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Published: February 27th 2007
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Travellers use the city of Aurangabad as a base for exploring the nearby caves of Ellora and Ajanta, we followed suit. We made our first balls-up of the whole journey so far, missing a train by over half an hour. The coolest thing though was despite us being at fault we still were able to cancel our ticket after the train had left and claimed a refund of 50% - imagine that happening in the UK, I don't think Messrs Branson & Co would agree to that!!
Our balls up actually did us a favour as we were able to take an overnighter instead and so didn't lose a day travelling in the heat. We were met off the train from Hyderabad at the crack of dawn by Mustafa, a friendly guide who did the pick-up for the hotel we were staying at and he helped us organise all the transport we needed for the next three days to get us to the subterranean sites. He did verge on being pushy but we can't complain, it was all very easy.
Although the caves were the main event there were lots of other sights to see in Aurangabad: the "Mini
Aurangabad: Himroo By Hand
A wedding saree made in this way can cost US$10,000!! Taj", Daulatabad Fort, the "Panchakki" and lots of local handicrafts which we put up little resistance to, ending up with much heavier bags as a result! The Mini Taj has whetted our appetites for its "Big Brother" in Agra and Daulatabad was well worth the visit even though it was a hike to the top through pitch-black, bat-filled passages which filled us with fear and at times, caused us to stumble.
We did have one slight shopping mess-up in the himroo factory shop which nearly caused our whole deal to fall apart. Having picked out our items and put them in a pile we turned around to see a shawl (one of our favourites) had gone - apparently an old English couple had seen it, liked it, bought it and left, all without us noticing - there wasn't a replacement, it was one of a kind! To prevent the deal collapsing completely the factory owner threw in some more discounts and so in the end there was a silver-lining to the calamitous situation.
The Caves The caves are something special, some of the earliest dating back to the 2nd century BC! Both Ajanta and Ellora are UNESCO
World Heritage sites and rightly so! They require and easily deserve, a day each and visits were enhanced by excellent guidance by a local expert and author of books on these marvels. If you're ever there ask for Mohammadie Nasar - it was pure fluke that we found him, believe me he's awesome!
The Ajanta caves form a huge horseshoe along the face of a rocky gorge. There are 30 in total - all Buddhist (Buddhism was dominant in India up until the 7th centruy AD). Most are "viharas" (monasteries) and five are "chaityas" (temples). The most recent caves, numbers 1 & 2 are easily the most impressive and were the highlights of the whole cave experience, for us. With surviving colourful frescoes in the "tempra" style, they tell stories of Buddha's life and give insights into life almost 2,000 years ago. It's incredible that the work has survived so well - devoid of light, the cave setting has definitely helped. The carvings at Ajanta were also stunning and some of the shrines, Buddha carvings and pillar work are astonishing considering the tools that were probably used and the fact that it was all cut from a single rock
face working down from the top.
For sheer size and detail, the carvings at the Ellora caves win hands down. The earliest caves at Ellora are also Buddhist and when we arrived, the place was deserted as we wandered through the serenely beautiful set of caves cut into the escarpment. The sound of Buddhist monks chanting in Cave 2 was soothing to ears that have been pummelled by car horns of late. Cave 10, the Vishwarhama temple, is the stand-out with a huge Buddha seated in the teaching position and a ribbed ceiling imitating wooden beams.
The Hindu temples at Ellora, took carving to another level and Cave 16, the Kailasa temple is the daddy of them all. The world's largest monolithic sculpture, its creation involved the removal of 200,000 tonnes of rock - it is vast! It's also very popular and can be very busy, especially when you get 500 strong school groups like we encountered.
The later Jain temples are small but what they lack in size they make up for in detail with some of the most exquisite carvings around. There's also a small amount of surviving tempra fresco work which singles them out
in Ellora.
New Mob PS - Changed our mobile number again - we were barred after some numpty forgot to send our forms in. Our new number is: +919970088405
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gabriel
non-member comment
i like indea
i like the foto's in asia and hey that of the shire too. did you get a true copy of the lord of the ring? Nina is on her way to ghana