Ajanta & Ellora

My trip to the world famous Ajanta and Ellora caves happened because of a wedding I attended in Mumbai in Jan 2008. Contrary to what it sounds like, Ajanta and Ellora are not next to each other. In fact they are on either sides of the city of Aurangabad in Maharashtra. So myself and two friends who joined from Pune, kept Aurangabad as our base and decided to spend two days exploring Ajanta, Ellora, Daulatabad and couple of nearby attractions.

This trip was, as usual (I daresay) not without adventures big and small. The biggest adventure was when I missed my train from Aurangabad to Mumbai and the small adventure was when my Mumbai to Aurangabad bus got canceled. I remedied the former by taking a bus to Pune and then proceeding to Mumbai while the later was fixed thanks to the good folks at Redbus.in. In spite of things going wrong one after the other, the support guys at Redbus kept their cool and ensured that I got a seat in another bus. None of that made-up courtesy and fake accents. Genuine help. And oh, I missed the train because of my own stupidity. I wanted to leave Aurangabad on the 26th, but when I booked my tickets I didn’t notice that the train from Umed arrives at Aurangabad at 00:10 hours….which technically becomes the 27th! Thankfully I realized my goof-up before boarding the train and caught the last bus to Pune. I actually wanted to advance my late night flight from Mumbai to Bangalore the next day, which I luckily hadn’t done. I had ample time to reach Mumbai and spend half a day resting. No, I didn’t go about the city. I had already done that when I visited Mumbai in 2001 (or 02).

We spent the 25th and 26th in Aurangabad. We took a local bus to Ajanta on the 25th and spent the day there. Unfortunately the dark caves and restriction of flash meant that I couldn’t shoot many photographs of the interiors. A lot of the photos you see here were shot at ISO 400 and above and wide open – not the best settings for a place like Ajanta. But the experience of seeing what the ancient Buddhists had carved inside the caves was a great experience. Ellora, which we visited the next day, would be even better as we realized. Aurangabad to Ajanta is around 2.5 hours by local bus and costs around 72 bucks. The buses are in bad shape and dirty. But it was all part of the experience. Ellora is 30 kms from Aurangabad and well connected by buses.

The next day we hired a taxi to visit Ellora, Daultabad fort, Aurangazeb’s tomb, Bibi Ka Maqbara and a worthless water-mill (Panch Chakki). It turned out that Ellora had a lot to explore and was worth more time than we had. The Kailash temple is more mind-blowing than anything at Ajanta and is best explored at a slow pace. There is absolutely no information from the Archaeological department and you are left to the mercy of tourist guides and books. Guides at both Ajanta and Ellora are exorbitant (450 bucks) and hence we didn’t take any. I don’t know what I missed in terms of history, but of what I saw, I was very awed.

We skipped Daultabad because it was crowded and one has to climb around 700 steps to the top. There is nothing worth seeing at the base of the fort, or at least that is what our taxi driver said. Aurangazeb’s tomb was a big yawn and Bibi Ka Maqbara (or Mini Taj) was somewhat better than the totally worthless Panch Chakki. Nevertheless the weather was fine throughout, with early mornings being very cold. The people of Aurangabad were very chilled out and the city was rather sparsely populated. I remember seeing vast mountain ranges on the drive to both Ajanta and Ellora. Tourism forms only a small part of the town’s economy, but nevertheless you’ll find decent hotels. We stayed at Hotel Girnaar, paying around 700 for a double room and 600 for a single. It had hot water facility, a TV and was quite clean too.

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