Nvr thght History was gr8 out of d books - Day 1, Ajanta

So what do you get when a bunch of 3 idiots from the same office, just plan stuff out of nowhere for the weekend??? Yeah you get a gr8 trip with an awesome package of entertainment; in fact, the embedded fun so much that no other package tour can offer.

Yeah... so where was I, yup I remember. It was thursday morning and I had reached the office much later than the usual, and as I settle down, what do I hear across the partition??? "Something something..... Ajanta......something something..... Daulatabad......" So, with my brain perked up with this newfound source of energy on this unusually boring day, I got up to find out the exact source of this particular frequency, only to find that it was the guy across the partition. He had planned a trip, with another colleague of mine, to Aurangabad for 3 days....

No before we move into further, a quick word of acknowledgement. I owe this wonderful 3 days of adrenaline filled adventure trip to this particular guy from my office.

Yeah now moving back to where we started... this had to be a low cost trip. So strictly no alcohol. Moreover we had plans to ascend and descend lots of hills and mountains, so for the heck of safety. Our journey started from Thane in a semi - "luxury" bus (read low cost) and we reached Aurangabad in the morning.

After a quick refreshing stint in the International Youth Hostel, we set of for Ajanta caves, 110 kms from the city. Here, since we had missed the morning bus, we had to hire a cab (cost us a bomb)...

Ajanta is a hell of a place. We didnt follow the conventional route, the route usually taken up by the family people. Instead we climbed down the hill, a drop of almost 150 mts straight down into the valley. The 7 step waterfall, the view of the caves from the top of the observation point added much more of excitement to the trip.

Wiki says Ajanta comprises of a total of 31 caves (damn we figured out only 26). All the murals and frescos depicting the Buddhist and pre-Buddha cultures with the ones starting from the Satvahana era up to an era of Kanishka. In fact these structures were constructed in different periods of history separated by over 4 centuries (beat that)...

As we climbed down the hill, the highest observation point kept diminishing in size, and so did the second one. There was a sense of an achievement that we were actually moving down a steep slope. Back of the mind however, there was this thought that kept shooting back that we had to climb back again the whole hill since our cab waited there. Truthfully, I guess I was only one with this thought...... :P

The climb down was excellent; easy to be precise. The flora and fauna was excellent feed for a photographer. I had this admirer (same guy who had planned all) all the way long. He had shown keen interest in photography and with a little help, he really clicked gr8 images.

The old bridge between our hill and caves creaked under out weight. But the view was breathtaking.

And  the kids who ran around us, they were cute too....
Hmmmm......moving over to the actual caves, the caretaker told us that the cave nos 9, 10 and 23 are the most important of all, but then we had this adventure bug in us, so it was a unanimous and implicit decision that we roam around all of them whether we have the light left with us or not (yes the caves close down at 5.30pm)

Some of my grabs in these caves...

Thats all I have with me right now for Ajanta. For other grabs of Ajanta please visit http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=100783&id=1311662017&l=6a40530ca3

This was actually the Diwali day, but it had poured cats and dogs in Aurangabad. There was a heavy haze and to add to it was the fog from the fireworks.



So as we returned and searched for a good hotel to pounce upon some good food, all of us recalled what a day it had been....

Our faces and body were tired.....but then there was this thin smile of satisfaction, for we had a gr8 day..... and also there was this curiosity how our next two days of our trip will be....



Aastalavista...
Abhishek