We arrived at Aurangabad at about 5AM on Monday
morning with a plan to see Ellora that day and Ajanta, 140 kilometers away, the next.
We soon learned that both the Ellora Caves and the Ajanta Caves are closed on
Mondays. We checked into the Taj Residency hotel (probably the most expensive of our
entire India visit at about 3500 rupees), and Rita finished the night's sleep while I
checked out the hotel grounds and then the surrounding neighborhoods. Realizing that
we would have to see both sets of caves on Tuesday, we arranged for a car to pick us up at
the hotel and take us to Daulatabad (a fort I wanted to see), Ellora, Ajanta, and on to
Jalgaon to catch our train back to Mumbai.
We had supper Monday night at "Food
Lovers" where the ambiance, according to our guide book, was the best in town.
I ordered sweet & sour chicken, being careful to emphasize NO HOT SPICE—no black
pepper, no red pepper, no chili power, nothing hot. What I got was hot &
sour. I sent it back, explaining again that I wanted NO HOT SPICE. What came
back was still hot & sour. Rita said it was delicious and ate most of it.
I ate steamed rice. Rita's fish was old and perhaps freezer burned. When she
said so toward the end of the meal, the cook insisted on making her more with fresh fish
at no charge. It was about the same as the first batch.
This was probably our worst restaurant
experience to date, but it is often a struggle for me to get something with NO HOT
SPICE. Occasionally I end up with simply yogurt and steamed rice. And if I can
find a restaurant that has something I like, there is a good chance that Rita will not be
able to find something tasty and spicy that she likes. But we even had that problem
at home; if I liked a restaurant, then Rita didn't, and vice versa. Anyway, I'm
getting enough to eat, even if I do get burned occasionally. [Ahhhhhh—at last! That's more like it! Took ten Installments, but we
finally get to hear Allen complain about spicy food!]
On Tuesday morning, we started our sightseeing
marathon with a stop at Daulatabad, a fort dating from the 14th century or earlier, and
having a complicated and well-engineered series of defenses. Rita and I walked about
half-way to the central bastion, and then Rita returned to the car and a cup of tea, while
I continued on to the top.
Our second stop was Ellora, where there are 34
caves that are described as "the pinnacle of Deccan rock-cut
architecture". They are religious shrines carved between 600 and 1000 AD by
Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain artists. We thoroughly checked out the first group of 15
caves, and were impressed with the amount of work and skill required to complete these
projects, and all before jackhammers and laser levels. After a less thorough
inspection of the remaining caves, we moved on to Ajanta.
The Ellora caves contain large numbers of
carved images and statues, while the Ajanta caves (which are much older, dating from 200
BC) contain mostly wall paintings. By the time we reached Ajanta, it was
mid-afternoon and it was very hot. As Rita huffed and puffed up the stairs toward
the caves, she was followed by four guys carrying a chair on two poles and offering her a
ride. They stuck with her almost to the top, but Rita was determined to make it
under her own power, and she did. After checking out the caves, we returned to the
car for the trip to Jalgaon.
We arrived in Jalgaon about four hours before
our train was due, and with Rita in desperate need of a clean bathroom. We rented a
room in the first hotel we found for the bathroom, TV, and a quiet place to rest and wait
for the train. This was a basic room with Indian-style toilet, no soap, towels, or toilet
paper, and a missing showerhead. At 10:30 or so, we walked to the station and
boarded our train for the overnight trip back to Mumbai.
