We caught a rickshaw to the Golconda Fort on Monday morning, which turned out to be quite a distance away from Hyderabad. We spent a couple of hours wandering through the ruins of old palaces, mosques, wells, defensive walls and then climbing up to the Citadel from which we had great views of the fort complex and the nearby town. We could also see the brown domes of the Qutb Shahi tombs.
We left the Fort and walked 1½ kilometres along a dusty road to the Qutb Shahi tombs. These domed structures housed the remains of several Qutb Shahi kings and were set alongside some landscaped gardens. We wandered around them for a couple of hours taking photographs before getting a rickshaw back to town.
Our trips around Hyderabad in the rickshaws were interesting as this was the first Indian city we had been able to have a good look at. Very busy, very colourful and full of contrasts eg the delicious and the disgusting.
The next day we caught a rickshaw to the Paigah Tombs. The tombs were in a quiet neighbourhood and made of marble with limestone stucco. They were surrounded by beautifully carved walls, geometric patterned screens, topped by turrets and there was some marble inlay work evident on some of the tombs. We caught a rickshaw to the hotel to collect our bags and on to Secunderabad train station to catch our train to Aurangabad.
We shared our berth for the first 2-3 hours with a nice couple and their toddler (who was a handful). We also talked to an older couple in the berth opposite us. The lady was a well spoken English teacher and was a "healer" – she was very enthusiastic about "gurus/healers" (eg Sai Baba) and traditional healing methods. She must have mistaken our incredulous silence for interest because she proceeded to give detailed explanations about chakras, auras and their various colours and how knowledge of such allowed her to treat many ailments (non-surgically) with much more success than western medicine. Luckily at this point the couple with their baby got off the train and the diversion that this caused enabled us to make up our beds and close the curtains so we could go to sleep.
We arrived at Aurangabad at 4-30am and we decided to stay in Aurangabad and have a recovery day before getting a rickshaw to Daulatabad fort and Ellora the next morning. After a rest we went to the Post Office so that we could post our Sri Lanka Lonely Planet home, where we found out that our parcel needed to be specially wrapped in linen with wax seals on all seams!! Luckily there was a shop across the road and the man was able to wrap up our parcel really quickly with the aid of a hand operated sewing machine. We visited the Bibi-qa-Maqbara (replica Taj Mahal). The Bibi-qa-Maqbara was a large square complex with a tomb in the centre - a domed building surrounded by four minarets. There were ornate brass and wooden doors carved with geometric patterns at the entrances. At the front of the tomb there was a long rectangular pool (just like the real Taj Mahal).
Our laundry was returned to us that evening and as we were checking it we noticed that our clothing was taking a beating (probably literally). On one of Suzie's tops, 1 ½ buttons are missing and the remaining buttons have great chips and cracks in them, one pair of cargo pants were returned minus a metal press stud closure and Suzie's bras look like an elephant sat on them. We are really hoping that our clothes are not being washed in the polluted stinking river!
On Thursday, we visited the hilltop fortress at Daulatabad – 15 kilometres from Aurangabad and half way to Ellora. It was a very impressive fort with sheer walls carved out of the hill in basalt rock. The fort was protected by a series of defences – doors studded with spikes to prevent elephant charges, a moat and a spiral staircase through a dank and dark bat infested tunnel – lucky we had our torches. On the way up to the bastion, we walked past a 60 metre tall red Persian style minaret - a tower of victory known as the Chand Minar (Tower of the Moon). There were great views from the bastion at the top of the citadel.
Our next stop was the Ellora Cave Temples. There are a total of 34 temples. The first 12 were Buddhist and a few of them were under restoration so we weren't able to visit them. Cave 10 was the best with a large statue of Buddha, ribbed ceilings and wonderful acoustics. Caves 13 to 29 were Hindu temples – the best of these was the Kailasa temple at Cave 16. This was different because it was no longer contained within a cave – 200,000 tonnes of rock had been removed and the temple was chiselled out of the remains. It was decorated with magnificent sculptures and the temple contained several intricately carved panels.
Our driver took us in the rickshaw to caves 30 to 34 which contained the Jain temples. It was 4.30pm by the time we finished these and we went back to the Kailas Temple. We walked up the steps at the side of the temple and along the top perimeter so that could admire the temple from above.
On Friday morning we went to the central bus stand where we jumped on a bus to Ajanta. The bus took a while to leave and more and more people piled on until there was barely any standing room. The bus trip took around 2 ½ hours and you could see the scenery change as we drove north. There were different crops – no rice anymore. The bus driver was pretty gung ho and we spent a lot of time on the wrong side of the road overtaking. The bus got totally packed so we were lucky to get a seat. There was a noticeable increase in temperature as we drove down from the Deccan plateau with spectacular views of the escarpment and plains below. We checked into the MTDC Holiday Resort and we were given a nice cottage complete with "kitchen", fridge, living room and resident guest giant geckoes.
Later that afternoon we left the hotel room, and caught a rickshaw to Fardapur to have a look around and to organise some dinner. After dinner we walked back to the hotel. When we got back the power was out so we went and had a chat to the Indian family (from Kolkata) in the next cottage. We started talking about Saris and when the lights came on they gave Suzie an impromptu Sari lesson.
On Saturday morning, we got up after a very pleasant night's sleep. Due to our location near the caves, away from the village and away from the main road, we were not disturbed by any traffic noise. At the caves we joined a group of Australians with their guide and visited the most notable caves where he pointed out the most significant details. After the guide left us, we viewed caves 30 to 16 before going to lunch. After lunch we headed back to the caves to view caves 1 to 15. A lot of the frescoes were very badly damaged which is not surprising, given their age and there was also a fair amount of water damage. The caves were discovered when an English hunting party saw a tiger disappear into one of the caves. There was enough in the remaining paintings to show that the caves would have been outstanding when fully painted and coloured. There were graceful elegant figures used to tell the stories of the Buddha and his various incarnations – for example the prince leaving his wife and son to become a monk and returning to beg from them, the six tusked white elephant who sacrificed his tusks and his life to the hunters and the elephant who sacrificed himself to feed the hungry people. There were several frescoes and carvings depicting the thousand Buddhas, the war between the cannibal demons against the king and his army, and Buddha resisting his wife's temptations to return to material life. The caves were in a spectacular location – a horse shoe shaped gorge. After we had seen all the caves we climbed up to the lookout to view them. Then we hiked up to the lookout from where the English first saw the tiger disappear into a cave.
We caught a rickshaw to Fardapur for dinner again that evening. There was one waiting at the rickshaw stand at the front of the complex – and the driver offered to take us for Rs 10 each. However, there were already two ladies and three men sitting there. The driver insisted that we could all fit in and so off we went with the three men in front with the driver and Keith and Suzie in the back with the two ladies – a total of eight in all!!
We had a relaxing Sunday in the comfort of our air conditioned room before our next big leg from Ajanta to Jalgaon and on to Jhansi, and then Orchha where we have hopefully booked into a hotel in the wing of a palace!
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