Days 27-30
We are now back in Mumbai after 3 hectic days sight seeing around Aurangabad. At the moment we are just hanging about trying to kill time before we catch our train to Goa tonight. We had a good few days in Aurangabad even though it was not at all relaxing with all the cultural stops and very early starts. Still it leaves us ready for a week in Goa.
An early start at 4:30 am on Wednesday (19th) was more than adequate space for pulling out of Mumbai at 6:10 however you can never be sure especially in India. It was our first train trip by standard 2nd class, and we were nervous that it would provide us with too many interesting moments that a journey from A to B requires. Still it was the only class available to Aurangabad so we were going to have to make do and it didn't involve sleeping on it so decided to go for it. As it turned out, it was fine and apart from uncomfortable seats there was no big dramas. In fact it was a lot more entertaining than our experiences in 2nd Class Air-Con. For entertainment here was a baby being passed around the carriage that was the image of Pebbles from the Flintstones, then there were the kids performing dance routines and songs for money, and of course a man who had disgustingly long fingernails who got into a fight about a seat with the Flintstones baby's family. The conductor had to be called and after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing he eventually relented and we were soon on our way through the beautiful Western Ghats up to the Deccan Plateau which forms the core of inland India.
Up on the Deccan plane lies our destination, the city of Aurangabad. The city gained its name from our old Mughal friend Aurangzeb who decided to make it his capital for a time. It was logical enough thing to do as it would have been more central in the Mughal Empire than Agra and Delhi and he had spent much of his time here expanding firstly his father's (Shah Jehan) and then his own lands. After his death though came the city's decline, he would have done well to perhaps check the history books as a few hundred years previously, One of the Delhi Sultans, Tuglaq decided that it would be a good idea to move his capital here from Delhi. This attempt also failed but we visited the site of the old capital today so I will go through what happened in a few paragraphs.
On Thursday we visited the Ajanta caves, 105km (60miles) to the north of Auranagbad. The caves were built by Buddhists beginning at 200BC and were used and expanded up until 6th century AD when the site appears to have moved to Elora. The site of the caves is on the bend of a gorge cut by a river into the basalt rock. As if the gorge had laid down a challenge to them in rock cutting by the river, a group of Buddhists decided that it would be a good idea to cut devotional caves into the shear face of the cave, and for good measure to decorate them with frescoes. The affect is amazing, by the time they were finished 30 caves were cut into the gorge. The caves fall into 2 basic types, the chaityas which are chapel type buildings with stupas at the rear, and the biharas which are monasteries based on a square courtyard area with a rear sanctuary of Buddha. The chiseling required defies belief and this is all before the days of hydraulics or pneumatics. Stupas, columns, altars, statues and decorations are all chiseled out of the stone with the finest of detail. Not content with all the chiseling and scraping the cave dwellers decided that it would also be a good idea to start painting frescoes in the caves, many of which are still intact today. The low light and gradual wear of the pigments though means that you certainly don't get the same affect of the originals but it gives you an idea of their original splendour. After hours of wandering the caves in the sweltering heat we decided we weren't warm enough, so we hiked up to top of the opposite river bank to get a panorama view of the caves entrances and the gorge waterfall.
After another early night and early start we had three sights to see yesterday. We hired an auto rickshaw for the day to see the sights around Aruagabad, however the first action of the auto was to break down, he was promptly replaced by another one and we were soon on our way to the ruins of Daulatabad 15km from the Aurangabad. Daulatabad was a fort and city made famous by Tuglaq who was the Sultan of Delhi in 1327. In his infinite wisdom he decided that after conquering it, it was going to become his capital and proceeded to move it here from Delhi. The logistics of moving the buildings the 1300km to his new capital were going to prove too much and he made do with marching the entire population south. The march involved extreme hardship, many people didn't want to go including one blind man who was punished by the Sultan and had his legs tied to a horse and dragged to the Deccan, however only one of his legs ever got to Daulatabad. One in six of the marchers died and the whole operation proved to be completely pointless, as 2 years after they reached the new city the water ran out and Tuglaq decided to march them all back to Delhi again. The remains of the old city remain today and while they are over grown you can see what the crazy sultan had in mind. There is a series of ramparts which seem pretty impenetrable on their own, expect that they also surround a giant rock which has a fortress on top. The rock was steep enough for the defenders though and the bottom half of it is chiseled into a shear face which drops into a nasty looking moat. Even at 8.30 in the morning the climb to the top was tough and sweaty but there are great views of the city's ramparts and the huge minaret of the old city towering below.
After a quick bout of photos we made our way down and we were soon on our way to the Elora caves.
After the Ajanta caves appear to have went into a decline around the 5th and 6th centuries AD, which coincided with a revival of Hinduism, the local leader decided that a fresh start was required and although they still had Buddhist caves in Elora the main ones are Hindu as well as a few Jain caves. Not satisfied with the amount of chiseling required at Ajanta, the builders of Elora weren't going to use a rock that had been precut by a river instead they went straight in and down into bare rock. The main cave, the Kailasanath Temple required a crazy amount of work to complete. Its size reminds me of a medium sized quarry gouged out of the rock, and this is before the age of dynamite or any real machinery. Not only did they carve out all that rock but they left behind a huge mound of rock which they then proceeded to chip and carve into until they had gouged out a huge temple, two life sized elephants, two 7 metre pillars as well as side caves and temples. The amount of work required by hand and chisel is just bewildering. Photos don't do it justice mainly because it is hard to get a good view of the entire temple complex and its difficult to put the scale of the place into perspective. The remaining caves are impressive too but after seeing the mighty Kailasanath Temple they all seem to pale into significance. The only question remaining is: Which is better Elora or Ajanta? My wife thinks Ajanta but I on the other hand think that the Kailasanath sways the balance. Either way it's a close call and they surely must be a challenger to the rock carving in Petra, Jordan as the greatest rock carving in the world and if you happen to be on the Deccan with a spare couple of days check them out.
After the Elora caves we grabbed lunch and headed for the Bibi Ka Maqbara, which is better known as the "Mini Taj". In some sort of attempt to recreate history or greatness Aruangzeb's son Azam Shah decided that he would build a mausoleum for his late mother as a replica of the Taj Mahal that his grandfather built in Agra. Even though it was for his dead wife, Aurangzeb wasn't the most flamboyant of chaps and he decided that the money could be better spent building his armies or expanding his empire. As a result the building which wasn't shaping up to much of a replica anyway floundered and instead of marble, whitewash was used to get the white affect. The result is well as you can see for yourself in the photos, nowhere near the greatness of the Taj. The plaster and maintenance aside, its a lesson in proportions, the minarets dwarf the main structure which looks too thin and and scrimpy anyway. To be fair though it would be a mightily impressive building if the Taj didn't exist. Thing is though the Taj does exist and this was intended to be a replica and deserved to be judged as such therefore the other nickname it is known by does it more justice than "Mini Taj" and that is is "The poor man's Taj".
Today we had another 5am start for a 6am train to Mumbai. It was quite uneventful except for an Indian family who got extremely confused by which seats they were in and after a lot of counting of seats they eventually saw the seat numbers and sat down. Another bout of confusion followed when they realised that they were all a row out and had to shift again, it was a full half hour after they entered the train before they were seated in their correct seats!
Mumbai is now more of a drag that previously because we don't really want to be going through here again however our 2AC sleeper to Goa doesn't leave until 11.30 this evening so we have a lot of time to kill. We will be resting up in the hippy hangout of Goa for a week. Hopefully the weather and our insides will be kind enough this time to give us the rest we feel we deserve!
Meanwhile Indian politics seems to lurch from crisis to crisis. In a bid to raise capital the government has put up the price of diesel and are going to allow foreign retailers into India. This has caused consternation on the news channels, people are talking about a general strike, non ruling party politicians are pulling out of the government and the opposition are calling for the Prime Minister to resign. Not that different from "Coalgate" a few weeks back, which seems to have been forgotten about. The Prime Minister even went on TV last night and gave the insightful words to the public " Money doesn't grow on trees". And I though Irish politics were bad...
In any case I won't have another post before the All-Ireland final, which takes place tomorrow so I am now putting it on the line: I am going for Donegal! Just don't mention Leo McLoone's punch on Joe McMahon last year, Jim McGuinness's attitude or their attempts to win matches 0-1 to 0-0. Actually come on Mayo! No really I would be happy to see Donegal win and they can rely on support from their neighbours in Tyrone. But I would be equally happy for Mayo who have endured a lot of disappointment over the past 50 years or so. As for the match itself hopefully I will be able to listen to it online in Goa, I would be overjoyed if I could find somewhere that was showing it but I think this is an impossible ask.
We are now back in Mumbai after 3 hectic days sight seeing around Aurangabad. At the moment we are just hanging about trying to kill time before we catch our train to Goa tonight. We had a good few days in Aurangabad even though it was not at all relaxing with all the cultural stops and very early starts. Still it leaves us ready for a week in Goa.
An early start at 4:30 am on Wednesday (19th) was more than adequate space for pulling out of Mumbai at 6:10 however you can never be sure especially in India. It was our first train trip by standard 2nd class, and we were nervous that it would provide us with too many interesting moments that a journey from A to B requires. Still it was the only class available to Aurangabad so we were going to have to make do and it didn't involve sleeping on it so decided to go for it. As it turned out, it was fine and apart from uncomfortable seats there was no big dramas. In fact it was a lot more entertaining than our experiences in 2nd Class Air-Con. For entertainment here was a baby being passed around the carriage that was the image of Pebbles from the Flintstones, then there were the kids performing dance routines and songs for money, and of course a man who had disgustingly long fingernails who got into a fight about a seat with the Flintstones baby's family. The conductor had to be called and after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing he eventually relented and we were soon on our way through the beautiful Western Ghats up to the Deccan Plateau which forms the core of inland India.
Up on the Deccan plane lies our destination, the city of Aurangabad. The city gained its name from our old Mughal friend Aurangzeb who decided to make it his capital for a time. It was logical enough thing to do as it would have been more central in the Mughal Empire than Agra and Delhi and he had spent much of his time here expanding firstly his father's (Shah Jehan) and then his own lands. After his death though came the city's decline, he would have done well to perhaps check the history books as a few hundred years previously, One of the Delhi Sultans, Tuglaq decided that it would be a good idea to move his capital here from Delhi. This attempt also failed but we visited the site of the old capital today so I will go through what happened in a few paragraphs.
On Thursday we visited the Ajanta caves, 105km (60miles) to the north of Auranagbad. The caves were built by Buddhists beginning at 200BC and were used and expanded up until 6th century AD when the site appears to have moved to Elora. The site of the caves is on the bend of a gorge cut by a river into the basalt rock. As if the gorge had laid down a challenge to them in rock cutting by the river, a group of Buddhists decided that it would be a good idea to cut devotional caves into the shear face of the cave, and for good measure to decorate them with frescoes. The affect is amazing, by the time they were finished 30 caves were cut into the gorge. The caves fall into 2 basic types, the chaityas which are chapel type buildings with stupas at the rear, and the biharas which are monasteries based on a square courtyard area with a rear sanctuary of Buddha. The chiseling required defies belief and this is all before the days of hydraulics or pneumatics. Stupas, columns, altars, statues and decorations are all chiseled out of the stone with the finest of detail. Not content with all the chiseling and scraping the cave dwellers decided that it would also be a good idea to start painting frescoes in the caves, many of which are still intact today. The low light and gradual wear of the pigments though means that you certainly don't get the same affect of the originals but it gives you an idea of their original splendour. After hours of wandering the caves in the sweltering heat we decided we weren't warm enough, so we hiked up to top of the opposite river bank to get a panorama view of the caves entrances and the gorge waterfall.
After another early night and early start we had three sights to see yesterday. We hired an auto rickshaw for the day to see the sights around Aruagabad, however the first action of the auto was to break down, he was promptly replaced by another one and we were soon on our way to the ruins of Daulatabad 15km from the Aurangabad. Daulatabad was a fort and city made famous by Tuglaq who was the Sultan of Delhi in 1327. In his infinite wisdom he decided that after conquering it, it was going to become his capital and proceeded to move it here from Delhi. The logistics of moving the buildings the 1300km to his new capital were going to prove too much and he made do with marching the entire population south. The march involved extreme hardship, many people didn't want to go including one blind man who was punished by the Sultan and had his legs tied to a horse and dragged to the Deccan, however only one of his legs ever got to Daulatabad. One in six of the marchers died and the whole operation proved to be completely pointless, as 2 years after they reached the new city the water ran out and Tuglaq decided to march them all back to Delhi again. The remains of the old city remain today and while they are over grown you can see what the crazy sultan had in mind. There is a series of ramparts which seem pretty impenetrable on their own, expect that they also surround a giant rock which has a fortress on top. The rock was steep enough for the defenders though and the bottom half of it is chiseled into a shear face which drops into a nasty looking moat. Even at 8.30 in the morning the climb to the top was tough and sweaty but there are great views of the city's ramparts and the huge minaret of the old city towering below.
After a quick bout of photos we made our way down and we were soon on our way to the Elora caves.
After the Ajanta caves appear to have went into a decline around the 5th and 6th centuries AD, which coincided with a revival of Hinduism, the local leader decided that a fresh start was required and although they still had Buddhist caves in Elora the main ones are Hindu as well as a few Jain caves. Not satisfied with the amount of chiseling required at Ajanta, the builders of Elora weren't going to use a rock that had been precut by a river instead they went straight in and down into bare rock. The main cave, the Kailasanath Temple required a crazy amount of work to complete. Its size reminds me of a medium sized quarry gouged out of the rock, and this is before the age of dynamite or any real machinery. Not only did they carve out all that rock but they left behind a huge mound of rock which they then proceeded to chip and carve into until they had gouged out a huge temple, two life sized elephants, two 7 metre pillars as well as side caves and temples. The amount of work required by hand and chisel is just bewildering. Photos don't do it justice mainly because it is hard to get a good view of the entire temple complex and its difficult to put the scale of the place into perspective. The remaining caves are impressive too but after seeing the mighty Kailasanath Temple they all seem to pale into significance. The only question remaining is: Which is better Elora or Ajanta? My wife thinks Ajanta but I on the other hand think that the Kailasanath sways the balance. Either way it's a close call and they surely must be a challenger to the rock carving in Petra, Jordan as the greatest rock carving in the world and if you happen to be on the Deccan with a spare couple of days check them out.
After the Elora caves we grabbed lunch and headed for the Bibi Ka Maqbara, which is better known as the "Mini Taj". In some sort of attempt to recreate history or greatness Aruangzeb's son Azam Shah decided that he would build a mausoleum for his late mother as a replica of the Taj Mahal that his grandfather built in Agra. Even though it was for his dead wife, Aurangzeb wasn't the most flamboyant of chaps and he decided that the money could be better spent building his armies or expanding his empire. As a result the building which wasn't shaping up to much of a replica anyway floundered and instead of marble, whitewash was used to get the white affect. The result is well as you can see for yourself in the photos, nowhere near the greatness of the Taj. The plaster and maintenance aside, its a lesson in proportions, the minarets dwarf the main structure which looks too thin and and scrimpy anyway. To be fair though it would be a mightily impressive building if the Taj didn't exist. Thing is though the Taj does exist and this was intended to be a replica and deserved to be judged as such therefore the other nickname it is known by does it more justice than "Mini Taj" and that is is "The poor man's Taj".
Today we had another 5am start for a 6am train to Mumbai. It was quite uneventful except for an Indian family who got extremely confused by which seats they were in and after a lot of counting of seats they eventually saw the seat numbers and sat down. Another bout of confusion followed when they realised that they were all a row out and had to shift again, it was a full half hour after they entered the train before they were seated in their correct seats!
Mumbai is now more of a drag that previously because we don't really want to be going through here again however our 2AC sleeper to Goa doesn't leave until 11.30 this evening so we have a lot of time to kill. We will be resting up in the hippy hangout of Goa for a week. Hopefully the weather and our insides will be kind enough this time to give us the rest we feel we deserve!
Meanwhile Indian politics seems to lurch from crisis to crisis. In a bid to raise capital the government has put up the price of diesel and are going to allow foreign retailers into India. This has caused consternation on the news channels, people are talking about a general strike, non ruling party politicians are pulling out of the government and the opposition are calling for the Prime Minister to resign. Not that different from "Coalgate" a few weeks back, which seems to have been forgotten about. The Prime Minister even went on TV last night and gave the insightful words to the public " Money doesn't grow on trees". And I though Irish politics were bad...
In any case I won't have another post before the All-Ireland final, which takes place tomorrow so I am now putting it on the line: I am going for Donegal! Just don't mention Leo McLoone's punch on Joe McMahon last year, Jim McGuinness's attitude or their attempts to win matches 0-1 to 0-0. Actually come on Mayo! No really I would be happy to see Donegal win and they can rely on support from their neighbours in Tyrone. But I would be equally happy for Mayo who have endured a lot of disappointment over the past 50 years or so. As for the match itself hopefully I will be able to listen to it online in Goa, I would be overjoyed if I could find somewhere that was showing it but I think this is an impossible ask.
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