Caves

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I arrived into Aurangabad at 6am and it was still dark. I was only here for the day as I was on the overnight train to Mumbai later. I put my backpack into the cloakroom at the station and went to freshen up in the loos at the station, then had a cuppa and went to the bus station by rickshaw. From there I caught a bus to the Ellora caves. The journey took about 40 minutes. I was one of the first into the sight. It was nicer now as the sun had come up. I started at cave 1 and worked my way round to the end which was cave 34.

Over 5 centuries generations of monks (buddhist, hindu & jain) carved monastaries, chapels and temples along a 2km strip of caves. Cave 16 is the best one and largest. It is dedicated to Shiva and has the world's largest monolithic sculpture.  Unfortunately my camera ran out of power so I have no photos. I was so annoyed! The few photos I have are from the earlier caves which are buddhist. Had I known I would have gone straight to cave 16 first.

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The detail of the sculptures and carvings was amazing and impressive. So many statues of the Hindu gods and buddha. It took me a few hours to wander from one end to the other. When I finfished I went to get lunch and made my way back to Aurangabad. I ended up on a tourist bus and managed to see some sights of Aurangabad. Among them an imitation of the Taj Mahal called Bibi-Ka-Maqbara  (disappointing after you've sen the real one) and Pachakki (water wheel). The water wheel is used to distribute water into Aurangabad from a river 6km away. It is based on an old mill that used to ground grain for pilgrims. We saw it in action.

After this i was dropped back at the train station so I went to get some dinner as it was early evening now. One thing I noticed as I walked the streets in search of a restaurant was the lack of women. I passed many restaurants but didn't venture into them as they were all male dominated and I didn't feel comfortable going in. In the end I turned to LP for a suggeston and ended up going to one for tourist, but at least I felt ok in there. I even got chatting to the staff. After dinner I went to the train station and read until my train came. I was feeling a little sad as I was near the end of my trip Mumbai was my last port of call in India and then I would be moving on to SE Asia.