Aurangabad

I was more than a little sad to leave, but Hampi saw me off in wonderful fashion, with a sensationally beautiful red sunset which colored the blue sky with streaks of pink and made the surrounding landscape glow. My train overnight from Hospet to Hyderabad was 50 minutes late but I passed the time talking to a friendly Indian agriculturalist who would be in my carriage and I was soon boarding and getting comfortable. Most of the train journeys I'd be doing would be in the common Sleeper class which is reasonably comfortable, but for the journey to Hyderabad the Sleeper class was fully booked up and I had no choice but to opt for the more expensive air conditioned carriages. Though given my budget I'll still choose Sleeper in the future, I will say that after having not spent any real time in a cool environment for around two months, that night was absolute bliss, as I'd forgotten what it was like to sleep without sweating.

By the time we arrived the train was really, really late. Once a train starts running late it invariably gets later and later as it is forced to wait at stations for the other - on time - trains to get out of the way. As I was transferring at Hyderabad Decan station to Secunderabad station (an hour away by train) I was getting worried that I wouldn't have time to get there in time (the train would be arriving at around 1230 with my next one leaving Secunderabad at 1330) but fortunately my new agriculturalist friend helpfully told me I could get off earlier and just take a rickshaw 7kms to Secunderabad. I'd scoured the guidebook to see if anything like this was possible, as well as the internet but nothing had come up. Very grateful to the man, I disembarked and arrived at Secunderabad with 20 minutes to spare. I was able to see only a little of Hyderabad on my way through but it seemed a fairly pleasant city. Along with Bangalore, Hyderabad (coined Cyberabad) is a major technological center in India, and like Bangalore the city reflects this with some ultra modern looking structures. Having said that, like Bangalore it was still loud, dirty and full of far too many people; and after the quiet life in Hampi it was far too chaotic for my liking.

The second train journey would last the rest of the day and was scheduled to arrive at 2320. All in all it was pretty standard; I didn't have a window seat but was able to see a little of the countryside, and spent the rest of the time reading, listening to music and chatting with a hotel owner from near Agra. I did get to experience the dubious joys of platform food and the welcome sounds of 'Chai chai chai chai chaiiii' from the roving chai merchants, but most of the time it was pretty boring. And hot, sticky and dirty.. I was pretty tired out by the time we arrived 45 minutes late at just after midnight, but copious amounts of Masala Chai during the trip kept me awake after having been moving (or waiting to move) for the previous 27 hours, and I was fortunately able to find myself a place to stay very quickly despite the late hour. The sleep was much needed.

My main reasons for coming to Aurangabad were the proximity to two ancient caves called Ajanta and Ellora which are famous for their beautiful art work, and are supposed to be mighty impressive. My tight schedule for the next month left me two days in Aurangabad, but on the second day I would at some point have to make the four hour bus trip north to Jalgaon from where I would be taking another train north at 0700 the following morning. My plan had therefore been to spend the first day on the much closer Ellora (which wouldn't take as long thus allowing me to sleep in) and then on the second day going first to Ajanta (which is half way to Jalgaon) and then continuing north for another two hours to Jalgaon. Unfortunately, I had overlooked the fact that for some reason the Ellora caves were closed on Tuesday (how do you close a cave?) and by ill chance the first day I was there was indeed a Tuesday. By the time I was up from my sleep in, had eaten and discovered this fact, it was too late to make it worth visiting Ajanta as I would have only an hour or so there before catching the last bus back.

Fortunately I was able to entertain myself for the day; I met a couple of other tourists (a girl from Brighton and a Polish guy who'd lost his leg in a motorbike accident but who was still, incredibly, traveling around India on his crutches) and we shared a rickshaw tour around Aurangabad, seeing some Buddhist caves on the hills above the city which were average but provided impressive views of the surrounding planes, as well as a few other places. The most interesting was Aurangabad's so called 'Mini Taj', a grubby imitation of Agra's Taj Mahal which a rich prince had started to build before having his father cut his allowance. The result is that the 'poor man's Taj' looks dirty and drab (there's little or no marble) although it was still nice to see and gave me a taste of what the real thing might be like, as the proportions and design are the same. We suffered through the obligatory visit (rickshaw drivers love playing tout) to a local shop filled with various souvenirs as well as beautiful textiles (for which Aurangabad is somewhat famous) without making any purchases before grabbing some food and beer, watching some football and turning in for the night.

The following day we opted to go to Ellora. Ajanta would have been more convenient in terms of getting to Jalgaon, but upon doing some research it seemed that Ellora was the the more impressive of the two, and the fact that on the way there was an old hilltop fort was the clincher. We teamed up with a German on the 40 minute hike up, and had spectacular views from the top. The final stretch of the climb was through a pitch black cave system filled with by now all too familiar bats. There were small holes from above from which defenders would have been able to pour boiling oil down on the invaders. After making our way back down we had another 30 minutes to Ellora. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but it was really astonishing how some of the caves had been carved deep into the rocky mountainside. There are over 30 caves at Ellora, and although many of them are very similar to each other, two in particular were unbelievable. The first featured a huge stone carving of the Buddha which provided an incredible atmosphere that was made perfect when an old man in Buddhist robes came in and hummed the sacred Om (Aum) which resonated incredibly loudly due to the specifically designed acoustics in the cave. Listening to it echo all round I could really imagine how magical it must have been to hear dozens of monks all humming the same note in that place.

The most impressive of all was Ellora's centerpiece, the impossibly large Kailasanatha Temple, which I'm lost for words to describe. The sheer side of it, all carved from the living rock, is jaw dropping, not to mention the exquisite artwork that decorates the entire base of the monumental structure. Even pictures wouldn't convey the sheer magnitude of the thing, but it alone made the trip worthwhile, let alone the rest of the caves. After we'd had our fill, I said goodbye to the other three (still marveling at how the Polish guy had managed to climb all over the place with his crutches) and got a bus on to Jalgaon. Predictably the bus got a puncture halfway through so a four hour journey turned into a six hour one, but eventually I arrived in Jalgaon, found myself an absolutely beautiful room (I really wish all the places I stayed at were as good) and set the alarm for an early start in preparation for the following day's train journey north to Jabalpur, leaving at 0700.