We roused ourselves at the ungodly hour of 6am to catch the bus to Ajanta. We got there early, before they opened, so we had time to eat a good breakfast there, accompanied by a very nice, congenial, helpful, and friendly man – who of course had a shop there. The breakfast was cheap, plentiful, and fantastic, three things that are always appreciated on travel/sight-seeing days which are usually marked by a dearth of eating, especially when they start early.

Happily, we’d read the good information (thanks, Lonely Planet!) that we could come from Jalgaon in the morning and stash our bags at the cloakroom for the day, then head on to Aurangabad (the base four hours away for the Ellora Caves) in the same day, so that’s what we planned to do. The entrance to the caves opened up at about 9a and after depositing our bags, we headed off to start our exploration of them about 9:30a. Amazingly, you could actually be hauled up the long flight of stairs to the caves on a chair for a mere 400 Rs (~8 US dollars). It was tempting, just for the inanity of the experience, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it – actually have people CARRY me around!

So we trundled ourselves up the stairs the old-fashioned way, and after the long haul to get there, finally threw ourselves into our backpackers’ duty of thoroughly exploring these Ajanta Caves – the “Louvre of central India”.

The Ajanta Caves are a “World Heritage” site, which while I’m still not entirely sure what that means or entails, has generally come to mean to us that we’re in for a day of fun things seen, done, experienced, or otherwise leading us to think, “THIS is what we’re on this trip for!”

Indeed, the caves were no exception. One of the important parts of visiting and really “getting” these caves is first trying to wrap your head around their oldness.
Their construction (carving, really) dates back to beginning from 200 BC and ending about 650 AD. They were later abandoned and apparently forgotten until a British hunting group came across them in 1819. Sad for the generations in between that would never know of them, but good for the caves, as it is to this abandonment is that they owe their remarkable preservation.

There are 30 caves in all, almost all of which are accessible to the public, and are cut into the face of the cliffs overlooking a horseshoe-shaped bend of a river. The oldest caves are in the middle and the newer ones closer to each end.

We spent the day poking around the various caves in a very Indiana Jones-esque sort of exploration. The dramatic lighting and lack of very many other tourists lent to the sensation, and we enjoyed the day pretending we were adventurous archaeologists very much.

The carvings were awesome both inside and outside of the caves. Ray liked all the neat religious statues. I, of course, loved the elephants. And we both thought the reclining Buddha was pretty awesome, which was the last big thing we saw and a great way to end the exploration of the caves.

The last big cave that held the reclining Buddha was unbelievable. It looked pretty cool as it was, and was reminiscent of standing in a giant stone ribcage.

It would have been interesting enough to have had done those carvings. But to think that this started out as just a solid rock cliff and that it was first hollowed out and THEN carved like that. Incredible. But even so, the real kicker was to look closer, and realize…some 1400 years later, we’re only seeing the half of it.

That’s right. These things were PAINTED, too. And by the looks of what remains this many hundreds of years later, they were painted with extreme detail and indescribable vibrance. That was the kicker for me. It boggled the brain and short-circuited me. Good thing we were done for the day…information overload otherwise! World Heritage sight indeed, and well worth it.

Before we left, we crossed the river and hiked up the mountain to get an overview of all the caves, then celebrated our nice day out with a fried rice meal and a cold soda at the restaurant and collected our bags from the cloak room. We hoofed it out to stand on the main road and caught the local’s bus (our first time standing out on the road and just climbing on!) the rest of the way to Aurangabad.

It was hot and crowded and we got lots of stares, and it was totally awesome.

We were beyond cramped and not especially comfortable, especially Ray who had to stand the whole way (several hours), but we do like riding the locals’ buses sometimes for those hauls that aren’t painfully long (or overnight). It’s cheap and efficient enough, and nice to be a part of the “real thing”. A lot of the time we feel just kind of out of place awkward, but when we can utilize the local buses like this, it reminds us how far we’ve actually come since we first stepped foot on Indian soil. Literally and figuratively!

It had been a great day (even if it was Thanksgiving and we had no turkey!), and we were excited to go on to see what the Ellora caves would hold for us the next day.

To see more of our Indiana Jones-ing, come see the Ajanta Caves photo album.