Caves of Ajanta & Ellora, Bombay Floods
On a Friday night, I arrived to Aurangabad after a 4-hour bus ride from Pune. I felt like I was here on a mission: explore the Ajanta Caves on Saturday, the Ellora Caves on Sunday, and then leave for Mumbai on Monday. In & out. I had about two weeks left in India before I would leave to Thailand.
I chose to stay at a hotel near the bus station, so I could conveniently commute to the caves.
Caves of Ajanta
On Saturday morning, I took a 2.5 hour bus ride to the Caves of Ajanta (Rs. 115, $1.80).
The Caves of Ajanta are a World Heritage site. Here you will find 30 caves lining a horseshoe-shaped gorge with a river below. These caves are either Buddhist monasteries or prayer halls. They were built as early as 2 B.C. In some caves you can still see colored paintings (though they are dilapidated); it’s amazing it’s lasted for 2 millennia. A must visit spot if you are a ruins junkie.
After exploring the caves for a few hours, I walked into a gorgeous visitors center — massive, well-designed, and they even recreated some of the caves! The space was however empty; the only people I saw around were employees. When I was exploring the replicas of the caves, it felt creepy as an Indian employee would follow me around in the darkness.
I ended up finding out that the Visitor’s Center was designed and paid for by the Japanese government. Since the caves were Buddhist, I suppose Japan want to also honor this places as they are World Heritage Sites. This explained why so much thought and detail had gone into the visitor’s center. A tour guide later joked with me how much money the Indian government officials must have siphoned off of such a project from the Japanese government. It made me sad.
As I left the visitor’s center, the monsoon rain kicked in. I hopped on a bus returning back to Aurangabad, whose roof was leaking, and half the seats were wet. I found a seat that was mostly dry. An #IncredibleIndia experience.
Caves of Ellora
On Sunday, I took a one-hour (dry) bus ride to the Ellora Caves. I was expecting to only spend about 2 hours here, thinking, “how different could it be than the Ajanta Caves?”. As I walked to the ticket booth, there was less grandeur than the entrance to the Ajanta Caves.
Ellora surprised me. With 34 caves in total, it had Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain caves, across a 2km stretch. These caves were created starting in 600 A.D.
The most epic temple is closest to the entrance: Kailasa Temple. This temple is the largest monolithic structure in the world: it’s all carved out of a single piece of rock. It’s massive. It took 7,000 laborers about 150 years to remove 200,000 tonnes of rock to shape the temple. I stood there imagining how skilled these laborers were, carving out the temple from top to bottom, like a 3D printer, layer by layer.
The remaining “caves” are also amazing — some of them are three-story massive structures.
Echo!
There are some rumors that aliens built these caves, especially Kailasa Temple. While the structures are massive and amazing, having seen Ankgor Wat (Cambodia), Machu Picchu (Peru), Tikal (Guatemala), I don’t think it is beyond the capability of humans. Perhaps we are out of touch now, as it feels like our modern civilization doesn’t undertake building these kind of structures anymore.
If you go to these caves, I recommend seeing the Ellora caves first, to explore caves of various religions — Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain. The Ajanta caves are all Buddhist. What makes Ajanta worth visiting is the scenery: the caves are all carved out of this horseshoe shaped area of rock.
Floods of Bombay
I left for Bombay early Monday morning. My uncle picked me up from the Bombay train station. Arriving on Monday ended up being a gift. The very next day, the monsoon rains kicked in hard, and the entire city was flooded. By the afternoon, the city came to a halt, roads were flooded, public transportation was crippled. People were stranded at work, some stranded on their commute back home, some at the airport.
For the next four days, I stayed inside my uncle & aunt’s apartment. Luckily we were on the second floor. If I walked out to the street, the water was about knee high.
By Thursday, the streets were dry again and everything was back to normal. On Friday I decided to stay in a hostel closer to South Bombay, where there are more sights. Bombay is sprawled out! By taking a local train it can take about 1 hour & 45 minutes to go from one end to the other.
On Friday evening, I went to the Churchill, which is a nice, posh area in Bombay where most tourists stay.
Nearby notable monuments are the Gate of India, and the Taj Hotel (which was recently victim of a 2008 terrorist attack).
On Saturday I explored Bandra. Apparently Bollywood celebrities live here. I stood for 30 minutes, with a crowd, who were cheering for Salman Kahn to come out. I was initially confused, as the building seemed like any regular apartment flat. I would have guessed that Salman would have a palace for a home. I left after 30 minutes, and Salman never came. He may have not even been home!
On Sunday I hung out with a few locals at a Couchsurfing meet-up, at a posh Irish bar in the Churchill area. One person went to university in Germany, another wanted to study in Paris. A fun group that I hung out with late into the night.
On Monday, I met up with my friend Dharamraj. It felt auspicious that I saw Dharamraj before leaving India after 5 months; the first time I had met him was in Fort Cochin, on my first day in India!
As I went through immigration at the airport on Tuesday evening, I had this overwhelming feeling. Wow. Damn. What?! I spent 5 months in India!
