Thu, Apr 20: Aurangabad – Ellora Caves

Had to take a photo of our lovely hotel pool before we headed out.  It looks so refreshing and we are headed out to another hot day.

First stop today was the Bibi Ka Maqbara, a mini-Taj Mahal wannabe.  There is some marble but most of the building is stone covered with plaster.  

It is the mausoleum of the wife of Aurangzeb (son of Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal) and is believed to have been constructed by her son, Prince Azam Shah.  It was certainly pretty but definitely no Taj Mahal.

It did have a lot of lovely detail work similar to the Taj...lots of tiles and carvings.

The area of the tomb was littered with money thrown in by tourists and pilgrims.

The other main attraction today is another set of ancient Hindu temples.  On the drive there we saw glimpses of the Daulatabad Fort, which had a very high minaret and was constructed of seven rings of walls.  We saw only a bit of it.

While on a stop to take pictures Melissa spied a band of monkeys resting in the shade of a tree.

We saw a number of the Ellora Caves, which are really temples carved out of the mountain, similar to those we saw in Ajanta yesterday.  There are far fewer of the temple caves.

Caves we explored included Cave 10 with its incredible vaulted ceiling...

caves 7 and 8...

and some other caves for which we didn't get the numbers...but their exteriors were beautiful.

Along one rock face we saw an incredible vein of malachite.

The last stop was the main temple, Kailash (constructed in the 7th - 8th Centuries AD).  Instead of being carved into the mountain, like a cave, this temple was carved straight down into the rock as a free-standing temple complex made of the solid stone of the mountain.  

The carving details were incredible.

Parts of the raw mountain made huge overhangs over the surrounding courtyard and walkways.  Pretty awesome.

One of the local monkeys hanging out for a handout.

On the way back we made a brief stop at the tomb of Arangzeb, a Mogul Emperor (late 17th century).  Late in life he became a devout follower of one of the Muslim teachers and wanted no mausoleum for himself.  Instead he wanted to be buried under a pile of dirt.  In later years a marble structure was built around his burial place...

but there was still a pile of dirt over the place he was buried.

We stopped to see a weaving exhibition...

but before we could go to the gift shop Tara got a call that the plane was leaving early so we had to head out quickly for the airport.  No problems with check in and we made it back to Mumbai in good time.

We drove on some roads marked as two lane roads (one in each direction).  It was, in practice, a two lane road with a passing lane in the middle.  The car you are passing and cars coming toward you would just move over to the edge of the road.

We all opted to skip dinner out and we had fruit and bars in our room…and then crashed.