Aurangabad and the 40 caves
Trip Start
Jul 07, 2008
1
47
65
Trip End
Jun 20, 2009
Aurangabad,
Maharashtra,
India
Monday, January 26, 2009
At the bus stop we were greeted by the now routine dozens of people wanting our precious rupees. A week into Indian bartering, we were determined not to be hassled or hurried into decision making. We stood for a while, getting our bearings, before deciding on one offer of transport to our chosen hostel. We arrived pretty cheery to the Shree Maya Hotel to find that they had a room, it was clean and OK, and it was the cheapest yet....more being on budget , was it all a dream?...well no it was really happening - yippee dreams can come true in India as well as anywhere else.
The hotel has the added bonus of a communal lounge/restaurant and an outdoor roof terrace/restaurant where guests hang out. This is the way we met quite a few people who were coming and going to the main tourist reason to stay in Aurangabad, the Ellora and Ajanta Caves. We met another British couple who gave us the guidebook they had used for the sites and then a Canadian couple, Ravin and Seema, who were to accompany us to the Ellora caves when we ventured out of Aurangabad.
I really liked the town itself. The people were laid back and one Auto-rickshaw driver, Nasir, was content to chat away to Dean and I about the town, sites, people, food and customs at some length. We knew he wanted us to use his transport to get to the caves but even though we didn't promise any allegiance, he seemed happy enough. In fact we started seeing him everywhere as he took other people about town....story to be continued! We went to see the aptly named 'Mini Taj', the town's smaller version of the famous Taj Mahal. It was so lovely and Dean and I became celebrities for the afternoon. So many people wanted their photo taken with us. It was quite exhausting but people ask so nicely and seem so generally pleased to have us in their town that it was difficult to say no!!
We met Nasir the cabby again the next day and this time he helped us to sort our train ticket onward, find Internet services with power and a pizza place for Western tummies. He was a real laugh and so laid back. He told us all about the town and showed us the good and bad. Cheers Nasir. He made some money out of us obviously but when someone does it in such a nice way I don't mind.
We whiled away a couple of days or so, including the annual India Republic Day, before deciding to head out of town to see some of the caves. We agreed to share a car with Ravin and Seema and headed out to Ellora, 30km's away. Our driver wasn't the chattiest but we nattered with our fellow travellers about this and that. One thing which I hadn't experienced before were other travellers speaking Hindi to locals. Ravin and Seema come from Indian families in Canada so can speak Hindi pretty well. It helped them for sure, some of the time, especially when it came to people asking for money or offering souvenirs. They had all the right lines! We could also ask them to ask people things we didn't understand which helped to interpret what was going on around us.
We got to the caves early-ish but so, it seemed, did lots of other folk. When we were at Angkor Wat, in Cambodia, we were quite lucky with the crowds. Here in India, the infamous tour groups we had experienced in China, are replaced with school groups. The school groups also come with the extra bonus of shrill voices and running crazily everywhere. Their teachers aren't the ones controlling them but the guards of the temple caves with whistles and various hand signals. I'd normally be annoyed by such goings on but its really great seeing all these little people coming to visit their heritage and even if it's the chance to clamber all over them that they love its all right with me. At one point Dean nearly disappeared under about 100 children, who all wanted his photo. He was a real star and kindly posed away, when I cried camera shyness...I got one snap myself of course!
The caves were pretty amazing, all carved out of a hillside from the 4th century onwards. The first were Buddhist caves, then Hindus had a go and lastly Jain sculptures in around the 11th century. They are all rather large, rather austere and rather old. Some have a better feel than others and I liked the smaller Buddhist ones myself. There are lots of sculptures of Hindu and Jain deities and Buddhist dharma characters, most of which I don't know what is what. We're seeing replication of a theme though as we explore India and I'm keen to find out what it all means. We broke for a thali lunch and then headed to the later Jain caves for a final helping of cave worship. We were pooped by about 3pm and headed back to Aurangabad stopping at a Fort from the 1600's. We had to travel through tunnels of bats, in the dark, and negotiate more school groups, to get to the top and I gave in half way as my knee was still a little fragile from the New Year. Dean, Ravin and Seema got further but still the absolute top was elusive....we got back to town exhausted and ready for a good meal.
We headed to Hyderabad later the same day on a sleeper. I didn't get much slept to be honest and when we got to town I just wanted to put my head down again. Unfortunately like so many places we'd been to already prices have gone up and some hotels were full to the gunnels. We had to take the cabbies advice and go to another place. Not good! We were so tired we stayed a night but got out as early as possible the next morning. Later the day before we had headed off to find an alternative and made it eventually to a business hotel near the railway station, which we paid over the odds for but were more comfortable. Not much else to report from here apart from a great meal on the 8th floor of a building at Palace Heights Restaurant and a bit of a nightmare to find how to get to our next stop. Hyderabad seems like a good place for business and for students to hang out but for the likes of us it was hassle and overpriced for what you got....Onward!
