Arriving by train – and on time – in Pune we chose to walk the 2.4 km to the hotel. Pune was not as hot as Mumbai, but the air appeared more dirty. Before we completed our check-in I was already contacted by a colleague from the local subsidiary Vector, the company I work for. He and other colleagues assisted us in the preparation of the journey to India with many tips and tricks and of course I wanted to visit them. After we took our first Indian tuktuk to visit them in the office, they offered to spend some time with us and showed us around various sights in the city and around.
The pataleshwar caves, an underground temple fir the Hindu Lord Shiva, carved out of massive stone many hundred years ago:
The Shaniwar Wada, a fort and former residence of kings of in the center of the town. If you notice the spikes at the large entrance doors that start only from around 3 meters upwards and you wonder, why this is so, let me share my newly acquired knowledge: To break the doors usually elephants were used to run into them. If you imagine their size you can do the maths.
After another Shiva temple that was so crowded that we did not queue to get inside, we went over to the commercial side of the tour and did some window shopping in shops for jewelery and fine clothes followed by famous sweets shop where we filled the space in our backpacks, that was just freed by handing over a few German sweets to our colleagues, with sweet specialities from India.
A common dinner with local food ended the entertaining day. Thumbs up.
