Day 14: Aurangabad surrounded by historical relics!

Plan: Visit Aurangabad and the Ellora Caves!

It's about 4:30AM when the bus stops and I suddenly wake up. I hear the driver scream something about a railway station so I quickly wake up Yan and tell him we should probably get off here (since we had scene that most hotels and sites were around this very station). Still half asleep, Yan and I head out of the bus only to be greeted by a douzen touts!! They all wanted to bring us to a different hotel (probably working on commission for those hotels!), and were relentless! They were all addressing themselves to Yan (I guess that was smart on their part since they probably realized I was much less likely to say yes to anything!) and after having heard him say "no thank you" for the sixth time, I decided to step in and get the job done ;) One "no thank you" from me would usually get them to stop. Yan's lesson No 1: learn to say no with assertiveness cause this will only get worse!!

Grant it I'm not used to this at all. I've never been harassed like that anywhere else I've travelled. Until you sounded angry when you said no (which Emilie did a spectacular job of conveying), they would not stop! We had one guy literally follow us several hundred meters, even entering a hotel with us (telling us the whole time how this was not a good place, too expensive, that he knew better much cheaper places), relentlessly offering to take us to hotels or the train station, etc. Not surprisingly though, after 2 days of non-stop offers of rides, hotels, souvenirs, taxis, tours, food, etc. etc., it's getting much easier to just say NO!

We walked along the route trying to situate ourselves while dodging these touts. We finally got an answer from some nice guys waiting near where we were dropped off and we headed down the street trying to find a hotel room for the next night (being on a student budget meant we weren't about to pay for a room just to sleep for a couple of hours!).

After finally reaching the train station, and having checked out the prices at a couple of hotels, we decided to hang out here until sunrise when shops would open! We found ourselves a nice little bench (far enough away from the smell of urine that seems to be prevalent in most of India) where Yan could read his book and I could try to get a bit of sleep. Unfortunatly, that didn't last long since Yan was being eaten alive by mosquitos (meanwhile I was bite-free for some reason!) so we decided to go find the MTDC hotel (which was close by) and hang out there. This hotel was going to be the starting point of our trip to Ellora since its tours where highly recommended. Once we got there, they of course tried to get us to rent a room there but the prices where a bit too high for our taste.

They generously offered to show us the rooms first, only to tell us after how much they cost before giving you a "real bargain" because you were their friend, or the first tourists of the day, or because it was the beginning of the season, etc. Unfortunately for them ,we're not picky about rooms and trying to maintain a reasonable budget.

The tour company only opened at 6:45am so instead of just waiting there, we decided to go to the restaurant and have tea...some of the best tea I've had so far! Yan had a quick breakfast, we had our tea and then headed to the booking office. We booked our tour for the day: Ellora and City tour, and since the bus only left at 9:30am, we walked to the next street over to find a hotel. We finally found one that was cheap and not that bad looking called Hotel Indradeep. We left one of our bags there, checked out the place and chilled a bit before heading back to MTDC for the beginning of our journey.

This tour was not only taking us to Ellora caves, but also to the major tourist sites in Aurangabad. Our first stop was Daulatabad Fort. This fort is surrounded by 5km of walls and the fortress itself stands on a 200m-high hill. This fort actually has interesting history. In the 14th century, it was renamed by sultan Mohammed Tughlaq, who not only wanted to build himself a new capital here but also decided to march the entire population of Delhi, the capital at the time, over to his new capital (the actual distance between both being 1100km!). Sadly, those who did not die on the way only had a short stay there as this new location proved untenable as a capital (lack of water) and were forced to march on back to Delhi only a couple of years later. We also got to see bats...lots of them!!! There were tunnels within the fortress that were completly dark but if you shined a light to the ceiling, you could see hundreds of bats hanging there...just looking at you...creepy!

Those tunnels were used to trap any invader, who would get lost in the darkness and die either from the hot liquids poured on them from above or by running out an exit from which they fell into the crocodile and snake filled moats below.

Our next stop was the famour Ellora caves! These caves are World-Heritage listed and are the pinnacle of Deccan rock-cut architechture...one of the most beautiful sites I have ever scene!! The escarpment where the caves are situated is 2 km long and includes Buddhist, Hindu and Jain caves. All in all, Ellora has 34 caves (we only got to see about 10): 12 buddhist (AD 600-800), 17 Hindu (AD 600-900) and 5 Jain (AD 800-1000). The masterpiece is the Kailasa Temple, dedicated to Shiva. It's what you would imagine an Indian temple to be like. This temple was built in AD 760 to represent Mount Kailasa, Shiva's home in the Himalayas. This undertaking entailed the removal of 200,000 tonnes of rock!! It actually covers twice the area of the Parthenon in Athens and is 1.5 times as high! Amazing and truly worth the visit!! Two other amazing caves we saw was Cave No 10 which is the Viswakarma (carpenter's) cave. It takes its name from the ribs carved into the roof, in imitation of wooden beams; it also includes a balcony and a decorative window gently illuminating and enourmous figure of the teaching Buddha. The detail included in these carvings are incredible and I'm positive our photos will not do them justice. We also saw a three story cave (cave 12). The walls of this cave are carved with various relief pictures like those found in the Hindu Caves. After our group had left, Yan went up so I could take a picture of him sitting at the top story of the cave. Once pictures were taken, while he was making his way back down, I was confronted by a group of very nice men who started talking to me and wanted to take pictures with me. Yan was surprised when he got to the bottom and could only see the crowd of guys!!

The Ellora caves were simply spectacular, especially the Kailasa Temple, and it is exactly the kind of sight you imagine when you think of India. The entire temple, and all the caves we visited, were carved straight out of the rock in the mountain. When you look at the size of the temple and some of the caves, coupled with the many intricate details found on the outer and inner walls, it really is amazing to think how much work and planning had to go into creating them, a thousand years ago!

After having a quick lunch at a restaurant near the caves, we made our way to Ghrishneshwar Temple for a quick visit. Then we headed off to Bibi-ka-maqbara, also know as "the poor man's Taj Majal". This imitation of the Taj was built in 1679 as a mausoleum for Aurangzeb's wife. Its nickname is a slightly ironic comparison though since it was Aurangzeb's father who had built the original shortly before being overthrown and imprisonned by his son on account of his extravagance! Although we have yet to see (in person) the real Taj, this is quite a comparison to our average gravestones back home!!

We then made our way to Panchakki, which means water wheel, that drives a mill. The wheel is driven by water carried through pipes from the river situated 6km away!! It used to gound grain for the pilgrims but is no longer being used. Exhausted from our day, we made our way back to the bus to drive back to MTDC hotel. From there, we went straight to a restaurant called Prashanth, ate a little something and headed back to our hotel for a somewhat restful sleep.

Somewhat because the beds felt like a slightly padded piece of wood and we even slept on top of our covers just to give it a little more padding! All in all, worth all 350 Rs we splurged on this hotel!