Aurangabad, India

Although our tour guide was atrocious, Lara and I were sad to leave Mumbai so soon as it looked like a huge city with lots of sites to explore. We left Mumbai for Aurangabad first thing in the morning and we arrived in the small town around 9am. Aurangabad, at 900,000 people is a hamlet in India terms. It's a tourist destination because of its ancient Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist caves that are about 2000 years old, which we would be touring the two days we were in town. At the airport we were met by our local tour guide, Sanjay. We instantly knew Sanjay was going to be better than our last guide. He was a super nice guy that was telling us interesting information about Aurangabad, the caves, and the locals instantly. Sanjay's sexuality might be questionable, but his love of the caves certainly isn't.

Our first stop on the day's tour was the Ajanta caves. There are two groups of caves in Arangabad, the Ajanta and Ellora caves. We would be spending most of our first day at the Ajanta caves and most of our second day at the Ellora caves. From Mumbai up to our arrival at the Ajanta caves Herb continued to ask why we were going to a bunch of caves, even though he was given the itinerary months ago and could have reviewed it at any time. Lara and I had done our homework and knew the caves would be interesting and Sanjay was ecstatic that he was taking us to the caves. It definitely made for a long bus ride having Grumpy with us.

The Ajanta caves are a series of 31 caves that were dug out of the cliffside 2200 - 1400 years ago by Buddhist monks. The cliffside that the caves are dug into are high above a creek and the only way to get to them is to walk 1/4 mile uphill from the parking lot. As usual, Herb was his lovely self and Maureen insisted she couldn't make it. Luckily for all of us there are men who will carry tourists up to the entrance of the caves for a small fee. Lara and Sanjay arranged for Maureen to do it and everyone loved it. Once we got to the first cave Sanjay started telling us about the caves. Herb and Maureen were gone after 2 sentences. The first cave was amazing. It's a large hall carved out with small cells on the sides and a larger room in the back with a huge sitting Buddha. Seeing our first Buddha statue was really cool.

We continued to the second cave, by which time Herbeen had apparently left because they felt they had seen enough. We walked through all of the accessible caves over the course of the following 3 hours. Each cave was unique and some of the caves were simply spectacular. There was incredible artwork in so many caves and we had access to all of it. We would never had been allowed to access all that we did if these caves were in the West. The canyon that the caves are built into wraps around and the views are awesome. The final cave was the best because it has a 50 foot long statue of Buddha laying down. It doesn't sound like much, but if you see it you would definitely agree.

Like our itinerary said, we spent 4 hours at the caves. When we returned to the restaurant at the base of the caves we met up with Herbeen, who were not too happy. They made it clear they would be spending the following day in the hotel instead of the caves. We were happy.

The Ellora caves are made out to be the better of the two Arangabad caves. We weren't too sure why, but Sanjay was as gitty as a schoolgirl to take us. We started with some caves that were similar to the caves we saw the day before, which were cool, but kind of getting old (we had seen 30 caves in 24 hours at that point. Sanjay took us for a walk up a hill and mentioned that we were coming up to his favorite place in the world. 10 steps later we realized why. The Hindu 'cave' we walked up to was actually a massive (50 feet wide, 100 feet deep, 200 feet long) cut in the hillside. Inside of this 'cut' is a huge, intracitely cut Hindu temple. We approached the cliff and looked down on the dozens of tourists, students, and worshippors who were visiting the temple. Standing at the cliff was a moment I won't soon forget. We spent over an hour walking in and around the temple. It wasn't the best temple, but the size and fact that it's completely cut from one rock and almost hidden from view makes it one of the best religous sites we have been to. After the temple we finished up our Arangabad cave experience with a nice lunch at a restaurant overlooking the Ellora caves. Upon our request, Sanjay took us to some stores but the only thing we bought was some spices at an Indian supermarket. I have to say, the supermarket was one of our most interesting shopping experiences. Considering every person in the market stopped what they were doing and stared at us while we got some spices, makes me think they don't see white people very often.

That night we had a nice dinner with Frank and Karen and talked about how amazing the caves were. We don't know why the Aurangabad caves aren't better known, but we certainly won't complain about the lack of tourists there. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before the caves become another major tourist destination.