We were tired, fireworks were being lit in the road outside the door, we nearly pooped ourselves (more of this tale to follow later) every time they went off.
The Diwali festival was approaching within days, and those firecrackers sounded like bombs. The bus tickets prices suddenly increased due to the festival.
At last, all was organized.
So, re: the pooping story, poor old Martina was the first of us to start, what I had feared, the dreaded Delhi belly.
Now, this had been my fear all along, and we even went to the length of taking a Dukoral vaccine, a Cholera/ETEC vaccine, as a preventative, in anticipation of what effects 18 million travelers yearly in third world countries.
And these are only the reported cases.
Can you imagine the total of unreported cases?
This vaccine only has 74% protection against ETEC virus/Delhi belly, and 85% against Cholera, and Murphy's bloody law, we got the unprotected 26%.
Thank goodness it had only started that morning, as we had a 17 hour trip ahead of us. Jalgaon was the pits.
We arrived at a hotel we knew we shouldnt have stayed at, but were too tired to search for another hotel, got a damp smelling, mold encrusted room, washed our hands and face, and took a 2 hour jolting journey on a metal-clap-trap rattling bus to Ajanta caves.
By now Martina was getting greener in the face, would you believe me if I told you that she dozed off in the bus?
One of our more adventurous bus rides.
It was tooth loosening, bone jarring, and eye popping (from all the overtaking).
How do the locals endure this kind of transport?
Granted, it was damn cheap.
So here we were, at the first lot of caves, that I had traveled to India to specifically see. Tucked away, 4 kilometres into the hills, from where the bus dropped us off, was a fascinating alcove of caves carved into the mountain side.
I will leave my photos to explain the rest of this lovely experience for me in seeing these caves that were built around 2 BC.
The Ajanta Caves in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra state of India are about 30 rock-cut Buddhist cave monuments which date from the 2nd century BCE to about 480 or 650 CE.[1][2]
The caves include paintings and rock cut sculptures described as among
the finest surviving examples of ancient Indian art, particularly
expressive painting that present emotion through gesture, pose and form.[3][4][5] According to UNESCO, these are masterpieces of Buddhist religious art that influenced Indian art that followed.[6]
The caves were built in two phases, the first group starting around the
2nd century BC, while the second group of caves built around 400–650 AD
according to older accounts, or all in a brief period of 460 to 480
according to Walter M. Spink.[7] The site is a protected monument in the care of the Archaeological Survey of India,[8] and since 1983, the Ajanta Caves have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Ajanta Caves constitute ancient monasteries and worship halls of
different Buddhist traditions carved into a 250 feet wall of rock.[9][10] The caves also present paintings depicting the past lives and rebirths of the Buddha, pictorial tales from Aryasura's Jatakamala, as well as rock-cut sculptures of Buddhist deities in vogue between the 2nd century BCE and 5th century CE.[9][11][12]
Textual records suggest that these caves served as a monsoon retreat
for monks, as well as a resting site for merchants and pilgrims in
ancient India.[9]
While vivid colours and mural wall painting were abundant in Indian
history as evidenced by historical records, Caves 16, 17, 1 and 2 of
Ajanta form the largest corpus of surviving ancient Indian
wall-painting.[13]

Panoramic view of Ajanta Caves from the nearby hill

Ajanta is famous for its ancient Buddhist paintings.
The Ajanta Caves site are mentioned in the memoirs of several
medieval era Chinese Buddhist travelers to India and by a Mughal era
official of Akbar era in early 17th century.[14]
They were covered by jungle until accidentally "discovered" and brought
to the Western attention in 1819 by a colonial British officer on a
tiger hunting party.[15]
The Ajanta caves are located on the side of a rocky cliff that is on
the north side of a U-shaped gorge on the small river Waghur,[16] in the Deccan plateau.[17][18] Further round the gorge are a number of waterfalls, which when the river is high are audible from outside the caves.[19]
2025-02-17