Ajanta, Ellora, and Lonar

• S_j's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Pune

Trip Start Nov 19, 2011 Previous
Entry Trip End Ongoing Next
Entry

  Pune, Maharashtra, India
Monday, December 12, 2011

    From Nasik I took a bus to Auruangabad, where I toured the World Heritage sites Ajanta and Ellora. I stayed at the Hotel Shree Maya which was very exciting for me because it was clean, cheap, quiet, supposedly had hot water, internet, a good restaurant, and could book tours for me! If only things were that easy. Well, it was cheap but every other aspect was a disaster. On the first morning, after a horrible failure trying to book through the hotel I ended up on a group bus tour to Ajanta. These Buddhist caves were built in two phases, the first around 200 BC and the second around 500 AD. They were abandoned shortly after the second phase was completed, and only rediscovered in 1819 by a British hunting expedition. The caves were hidden by overgrowth and practically untouched so the frescoes and sculptures are incredibly well-preserved.
   
    I was one of about 10 foreigners on the little tour bus and it was very fun meeting other travelers and swapping stories. Our tour guide rushed us through the caves at breakneck speed but I still got to enjoy the caves and take some nice pictures. It was an all-day trip, and on the way back a German guy hitched a ride with us and he told me that he had booked a private rickshaw for Ellora the following day with no tour guide and that I could join him. Excited about exploring at my own pace, I decided to split the rickshaw with him.
   
    There are around 30 caves at Ellora that were built in the 5th and 10th centuries and are Buddhist, Hindu, or Jain. The frescoes are mostly destroyed but the architecture is absolutely incredible. Kailasa Temple is definitely the highlight of Ellora, a three-story temple built cut out of one rock. It took 200 years and 7,000 workers to build and sculpt it, and they had to remove 700,000 tons of rock. Yeah, it's crazy. It was absolutely magnificent and I spent a long time there. The other caves there were also very cool, and someone let me into a locked back room in one of the caves with a huge Buddha and some of the paint still intact on the walls! I really enjoyed it and was happy not to have a tour guide setting the pace.
   
    Our rickshaw for the day also took us to some other sites around Aurangabad including a "Mini-Taj" called Bibi-Ka-Maqbara and Daulatabad Fort. The fort is a massive fortress that was the capital of India for a brief period and there were some cool old cannons, moats, and lots of stairs. We had time to climb to the top of the fort and there were some awesome views.

    Aurangabad was cool for seeing all these places but not such a great city, so I took off after that on a bus to Lonar. The German guy, Mathias, wanted to go somewhere relaxing so he came with me too. Lonar is a small village next to a huge meteorite crater that is now a saltwater lake. It the largest hypervelocity meteorite crater in basaltic rock in the world! ( I don't know if that means anything to you but it sounds good) It looked great in the pictures and we were told that the water is very good for your skin. So we got there, booked rooms at this hotel right on the edge of the crater, and got in our swimsuits very excited to take a dip... but as we climbed down, we started to smell something really foul and as we reached the bottom we realized that is was coming from the gnarly water of the lake. We didn't swim but we did hike through the lush jungle all the way around the crater, which was so quiet and peaceful (although a bit smelly at times). It was a really nice way to spend a day, away from people and in the jungle. I almost went a whole day without someone wanting to take a picture with me, but the hotel staff took some pics in the evening.

    Now I am in Pune, after an 11-hour bus ride which I hope will be my last. Whereas in the US the buses are usually the slowest and most cautious drivers, the opposite is true in India. I've been taking government buses, which are cheap and the stations are easy to find (finding the right bus is another story). However, they are all probably from the 1970s and look like this http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Tata_ST_bus.jpg but dirtier and the drivers are absolutely crazy. We pass everybody, no matter who is coming in the opposite lane, and we even pass cars that are passing other cars. We don't slow down for cows or people, we just swerve around them, and we speed over all of the potholes like it's a roller coaster. It's ridiculous but the only thing I can do is laugh about it and hope that only one person tries to sit on my bench with me and not two, three, or four.

     I'm going to a light and sound show at one of the temples in Pune tonight, and after that I will start making the trek to Hampi which is very far away. It is getting easier to manage all of the sensory input and navigate through the towns as I get used to life here and adventure farther. My personal space bubble is definitely shrinking! I really am enjoying it though, it is harsh and dirty and crazy but so colorful and beautiful and people can be so kind and genuine. Hampi is supposed to bea very chilled out and relaxing place so hopefully I will get to kick it there for a few days before trekking all the way up to Delhi! I miss everyone back home very much and hope all is well :)

Slideshow Share

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Bibi-Al-Maqbara	View from the top of Daulatabad Fort	Pillar of Kailasa Temple, Ellora	Kaisala Temple
Ellora cave	Taking a moment above Kaisala temple	Kaisala	Lonar Crater Lake
Lonar up close... yuk!	Matthias & our trail guide around the lake	Old temple on the lake	Weird sign

Previous Entry Next Entry