He'll bite you, you know

Again, still not feeling top-notch. However, I am ready to be moving on from beautiful mumbai on to aurangabad to see the ellora caves.

As to what happened today:

I saw some caves, with Vishnu being the main star. They are pretty cool, there's V. doing the dance of eternity, beating on a demon, marrying Parvati (his consort/wife), apparantly cheating in dice and upsetting his wife (who then kicks their son as retribution, nice parenting skills!) and looking very serene. I'd post up some of these images... oh, why not, eh? I can even work out how to get them in good sizes now, programming MAESTRO that I am now.

Other things that happened:
So here I am, in the elephant caves island, which is a one hour boat ride (I got a delux boat, I'm not sure what was delux about it, but let's just say the qe2 ain't getting any competition from this one... quite frankly, a raft isn't getting too bothered either), from Mumbai. On arriving, I meet up with some people and agree to go to the temples (that last bit was a no-brainer). On the way, I become distracted by talking to some locals, so my companions go off ahead. Undeterred, I buy a drink (fanta) and head on up the mountain.
It was there that I meet my Mountbatten, my Waterloo, in the form of a monkey. I know, it's a little undramatic, eh? As I walk up, I see a little monkey run up and jump in front of me, looking expectantly upwards. So I look expectantly downwards - what could the monkey want? Maybe a smile? I don't know!
Anyway, so the monkey is there, and I am here, and this lady sees me looking expectantly at this monkey.
"He'll bite you, you know" she says, sagely.
I try and nod in an equally sagacious manner, but fail, as I'm also looking expectant. The end result is the kind of nodding face you get before a really big sneeze.
"The monkey. He wants your drink. I'd give it to him - they bite, and there are no doctors here. If you can get away, that's good, but it will be hard." More sage advice.
Well, I weigh up my options - on the one hand, the monkey is now standing on hindlegs, arms stretched up like a Cambodian wanting money, and occaisionly jumping up and down at my bobbing and weaving hand. And I want that drink.
On the other hand, it is only 25 rupees (less than an aussie dollar), and I really could do without the whole rabies vaccine for this trip. It's a tough call, but the monkey wins (although, secretly, I've been harbouring day dreams about kicking the monkey away with a good thai-roundhouse when he jumps in the air, and then maybe fighting some more avenging monkeys. This all leads to a battle with the monkey chief, and me winning and becoming the king of the monkeys on Elephant island. It becomes a little hazy there on, but sure with enough monkeys and laptops I can make up a better algorithm for searching for crap on the internet, and take on google), and I grudgingly throw the can away for the monkey to drink out of (i'd opened it earlier).

I really wanted to get a film of me being mugged by the monkey, but I don't know if the monkey might have gone for the camera too. Maybe the little bastards are running an e-bay site and selling off stuff they've stolen from tourists. I don't know how they'd advertise the site - probably with:

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this damned spot.
To be making like the beast with two backs,
cheep cheep.

But there you are, my monkey adventures. Oh! And I saw a goat try and be winnie the pooh. Good stuff, goat. I wanted to make a pithy comment about business and hiding in rubbish bins, but I"ll leave that to you.

I'll add the photos tomorrow!
And maybe the further stories of thailand!