[Day 10] Ajanta caves

The highlight of today was the trip Sebastien and me made to the Ajanta caves, north of Aurangabad.

We got up around 7AM, had a small breakfast consisting of cookies and tea, said bye to Martina, and headed out towards the bus stop. The bus was already waiting, but it wasn’t too full, so we managed to find a good spot between the locals and put our backpacks in the front where the driver has some extra space.

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Bye, Martina! Bye, Aurangabad!

The trip to the caves is a bit less than 200 km, which took about 3 hours. We first headed to the new, shiny, super clean visitor centre. That turned out to be kind of a mistake, because 90% of the things there were replicas of what we would see for real in the caves.

Anyway, the caves themselves are hewn into a mountain face and are particularly special because many of the temples inside contain very nice murals. We visited most of them, but after a while they all started to look a bit the same.

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Painting inside on of the thousands of years old temples.

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Inside one of the temples.

We also climbed the hill opposite the caves, which had a nice view towards the caves and a nearby waterfall. Unfortunately, there’s no water flowing at this time of year, so no waterfall.

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View of the caves from the hilltop across.

After our visit, we continued the trip by bus to Jalgaon, 55 km to the north. The very bumpy ride took about an hour, after which we went to get Sebastien’s ticket at the railway station.

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Sebastien and me having some coconuts on our walk through town.

Unfortunately, there were no more tickets available, so we’re sharing a (very clean!) room for the night (in Hotel Plaza, in case you’re ever in the neighborhood). Tomorrow he’s leaving for the direction of Varanasi and I will go to Hampi.

We went to a tali restaurant for dinner, which serves several curries with rice and naan bread in an all-you-can-eat style. For maximum eating comfort, I had unbuttoned my pants. Naturally, when I stood up, the pants promptly dropped to my ankles. (Un-?)fortunately no one was quick enough to take a picture :).

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Bonus picture: the latest Indian fashion?

3 comments to “[Day 10] Ajanta caves”
  1. Wat een crazy coole avonturen beleef jij allemaal! Super om te lezen! Benieuwd wat je nog allemaal gaat bezoeken…
    T&B

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