India Part 6: Aurangabad

Aurangabad is a city located about 7 hours by train away from Mumbai. The city itself is rather underwhelming, not that it's a bad city, it just resembles pretty much any city in India. The only reason to go to Aurangabad is to visit the nearby caves of Ajanta & Ellora.

With that in mind, we arrived in Aurangabad the morning of June 11 and left the night of June 12.

A Slight Problem

The trip to Aurangabad wasn't completely smooth though. The evening of June 10th we were preparing ourselves to catch a train leaving downtown Mumbai at 11:30 pm. We were moving at a fairly leisurely pace, since it would only take an hour to get down town and we had lots of time.

It was only at 8:45 did we check the ticket and realize that our train was actually leaving at 9:15.

Quickly we leaped into action. It was too late to get downtown, but we could still catch the train if it stopped at a more western stop. We used all our travel skills, individual talents and resources with laser point precision to discover that the train was stopping at a nearby station. We were able to get to the station and catch the train with time to spare.

At that moment we were the kings of travel (assuming you don't consider the fact that we made the stupidest travel mistake possible and didn't double check our tickets till it was too late).

Ellora Caves

The first day Richard and I went to the nearby Ellora Caves. The caves are not caves in the classic sense, instead they represent temples that have been carved into the side of mountains. In Ellora it was possible to find Hindu, Buddhist and Jain caves.

The caves themselves were amazing. They were surprisingly huge and intricate. I can't even fantom the amount of time they must have required.

The centerpiece of the caves is the Kailasanatha Temple. The temple is caved completely out of rock and sits in a valley carved out of a mountain. It's larger than the Parthenon of Greece and is shockingly detailed. It's crazy how something that amazing is not world famous.

Daulatabad Fort

As part of the deal with the autorickshaw driver, he brought us to the nearby Daulatbad fort. To be honest I wasn't even going to bother with the fort unless the driver brought us there for free. I'm damn happy he did.

The fort itself was imposing. Sitting on top of a steep cliff it was surrounded by a moat and built in the European style. It was good hour of climbing to the top and walking through the poorly lit caverns.

Bonus History Fact: Back in the day Daulatabad was actually fairly large city with strategic importance due to it's central location in India. The city was so important that in 1327, the ruler of Delhi (and Northern India) wanted to make it his capital.

In order to do this, he tried to forcibly march the city of Delhi to Daulatabad. As you can guess the whole fiasco was a disaster and many people died.

Ajunta Caves

The next day we headed out to the Ajunta caves. The Ajunta caves were much farther than Ellora and we had to take a 2 hour bus (each way) to get there.

The bus ride was worth it though. The Ajunta caves represent about 30 Buddhist caves which have been carved into a horse shoe valley.

Personally I preferred the Ellora Caves but the Ajunta caves were better preserved. It was still possible to see the paint in many of the Ajunta caves.

That's about it for Aurangabad. We currently have 2 more days in Mumbai and then we're leaving India. Some time in the next couple of days I'll put my Mumbai blog up.

Next Time: Mumbai (for sure this time)