Ajanta and Ellora Caves - Maharastra
Trip Start
Jan 03, 2007
1
6
14
Trip End
May 28, 2007
Ajanta and Ellora, India
Saturday, February 17, 2007
On our way we stopped off at Daulatabad to see the fort, Chand Minar and the huge cannon. Dad was struggling with climbing up and down the steps. Little did he know that there are going to be steps when we reach the caves!
Ajanta is 106Km north of Aurangabad and we decided to stay the whole day there. We were approached by a tour guide to join him and his group for 250rps which we decided to accept. Japanese, Dutch and German travelers were amongst the party. Well, we had to take off our shoes to enter the caves and there was the most horrid smelly, cheesy feet smell coming from one of our group. The search was on to identify who the culprit was? My dad made it very obvious that it wasn't him and at this point nobody in the group could concentrate on the guides talk as the smell was so bad. Anyway we realised that the Japanese man wearing Nylon socks was the one. I think his wife had abandoned him throughout the tour!!
Back to the caves - beautiful paintings depicting Buddhism and the colours are still visible. Persian blue colour was imported from Persia. We later decided to walk up to the view points to see the caves at their best. Dad was unsure if he could make it but he surprised himself and walked up 1500 steps. I was hoping that there would have been an ice cream man at the top but I was faced by a tout selling postcards and listening to the latest cricket score! Dad has been missing mum throughout the trip and called her to wish her a Happy Valentines Day ahhhhhh!
Ellora caves - more sculpture rather than paintings. Hinduism, Buddhism and Jain are carved using just a hammer and chisel. The main cave took 7000 worker to complete over 150 years. They had no scaffolding and began the work from top to bottom. Pretty impressive. We headed back home after noon.
