lie, we did not go to caves 6-7 or stupa hill bc I was really dying in the mid-day heat and we still had a 2-hour minimum journey by ferry, taxi, + train to get home. Plus my research said a lot of these parts were damaged/destroyed too so you're kinda just looking at nothing. I somewhat regret it bc idk when I'm gonna take this long ass trek out to the island again but also, heatstroke. We took the lil toy train back to the dock and bought another giant bottle of water from the vendors before settling in for the ride back.

Nothing was more beautiful than our approach back to Apollo Bunder aka the pier where the ferries board by the Gateway. Aside from the relief that I felt to be one step closer to home lol, the view of the Gateway, the city skyline, the gorg Taj Hotel etc was picturesque. I lowkey had scoped a restaurant for when we made it back to Bombay but once we hit land, I just needed to get home ASAP to shower and pass out in AC. Thankfully we took the AC train back and it was a bit before the evening commuter rush so we got seats. Fun fact-- as other ladies boarded this compartment, they'd eyeball you, ask/guess where you were getting off and call dibs on your seat for when you get off. Idk what about us screamed "Andheri" but this one lady got on, totally clocked us, and then called our seats for her & her friend. The train goes on for like, another hour or two after our stop so I can understand this dibs system. The girl in front of me straight up took out a lil pillow and passed out bc she was headed to the very last stop at the end of the line.

Def recommend this sidequest if you’re in the city and have half a day to spare. Just take plenty of water and sunscreen :)