President Park Aurangabad

... of the old looms are still in use. The technique is called Himroo. The fabric is woven using cotton, silk and silver threads and can take months to make a special sari. (And cost thousands of dollars) Two older men were sitting cross-legged at the ancient equipment carefully weaving. <br><br>Our hotel for the night was the Lemon Tree. A well-run hotel that provided a welcome oasis in the middle of a not so attractive Indian city.<br> <br>

Daulatabad fort is located about 13 KM from Aurangabad on the way to Ellora. This fort has an elaborate defence system comprising of many gates, moat, canons and maze. The Menda (Ram) canon is among the largest canons in India. The dark maze is home to ...

Kuldabad is a Muslim pilgrimage town situated about 3 KM from Ellora. Aurangzeb, a mughal emperor who ruled for 50 years, is buried here. He wanted to be buried near the dargah of his guru and he wanted a very simple monument to be built from the money he ...

... on stucco, the Ellora group is famous for its detailed sculpture. For over 5 centuries monks from various religious orders carved temples here to their Gods into a 2 Kilometer long basalt escarpment. The coexistence of several religious orders at one site suggests a long period of religious tolerance. <br><br>The most spectacular of the whole lot in Ellora is the Kailasa Temple. It was built King Krishna I in 760 AD. It was ...

... fast given the good conversation and passing scenery to keep us busy. At the Aurangabad train station we loaded into two large buses...one for the travelers with small children...one for those of us without small children. That was a genius move by the trip planners and I applaud them for it. Check in at the hotel was smooth and by midnight I was snoring. Good thing as we had a full day and another 3 hour bus ride ...

... die einen unschoenen Gestank v**breiteten) und es kam mal wied** das Indiana-Jones Feeling auf, dass wir auch diesem Trip schon einige Male hatten. Vor den Hoehlen sah die Welt ab** dann schon ein bisschen and**s aus, es waren mal wied** 40 Grad und vor dem Fels staute es sich auch noch schoen, so dass wir unmengen an Wass** brauchten und jede Menge Pausen um nicht zu kollabi**en. Obwohl es hi** eigentlich ziemlich viele westliche Touristen gibt, hatten es die Ind** anscheinend ...

Our last stop in India was Aurangabad, jumping off point for the Ellora Caves and the Ajanta Caves. I first learned about these caves in an art history class from college. I swore if I ever went to India, I would go to these caves, no matter what the trouble was. So that meant buying one-way plane tickets from Udaipur to Aurangabad, with a four hour layover in Bombay. It also meant cutting out other places I wanted to go to in India, because of the ...

... soda, gave it the thumbs up. The tablecloth we were eating from said the venue's motto was "a little mischief, alot of fun", i like it. On the way home we bought fresh fruits, almonds and glazed cherries to snack on, pixie food. Whilst buying some sweets we spoke with a hyper manic woman from Taiwan who had an Indian girl as her personal assistant and we had a rollicking laugh when she told us in the first 30 seconds of meeting her of how she had bruised her arm ...

... reclining Buddha we'll see here in cave #X" which proved to be the case.] [Naresh: The really amazing thing above these caves is to realize that they were all totally carved into the rock. There are no natural caves at all, just carvings. To make all the sculptures they had to find suitable rock, plan, and carve over many years and generations. And each room, pillar, and sculpture had to be carved from the top down. Free ...

... the Biwi ka Maqbara (the lady's Mausoleum) aka "poor man's taj". When we reached there we could see why :) Its structure is quite similar to the original Taj in Agra. It is the resting place of Aurangazeb's wife built by her son Ajam Shah. But I must say it was a poor imitation of the Taj. Poor maintenance of the place had resulted in the walls of the meenars turning ...