Ellora & Ajanta Caves

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  Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India
Wednesday, December 17, 2008

We were up for leaving the state of Gujarat and making our way into the centre of the state of  Maharashta to visit the monumental caves at Ellora and Ajanta and also to do a spiritual pilgrimage at Nasik and Trimbak on our way back in to Mumbai (Bombay).

There was a few travel hours involved in the next bit.

We took a 3 tier non A/C sleeper train from Ahmedabad to Mumbai and were happy to find the open windows allowed fresh air to flow all night which was a good thing because the train was overflowing with extra people who slept on the floor under our bunks and in the aisles or shared bunks with others. Not sure if they sell some toxic junk passing as snack food at the stations but people were letting the farts rip all night long. A couple of cockroaches were loitering around my face at night but i pretended they didn't exist. During the night a fight broke out in our compartment because there was only supposed to be six people including us there who had paid tickets and some extra people were asleep on the floor with their children. Didn't bother us but one guy made a complete scene and was flicking the flouro lights on and off  like a disco until everybody was awake and involved

Kate and Buddha

. We were happy to see a guy cruising around a couple of times with a teapot of chai. Because of the Mumbai terrorist attacks, the train was heavily guarded by military police who did some random checks and wandered around the train with their weapons ready to roll. We didn't sleep at all and along with the drama of getting train tickets every time, i think it's easier to just hop on a bus.

Once in Mumbai very early morning we noticed everybody had left the train and we eventually hit the end of the line. We staggered off the train onto an eerie platform that seemed to be a place where the homeless made their shelter for the night, mail was moved around and pirates did their business. So, we had to do the mission and negotiate the city transport network and get amongst some of the 16.4million residents to get us where we wanted to go. We fended off taxi drivers and other dodgy characters loitering in the darkness whilst talking to rickshaw guys about the cheapest way to get us to another suburban train station on another line. Easier said than done. Finally we struck a deal with a guy to take us to a station where we would join the throng of early morning commuters going to Mumbai Central. We got tickets at the fringe suburb station much to the amusement and bewilderment of locals who were probably wondering what the hell we were doing out there. We got second class seats but went for the first class section because it was the only section it looked like we would fit into with our packs, the city was starting to wake and peak hour was rushing up fast

Bhuja mix from a bus window

. The train went passed lots of shanty slum shelters and tents where people live next to the train line. Conditions were extremely poor.

Eventually we made it to the private bus stand and had a rest before getting a day bus to Aurangabad to go via Pune. It was all happening in the city. A young street urchin with no teeth pulled at my feet while I was sitting looking at the Mumbai street scene in front of me. The view included  a guy  walking a very woolly sheep with horns, drivers with henna dyed red hair washing their dinged up black and yellow taxis, vultures flying around pecking at rubbish, a guy sitting in a chair in the gutter getting a shave from a barber, cows dragged carts laden with bricks, a young girl setting fire to scraps of newspaper, someone cooking something on a pot on the ground, ladies beating at their washing and a guy running down the street with a basket of pineapples on his head. I must have been so enthralled with the buzz of the city that i fell off  the stool i was sitting on and ended up in the filth on the street, nice one especially with a full day of bus travel ahead and no shower in sight. The day bus was a nightmare since it stopped for each and every member of the curry munching country club on the highway. I did have a conversation with a guy who works for an Indian call centre, he's the guy you get when you call a company in Australia and they pass you off to a human voice in India who does a spruik on you and tries to sell you timeshare on an apartment on The Sunshine Coast (cheap wages)

Nadia tests the carriage

. Couldn't really understand much, he spoke faster than an auctioneer and must have just knocked off work.

Once a hotel hits the Lonely Planet bible they seem to up their prices and ruin the budget attraction. This was the case in Aurangabad where we had difficulty finding a room. The guy at the reception of Hotel Preetam was wearing a silky sequin covered shirt and trying to act really important shuffling paperwork and studying our passports for way too long, it was midnight and we just wanted a room to sleep in. You'd think it was the Hilton by the way he acted. We did convince him to turn on the hot water for us for half an hour. It was well past midnight by the time we we in a bed and the guy from the desk down stairs continued to harass us by calling the room three times and asking random questions like where are you from? even though he had our passports in front of him,  what is your mother tongue? and what will you have for breakfast? and how long will you stay in my fine town? and do you eat bananas? then called again to tell us he was still at the reception desk. Sure buddy, come on up for a threesome. I think he had taken a fancy to my passport photo.

We were going to hire an old Ambassador taxi but decided to go for the tour group palava thing to reach the Ajanta caves 3 hours away, so we joined an eclectic group for the journey on the Government India tour bus. A camp security guard in costume with feather in his cap was watching the bus whilst holding a huge dash hound type dog on a lead

sleeper train 3 tier non a/c

. The bus journey from Aurangabad to Ajanta was absolutely fascinating because all the rural Indians were out and about early morning starting their days and this made for good quality roadside action the whole way. There were tipi villages made from straw, fields of sunflowers, bullocks pulling loads, vegetable markets, sugar cane crops being transported, filthy shanty towns, houses knocked up using scrap metal, grain sacks and straw, naked children, ladies washing, motorcycle repairs being done, people sleeping on the roadside in the rubbish, men in bright pink turbans and people tending crops, carrying loads,  jumping down, turning around and picking bales of cotton.

More tourist hub palava at the entrance then we were in to the World Heritage site, the buddhist caves of Ajanta that have been described as the louvre of India. The caves are dated between 20BC to AD650. We were definitely impressed. The guide told stories and showed us paintings on the ceilings and walls as we wandered around the horseshoe-shaped rock gorge. Many Indian tourists were here as were school groups whose noise ruined any chance of a meditation session there. We had a right laugh at the people in the chairs carried by bearers that you could hire if you wanted to do the caves Maharaja style and Nadine the granny got in one for a small ride. Classic, so much daggy tourist action and too many tourist's of the day to choose one. There were giant Buddha statues in nearly every cave, years and years of work

very tempting chain to pull

. 

When we left the site, there were some crystal vendors doing the hardcore sell and we ended up buying three pieces of clear quartz for a bargain basement price after they chased us for about 100 metres after we had left the shop trying to seal a deal. Five of them  followed us through the carpark and out to our bus. One of the guys was so desperate to sell and jealous of the guy i had bought from so he had started crying and Nadia gave him and bought from him. They really are beautiful pieces. On the bus on the way back i was seated in front of a Nepalese cancer doctor, Dr Jaya Shrestha  who works at the best hospital in India in Mumbai. Jaya is a Buddhist and told us lots of good stories and told of us of some good literature for us to read. Jaya had a clear mind, a good memory, told us of trekking in Nepal and had a good story about how he had trained his German Shepherd dog to immaculate, high standards by using techniques from the internet that he had made into a program.

That night we ate a sizzler and a curry at a place called Food Lovers. The restaurant was not "full of aquariums stuffed withy catfish" as the Liars Planet said because the five tanks were dry, maybe the locals got hungry. Tried an Indian Cola brand 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 falling out a bus door, how chinese medicine was going to fix the arm, that she had  recently had a fresh haircut but hated it, how much her hotel cost and how she had caught the flu by sleeping with someone whilst she ate milk sweets with silver chopsticks and barked at the waiters all at the same time

Mumbai drivers- asleep in their taxis

. Must be some good pharmaceuticals over the counter in Aurangabad. Absurd woman.

Fairly trashed from the day before we slept early then were up in good time to get a local bus to the World Heritage listed Kailasa Temple, the shining jewel of the cave temples at Ellora. I spent the journey chatting with another doctor on the back seat and Nadine had rock star seating in the forbidden to locals position next to the conductor. Ellora caves were breathtaking and the Shiva temple is the masterpiece amongst the many monasteries, chapels and temples carved out of  the rock along the 2km long escarpment. There's decorated sculptures and many of the caves have eleborate courtyards, i was happy to see that some of the work is tantric. We were well impressed with the work here which was done by Buddhist, Hindu and Jain monks and a very beautiful place to spend some time. We spent quite some time at the main Shiva temple which is the world's largest monolithic sculpture made from the rock by 7000 labourers removing 200000 tonnes of rock over a 150 year period and then i also walked up a cliff  next to it to get a birdseye view down into it. Many pilgrims come here to pray next to the tourists. There were lots of school groups there and we posed for way too many photos with eager young lads, wank snaps are us.  Some of the guys  hired the professional photographers to have their picture taken with us one on one and then have it printed by a mobile printer and then autographed by us

black and yellow cab country Mumbai

. Alot of the Indians still use cameras as big as bricks that take rolls of film. The constant celebrity attention was draining and it was scorching hot so we needed to rest & then we hired a rickshaw to drive us around the rest of the site which was mammoth and quite alot to take in when you only have one day there. There's lots of photographs because i loved it all so much.

A guy with one hand had been following us around for four hours, trying to be our unofficial guide and hawking necklaces so we promised to look in his family's store when we left the site. Silk fabrics are Aurangabad's traditional trade and hand woven Himroo material is a specialty. Himroo is made from cotton, silk and silver threads and was developed as a cheaper alternative to the lavish threads woven for royalty. The store was a good one with quality gear so I bought 6 metres of  red and gold sari fabric, a woollen shawl and two silk blend scarves for 1050rupees, a steal of a deal and another quintessential India experience to tick off the list. Stepping in cow shit, check, buying a sari, tick tick. I liked it becasue it reminded me of a theatre curtain and i may just use it as one. I'm sure if i'd seen the ladies weaving the threads i would have paid more but i suspected my sari had been made on a power loom. Traditionally the craft was passed down from father to son but today is a dying art.

We ran into the bus conductor from the Ajanta trip the day before who informed me that i had left my vintage Carrera aviator sunglasses behind on his bus seat, case and all and could i pick them up from the bus office that afternoon? I couldn't believe it, they really are the sunglasses you cannot lose

camp security guard with giant dash hound dog

. I didn't even know they were missing this time. I've lost them maybe 12 times now and they always come back, somebody returns them to me or i find them in an obscure place. They were a gift from my Donny Duck and we believe he's put a curse on them. Go the duck nose duck bill Don!

I had my first coffee since hitting India and we ate Maharashta thalis at a place called Paranthas. Late this night i watched terrible Indian television, there was a wrestling show where the characters were human thumbs with moustaches and faces and then a show on which a man was competing in a game of tug-of-war against an orangatuan and then a sprinting race with a giraffe versus a zebra. Horrendous viewing pleasure.

Well worth the journey out to the caves.

Tomorrow we start our pilgrimage to Nasik on our way back to Bombay.

Shanti, shanti



 

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Ajanta site	the queen	granny gets a ride	and she's off and away
*	rock cut	*	*
*	*	Ajanta	*
paintings	*	*	*
*	hilltop temple	*	*
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*	Nadine and Buddha reclining	*	*
*	*	*	tourist frenzy
*	school groups	elephant	Thumbs Up Indian cola drink
crystals	Kailasa Temple	resting on an elephant	our new friends
*	*	*	guardian sweeps cave
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*	monk	*	*
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*	nandi bull	monk frenzy	*
*	*	*	boys school
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*	girl's school	*	*
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*	*	Nadien and new friends	*
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*	*	squirrel love	*
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bird	*	*	*
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*	h	*	*
*	Ellora caves	*	*
*	*	*	*
*	*	*	local bus frenzy
cow traffic on road	and let's not forget- tourist of the day

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