Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Day 15: Ajanta: More caves and beautiful surroundings

Plan: Day tour of Ajanta

Today we continued exploring the beautiful sites of India with a tour of the Buddhist caves of Ajanta, another World Heritage site. Ajanta is 100km northeast of Aurangabad and its caves, date from between 200 BC and 650 AD, are known as the Louvre of central India. The caves were actually abandoned and forgotten for over a millennium until a British hunting party stumbled upon them in 1819. We stumbled upon the caves ourselves after a 2.5 hour bus ride from the MTDC resort in Aurangabad.

Before exploring the caves however, we had to cross a little bazaar of shops (which I dubbed Wonderland), where merchants jumped you immediately to try and make friends. They established which country you were from and then in whatever language you felt most comfortable (English, French, etc.), did their best to make nice. We received a free gift (a shiny rock), they of course made sure to identify which shop was theirs, and then promised to see you upon your return from the caves. Emilie and I each made a friend in this way. After making our way through this little bazaar, we were herded unto another rather spacious bus (two rows of seats with plenty of room between for more tourists to stand on busier days) that shuttled tourists from the parking lot to a location closer to the caves. Arriving at our final destination, we stepped off the bus and started walking up hill following our guide. For those feeling a little lazy, the option of hiring a couple of men to carry you up on a padded throne-like chair was readily available! Completing the short climb, we were greeted by the sight of a horseshoe-shaped rock gorge along a river, with caves dotting the hillside. For the next hour and a half, we followed our guide as he showed us the artwork of 6 of Ajanta’s 30 caves.

From the beginning, Ajanta had a different feel than Ellora. Whereas in Ellora it felt like we were exploring the ruins of exotic caves and temples, Ajanta, though in a similar setting, had a more museum-like feel to it. Here we were surrounded by a large amount of tourists from all around the world while in Ellora there were fewer tourists and almost all were Indian. The style of the visit was also more organized, as we followed our guide to hear his description of the various paintings and carvings in each cave. In certain caves, guards were there to limit the amount of people entering at any one time, making sure none of them took flash-photography, and shooing us along if the line outside got too long. All in all though, it was actually nice to know that someone was taking proper care of this place and helping to preserve it for future generations. The same could not be said of some other places we’ve seen so far.

After seeing our fair share of carved figures of Buddha and paintings portraying princes and princesses in all sorts of predicaments (ogresses devouring 500 shipwrecked crewmembers of one prince’s expedition to Sri Lanka was a memorable one), our guide liberated us for an hour to explore on our own and have lunch. We opted to skip lunch and instead crossed the river to reach a viewpoint from which we could look down at all the caves at once (also the place from which the British first spotted the caves). As luck would have it, we took a wrong turn first and followed a trail that led us to another point from which to see a beautiful waterfall. After a few minutes, we headed back the other way and hiked up to the viewpoint. Pressed for time, we only had enough to catch our breath and drink some water. Before really recovering, we made our way back down in the hot sun. As we rushed back to the meet our group, we picked up a travelling salesman (or at least he became the travelling type!) that followed us nearly the entire way back, refusing to take no for an answer as he tried to sell us everything but the kitchen sink (probably because he had already sold that!). We finally managed to lose him as we hopped on the bus and made our way back to Wonderland!

Though we had only 15 minutes before our tour bus was scheduled to leave for Aurangabad, this was plenty of time for the merchant friends we had met earlier to greet us upon our return and escort us back to their shops, numbered 56 and 61. They split us up and for the next 15 minutes, tried to work their magic while showing us anything and everything they had, starting of course from the most expensive and working their way down from there. All sorts of pressure tactics were used (at one point as I made it clear I had to go, one man agreed I buy his carving while another began wrapping it and a third blocked my exit. I literally had to move the man out my way before slipping out of their grasps and scurrying back to the bus. Since not everyone had managed to escape yet, we waited outside our bus in a gazebo where I chatted up a Spanish tourist (who turns out would bum a ride with us back to Aurangabad). There another salesman tried to sell me more stuff… Poor guy even ran back to his shop to get a statue of an elephant when I mentioned the one the Spanish guy bought was nice (even though I made it clear I would not buy it!).

Turns out that these salesmen are relentless and as soon as you show the slightest interest, even just saying it’s a beautiful piece, they throw all they’ve got for sale at you in the hopes that you actually buy something.

Somehow managing not to buy anything, we finally made our way back to Aurangabad, stopping briefly once when the road was blocked by a tipped-over truck. Back in Aurangabad, we said goodbye to a pair of French tourists we had met on the trip (she had been working in Delhi for over a year and he was visiting her when they decided to visit Ellora and Ajanta) and headed for our hotel and a rest. That night we decided that since we were staying at one of Aurangabad’s crappiest hotels, we could at least eat out at one of its fanciest restaurants. While the prices did reflect the fanciness and the food was quite tasty, the price-to-quantity ratio and lack of service (I had to fill my own glass and serve my own plate… oh the humanity!!!) made us appreciate our hotel restaurant even more. Somewhat fed, we called it a night and rested up for the next day’s trip back home.

Clearly, we’ve been well taken care of in Pune and we will obviously miss the service and food once we leave this wonderful paradise!!

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