Aurangabad, Lonar, (Daulatabad) and Ellora

On a freezing Saturday morning towards the close of January , I alighted at the Aurangabad railway station at 5 in the morning. Full of anticipation I set my right foot firmly on the ground and the train honked and started to roll! Nearly missed my first stop there! Well the day was to be full of missed buses, wrong stops and a helluva big crater.

I met up with a friend who had travelled in from Bombay and together we set off to Lonar. Lonar, the third largest lake in the world formed by a meteorite crash some 5000 odd years ago in our very own India .

We did’nt know much about Lonar save for the fact that it was the third biggest lake in the world and the little ( and faulty) information we got off the Lonley Planet guide. Following the directions of the Lonley Planet guide we started out at the Aurangabad bus stand. On enquiring about the buses to Lonar we learnt that Lonar was not a tourist hot spot. Surprising! Had I been on the board of Maharashtra Tourism ministry I would have definitely tapped into the immense potential that Lonar holds.Every time the officer at duty at the information kiosk would come up with the name of different bus that would get us to Lonar. I had spent over 14 hours in the train and hungry for some action jumped on to a bus that was headed to Jalna. I had read on the Lp guide that there are frequent buses from Jalna to Lonar. It was an hours drive to Jalna.I slept through out the way. On reaching Jalna we found that the bus to Lonar had departed 5 minutes before our bus . What was worse that bus started from Aurangabad and we were at the stop watching as that bus pulled away from Aurangabad!

After an hours wait we decided to catch the bus to Sultanpur and then catch an auto to Lonar which was supposedly on 10-12 Kns away. Hardly had we boarded the bus than another bus pulled up at the side. Lo and behold! It was the bus to Lonar resort and it gets better it started from Aurangabad. Qucikly we de boarded the sultanpur bus and occupied the last seats in the Lonar bus right at the back. And on we went to Lonar!

It was a bumpy ride at the back but I didn’t seem to mind. The scenery was an alternation of bare parched land with luch green patches of farm lands. If I am not mistaken the general occupation of the people on that route are animal husbandry, farming and orange growing, although there were pockets of patches with sunflowers. It was hard to affirm whether they were cultivated or just grew miraculously wild and in straight lines. After three hours we reached Lonar. I didn’t get off the bus immediately. My hindi being inclined quite to the not so great side I had mis read the Resod on the board as Resort. To me it made sense cause I knew there was an MTDC resort at the start of the carter trail and it seemed only logical that there would be a govt. operated bus right to the start of  the trail!

From the bus stop we reached the MTDC guest house/warehouse by an auto.The driver Imraan bhyya was gracious enough to give us his cell number in case we needed a ride back. I can’t tell how much that saved me that day!

The crater was huge. It was gigantic. It was enormous. Yes I knew it would be so but seeing it with my own eyes seemed to make it bigger. After an interesting lunch at the MTDC resort we started out trek down the crater. We took a fairly used path.  On our way we heard the cat calls of a lot of birds which at first I had mistaken for the voices of people carried  by the wind. The base of the crater has lush green vegetation with abundant flora and fauna and a few abandoned temples along the circumference of the crater. The water is brackish and green and dirty too. But I am told that in the monsoons it is a sight to behold. Once we were down at the base we disturbed a flock of ducks that were lazily basking in the sun. While a couple of of other birds were unpertubed by our presence.  All excited about being at the third largest lake in the world we had lofty ambitions of walking the full length of the carter.  After a while we downsized our ambition to a temple about  two thirds of the way. A little later it was further downsized it to a temple which was about a third of the way. We didn’t meet our target

No sooner had we got about a tenth of the way that we came upon a group of Languars with their young. And boy did they look agressive.That was when my friend decided that he had had enough of flora and fauna and wanted to turn back. Turn back!!! After we came all this way?!! Finally he agreed to walk up to the first temple that came our way. The deal was if we ever saw a languar on the way we were to turn back. That was fine by me. Murphy’s law as always. We walked ten steps when a languar came charging. He was a big languar. At the sight of the charginng languar my sense of adventure and ambition left me. Without a word I led the way back to trail.  We had barely made it to the first temple.

The climb up was tortuous made worse by the heat of the sun. About half way up we called Imraan Bhyya and asked him to come pick us up. If only he could come down the trail. I would have so loved a ride up. Finally we made it to the top. I was dead tired. Never have I been so tired my whole life. I was so tired I thought of scrapping the plans of going to Ellora the next day and instead catching the train back to Hyderabad that very night.

If getting to Lonar was difficult, getting back from Lonar was impossible. For starters the bus stand was patheitc. There were as many goats as there were poeple. And the goats took the liberty of chewing off a bit of your bag to satiate their hunger. And if you sat still at a place they came to keep you compnay. How annoying. To add to all this a  bus came in once in a blue moon and never was that bus headed in the direction of Aurangabad. Tired, fustrated and angry we finally shelled out a good deal of money for a taxi back to Aurangabad. I just didn’t care. I wanted to get out of there. Lonar was beautiful beyond comparison but what a foolish thing to try and conquer it in a day. Its a 2-3 day affair, inlcuding the travelling bit.  Now I know why the states tourism department leaves Lonar the way it is!

When I called it aday I was a little worried if I would be up for Ellora the next day. But a good night’s rest did the trick. The next morning we hired a rickshaw for a day and set off to the world heritage site of Ellora. En route we passed by Daulatabad, that fortress high on a hill above. We told our driver Raju bhayya that on our way back form Ellora we wanted to stop at Dualatabad and climb to the top of the surmit. He merely smiled and said ” first Ellora, then you tell me no daultabad go home! ” Well if he thought we tired so easily he was right. That was exactly what we told him after Ellora.Some people have all the answers.

Ellora and its 34 caves from different periods of history and dedicated to gods and goddesses of three different religions. Beautiful Ellora. We started our way down in to history with Ellora’s most popular cave. Cave 16 or the Kailash. A Huge cave dedicated mainly to Lord Shiva. The cave still has a functioning temple. Amazing. The exterior has carvings of Lord Shiva in the tandava pose. Once you enter you see an elephant with its trunk missing and a marvelously carved pillar called the victory pillar. The cave has a middle portion with three levels. The caves surrounding the main temple have carvings of different gods and goddesses in several dance poses. There was a wall which had intricate carvings from the Mahabharata. The outer portions of the main temples had elephants in war modes. There  were elephants crushing lions, elephants with lions meekly at their feet, elephants trumpeting and elephants humbling standing.Elephnats, Elepahnts everywhere!

On looking up you will get an idea how much of the rock had to be cut in order to make this temple. Simply amazing. This cave is believed to be built in 200 ad and to have taken 1o generations to do it. One can only marvel at the sheer perseverance and talent of the sculptors. 10 generations and never did they waver from their theme and style.Highest quality standards.There was a group of school kids who were touring the caves with their history teacher. The teacher was a powerful orator and engaged the group with excerpts from history relating to the caves.We spent a while in their company.

The next cave we went to was cave 10. Another wonder. It was a Buddhist temple. Unlike cave 16 it was not well lit. I came prepared for that. I had read in  travel blog about the usefulness of carrying a torch. Indeed uselful it was. I felt like an Indina Jones with the full shade hat and a torch.

When I entered cave 10 it didn’t give me a ‘wow; feeling. Once my eyes adjusted to the darkness I could barely comprehend the beauty. There was a large statue of Buddha with the smiling face we all know so well and above on the roof was this intricate spiral carving. Perfectly symmetrical. Perfectely symmetrical at a time like 200 AD where men had nothing  but bare hands to work with. Did we just progress in the reverse direction? Cave 10 was a 2 storied builing. The upper floor I assume was the quarters of the monk. There were about 4 cells with a stone slab which I assume would have served the purpose of a bed. The cells didn’t have doors  and they were ventilated by the draft from the centre court yard.

After cave 10 we zigzaged around. Cave 15 was a Hindu cave which housed the temple preists. It had a version of swimming pool, cells, halls and miniature temples. Cave 12 was a three storied monastery.. It had many pillars, many cells and many many statues. More caves, more statues and more climbing.

Finally we went back to our auto and had Raju bhyya drop us off at cave 30-34 which were a little way off. Caves 30-34 are the Jain caves. They were similar to the Buddhist caves but of course they had Mahavira instead. I noticed holes in the rocks which I initially attributed to erotion at play. But on seeing more than a couple of them, it kind if struck me that they were viewing holes. The line of vision from these holes was directly aimed at Mahavira. Jeez did those guys miss out anything?

After five hours tired and hungry we decided to head back. Raju bhyaa was only too happy. He claims that he comes here twice everyday and knew every stone by heart. Scaresly had we left the complex , when my friend exclaimed that we missed the Sun gods chariot that the guide book we had bought said was in cave 25. Raju bhyaa was quite obliging and took a U turn. However he refused to take the auto to the cave and we had to walk from cave 16.Anyways there was no sun god’s chariot in cane 25. There was a statute of Nandi and nothing more. Damn the guide book!But we did walk all the way up to cave 29 which is by far the cave with giant carvings. Everything about this cave is screaming ‘collosal’ , the carvings, the pillars , the statues, everything.

That completed all the 34 caves. Now we could turn back without fear of having missed something after coming all this way. On our way back when we reached Dualatabad Raju Bhyya playfully asked if we still wanted to climb the fort. ‘Oh No’ we cried in unison. No way. No more walking for me. Some food and a place to sit was all I could ask for.

We still had a couple more hours before our trains arrived andRaju Bhyya was insistent that we see places in Aurnagabad.  So we first went to the Panch Chakki which is a water mill engineered a couple of hundreds of years ago. Totally unimpressive! Next Bibi ka maqbara or the as the locals call it ‘the mini taj’ more like a ‘fake taj’ to me. It was nice nothing more. Raju bhyya was quite disappointed that we were not very impressed so he took us to a silk weaving factory which is more than a hundred years old. We were too tried to protest. We were like ‘ya 5 min bhyya and then we ll leave’. Half an hour later Raju Bhyya was still patiently waiting for us

The factory made Himroo shawls, bedsheets saris and other stuff. Himroo is  a weaving design unique to Aurnagabad. The supervisor at the mill was Raju Bhyyas friend. So he took us around and showed us how the  workings of the mill. Pretty cool I should say. We left the factory with a couple of himroo shawls as souvenirs.

An hour later I was on the train headed back to Hyderabad, asleep before the train left the station. What a wonderful weekend!

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~ by Marie Lisa Jose on February 3, 2010.