Well the world didn’t end today so we decided to have a great day of touring. We got up at the crack of dawn, had breakfast and hit the trail. Our first stop was the harbour where we took an hour-long ride on a local shuttle to the Elephant Caves. They were amazing. In the 4^th-6^th century, the people of the island carved these caves out of the mountain. There were approx. 9 different panels dedicated to different aspects of Shiva’s life. The Hindu’s learned the carving techniques from the Buddhists who carved some caves we will see probably tomorrow. The Hindu people were used to worshiping in temples with columns to hold up the roof, so the carvers carved the pillars from solid stone to make the temple look familiar. In 1543 the Portuguese traders decided to use the caves as targets for their canons and severely damaged all the panels. The one exception was the massive three-headed sculpture of Shiva because it had been hidden by a screen and not visible from the gun ships. 2000 people live on the island with the statues and manage all the stalls and food stands on the island. There is also a small train to take people from the boats to the monument steps. You have to walk up 120 steps to get to the top with people trying to sell stuff to you all the way. If you can’t walk up the stairs, people put you on a chair with carrying poles and carry you up the stairs. It was a bit weird to have four men carrying a seated woman come at us, but we stepped aside and let her pass. There were little monkeys hanging around the entrance to the caves so we stopped to watch them groom each other.