Kanheri Caves

About 3 months after we arrived in India we had our first family outing.  The kids had a day off school, so Len took a vacation day from work so we could all go to Sanjay Gandhi National Park and explore the amazing Kanheri Caves.  

It was so refreshing to have space and most importantly green space!

Cave no. 1.  These caves were lived in for roughly 1,000 years from 100 BC until 900 AD when the land was on Salsette Island.

Saw this cute sign for cave no. 2 and had to take a picture of the Devanagari script.  There's 109 caves in total!

The caves became a Buddhist monastery around 200 AD.

We were just beginning our exploring and were already impressed.

The kiddos loved crawling and climbing in and out of all of the rooms.

There were many of these rounded columns called stupas, used for prayer and meditation.

The ruins were just awe-inspiring.  I would have loved to have seen it in its hey day.

This stupa makes me think of living water.  I'm not sure that is what it's supposed to be, but it makes me think of a fountain.

Approaching cave no. 3, the most impressive of them all.

I can't get over the fact that these were carved out of the mountainside.  Three stories tall!

Beautiful ancient writings.  I wish I could read them.

This is Avalokiteshwara, the compassionate or smiling Buddha.

One of the guards told us he was smiling before he got married...

...but frowned after he got married because all of his money was gone.  Ha ha!

Each one of these figures is unique!

This is the grand prayer hall inside cave no. 3.  The acoustics were excellent as one of the guards sang for us.

Noé and Ali giving a good perspective shot.

Once we turned the corner we found many more viharas, or houses.  Leonard thought they looked like Indian hobbit holes.

It was so hot outside, but nice and cool inside.  The ventilation and water cistern systems were very impressive.  Hiram saw this picture and said, "Hey, I was right there" as he pointed to the column between Len and I.  Yep, he was, standing right behind it!

Kaleb had a little photo shoot for all of his siblings and got some cute shots.

We had to get one of him too.

Len got this sunlit one and the only thing missing is him!

Here we go, our "groupie" of the day.

Ali found some more groupies who wanted to take their picture with her.  She's always up for making new friends.

Until it's nap-time.  The kids took a little rest and watched her for us... 

...while Len and I went on a little hunt to find some of these in bloom.

Eureka!  We found a few!  These are karvi flowers that only bloom every 8 years.  We missed the carpeted fields of them, but we still got a taste of their beauty.

On top of the mountain we could look out and see part of the huge Mumbai.

Behind us was this more tranquil view of Tulsi Lake.

We found another fancy cave...

...and this one had a painted ceiling.  It was actually really dark inside, but luckily we had 2 phones, so one could be used as a flashlight as the other took the picture (my camera battery had already died).

Stumbling along these caves made me think of the Flintstones.

However, this shot makes me think of Indiana Jones.

We saw several different critters throughout the day.  We saw a few of these fat bullfrogs in and near the water cisterns.

This gecko stands out in the picture, but in reality he was very well camouflaged.  He was living in the house my kids wanted to move into.

We saw a couple of crabs quickly scurrying along.  We also saw lots of crab shells; I think birds eat them?

We also found this lovely rather large shell.

But our favorite critters, were the wild monkeys!

We didn't see them for a long time, then all of a sudden we saw tons and tons!  

They were all over the trails, mountains, and in the trees.

This little momma with her baby holding on tight, walked right down the path in front of us before she hopped the wall to disappear into the foliage.

We had tried to take a family pic with our tripod when we first visited cave no. 3, but a guard told us no tripods were allowed.  Um, okay.  Luckily for us, a nice couple was resting here when we came back around and took one for us.

Thanks Len for taking us on crazy, yet amazing adventures!

After we left the caves, this little guy was sitting on the wall picture perfect for us.  We gave him a cracker as payment and then saw the sign about not feeding the animals, whoops.  We quickly learned why when another monkey came right up to Hiram and his large stack of crackers in his hand.  Len started hollering at Hiram to drop the crackers, but Hiram was like a deer in headlights.  Finally, Kaleb ran over and smacked the crackers out of his hand.  Hiram started screaming.  He wasn't upset about the monkey, he was upset that he lost his crackers.  We've learned our lesson and won't ever plan to eat near wildlife again.

On a side note, they did have a little concessions stand selling chips and pop.  We tried a new drink made by Coke called Maaza.  It's mango flavored and quite yummy!  It was an adventurous day for us, as we were hot, tired, and hungry at the end of it.  I can't wait to go back!