More Caves at Ajanta

30.09.11

Another early start and 11 hours of travelling, but all worth it!

We got up and had breakfast and checked out of our hotel (they only charged us for 1 night-bonus, which helped us to overlook how dirty and incompetent they had been generally!) and they agreed to lock our bags up for the day.

Then walked down to the bus station to get on a local semi-delux bus to Ajanta. I was

aprehensive about this bus especially when we saw it, not looking very road worthy! But the good news was that we got on the bus first and managed to get a window seat and also had a seat each-bonus!

The journey was fascinating, everything looked so green after the monsoon season and we passed through lots of small towns, seeing tiny barber shops, butchers with chickens in cages, fruit stands with the vendor only fruit or veg.

When we got of the bus, we got led through all the shops by the entrance before we could get on a shuttle bus that would take us the 4km to the caves. On arrival we climbed up a steep hill before we had our first view of the caves, which was stunning. We tried to imagine being the first of the East India Company troops in 1819, guided by a scout from the

local tribe, to see this view. The caves are in the walls of a horse-shoe ravine carved by a the Wagora river, which is lush and green after the monsoons. The caves date back to the 2nd century BC and at their peak were the home of 200 Buddhist monks, which is hard to imagine.

The caves walls are adorned with stunning paintings which still remain to varying extents trhoughout the 28 caves. So along with statues and elaborate carved pillars, the ceilings were painted with repetitive tile-like patterns and murals, in reds,oranges and blues.

There is a curse supposedly attached to the caves because several early attempts to document the paintings at the caves have been doomed, with collections of reproductions, that have taken 27 years to copy, destroyed and attempts to preserve the paintings with varnish in 1920 causing more damage.

We spent a happy few hours admiring the 2000+ year old paintings and then began our journey back to Aurangabad (2.5hrs). We returned to the hotel to pick up our bags (and this pretty much sums up the hotel) and we trotted down to the room to pick them up where there was much confusion, with 2 or 3 people running up and down the stairs apparently to find the key

to the room, with no avail. A few minutes later, an eager chappy turns up grinning with a pairs of pliers. We thought okay, sensible he's going to try to cut the padlock. Oh no, he proceeds to whack the padlock with the pliers instead. Martin and I are looking at each other in disbelief, trying to stifle laughs. After a few minutes the matey starts giggling to himself as he realises this is probably no the most successful course of action! Luckily at this point the key is found!

We headed to the bus station to find lunch nearby. We rushed in to a small cafe and said we had a bus in a half hour would it be possible to grab soome lunch in that time? yes, yes of course sir, we 'll hurry. An hour later, with not apology or acknowledgement our lunch appeared!!

Then on to Pune (5 hours)..........

Ellora Caves

29.09.11

Our train finally arrived in to Aurangabad at about 4.40am and by 5am we were showering and climbing into bed for a couple of hours kip before heading out. It was such a relief to be clean and in a bed, although it didn't feel very clean, thus completing a journey of about 40 hours. We had managed to arrange to get in a shared taxi to go to Ajanta caves leaving at 8.30am.

We got up in time to get directions from reception and then walk to the tour company to get picked up, still pretty exhausted but looking forward to the day ahead. We followed the directions we'd been given and lo and behold the tour company was nowhere to be seen. By this time we were running late so thought we'd walk back to our hotel and ask the reception to call the tour company and tell them the situation. However this seemed a rather difficult request, the receptionist couldn't find the number even though they deal with this company everyday. When we provided the number that apparently wasn't correct and they seemed at a loss as to what to do. A few minutes later the reception phone range and it was our tour company. When the phone was handed to Martin, they wanted to know what had happened because they had apparently come to the hotel to pick us up and the receptionist had told them we were still asleep! So we had missed our tour.

A little annoying, but it actually turned out for the best, because we realised we were actuallu really tired and probably weren't going to last the whole day at Ajanta, which was 100 odd km's away. So we ended up taking a taxi out to Ellora caves,only 30km instead.

The caves were incredible! There are 34 caves dating from the 500 - 870AD. There are Buddhist, Hindu and Jain caves. Probably the most impressive was the Kailash Temple which took 100 years to complete and 4 generations to carve downwards through

the rock. It is more like an elaborate sculpture and is imporssible to conceive the amount of work that it took to create it and the vision it must have taken.

The rest actually are caves. Cave 10 is a Buddhist temple, with a curved domed roof carved in to the rock and a huge Buddha statue at the back. Many of the Buddhist and Hindu caves have spherical pillars beautifully carved and elaborate carvings of Buddha or Hindu Gods. Several of the temples are more than 1 storey, with a couple being 3 storeys high. We spent a good few hours exploring every knook and cranny of the caves.

Next our taxi took us to visit various different sights around Aurangabad and Ellora. We briefly visited Deogirl fortress,Moghul (and muslim) tombs at Khuldabad. We were also taken to a Jain temple and outside they set up a little market where people were selling flowers and other charms and spices to take to the temple as offerings.

By about 3 pm we were dead on our feet so went back to the hotel for a siesta. Then early evening we ventured out to Aurangabad to go and sort out our buses etc for tomorrow. There was a real buzz as we walked around the town. There were so many people around and a fun fair, in aid of a festival that celebrates the build up to Divali (that's as much as

we've been able to establish from talking to Indians!). We decided to walk along the main road up the bus station to book a local bus to Ajanta caves the next day and the bus to Pune. Along the way we had to cross a couple of roads. It's strange in India because pedestrains are as much a part of the junction as the vehicles, people stood in the middle of a busy crossroads with rickshaws and motorbikes weaving about them, judging the speed and distance of vehicles to slowly cross the road. I find it really difficult to cross as I am not decisive enough and you can't hesitate and cars won't stop! The other thing to realise on the roads is that traffic doesn't obey any rules including stopping at a traffic light or a crossing outside a school for blind children (we saw this for ourselves!). Roundabouts are entirely pointless in this country, it's everyman for himself, people cutting eachother up constantly! So it was quite a walk and unsuccessful as at

the bus station they were adamant that we didn't need to buy a ticket that we should buy them in the morning.

So we headed by to a nearby hotel for a dinner and then went to bed ready for another day of caves!