Ajanta and Ellora Caves

This trip will always be remembered as when Sarah and I broke up. I won't say anything more about it here; it's not that kind of blog. Suffice to say we didn't enjoy the caves as much as we would have, but we soldiered on through anyway.

I still don't have my photos available and I hope to add some in later (updated: Here they are!), so here's a few works to describe things. We got the overnight train inland to Aurangabad from Mumbai on Friday. It arrived at 5 in the morning so we found a hotel and had a few hours sleep. Next day we opted to go to Ellora first, which took around I hour on the local bus. The Ellora Caves are man made and covered in sculpture (quite similar to those at Elephanta but on a much grander scale). The largest temple is carved out of the rock and is many stories high and goes back tens and tens of meters. There around 30 caves, some Buddhist, some Hindu and some Jain. And it took 4 or 5 hours to see them all. The larger and more richly decorated ones really were spectacular, but to see properly you need to wait for some photos. The journey back was by far slower share-jeep, packed with around 15 people!

The next day was Ajanta, 3 hours from Aurangabad. Here the setting is much nicer with the caves carved into the side of a river gorge. The caves here are all Buddhist, and decorated with painting rather than sculpture. Only fragments of the painting have survived, but it must have been stunning when it was complete. The caves are kept very dark to protect the paintings with no flash photography. Definitely sights worth seeing.