Day 308 Champaner

Today: no cycling, but hiking. Up the 700m Pavagadh. There would have been.ways to cheat - but I did not cycle all the way here to take a bus and a ropeway up a mountain. On the lower half the way passed through remains of the old Gujarati capital of Champaner: fortifications, gates, etc.
Half way up the mountain my path finally crossed that of a past me - the bus stand there was where we started the ascend of Pavagadh back in 2003. I was surprised to find a ropeway going from that busstand nearly to the top. But later I found out that it must have existed in 2003 already, it just fell out of my memory. Anyway, I took the pilgrims path flanked by many food and drink stalls, toy stores, traders selling pictures of gods and self-proclaimed holy men and women, some of them cursing you if you did not give them bakshish. Well, on one hand these might be very dangerous curses: the hill and the temple on top is dedicated to Kali, the black goddess of destruction !!! On the other hand I am very happy to be cursed by guys whose only holyness lies in collecting rupees. According to Hindu believe we are living in the worst of times, the black age, the Kaliyuga anyway - but there is hope: in only about 400.000 years the golden age will start, yay!
In the main Kali temple on top, the godess is not depicted in full, but rather just as a pair of (squinting) eyes. However, you can see Kali in some smaller temples a bit lower. There are also some older jain temples around, most of them in ruins. Throughout the whole way I was surprised how few other pilgrims were around - I remember it to be much more busy - bu the last time I've been here was on a weekend. On the way down I seriously considered buying one of that funky Kali pictures - my goth heart said yes, but something else said me that having such thing around would really not be a good omen for anything you could possibly do.
Once I got down I rested a bit and then explored some of the famed mosques in and around the royal compound of Champaner - nice stuff, but nothing compared to what I've seen in Iran.