Bibi Ka Maqbara - the “poor man’s Taj Mahal”

The tomb of the lady

While we had spent two nights in Aurangabad already, we had yet to actually see any of the city itself.  As a city with a population of just over one million people (about the size of the city of Birmingham), we figured that there must be enough sights to at least fill up a few hours (unlike the city of Birmingham…).  The first of these was the Bibi Ka Maqbara, modelled on the famous Taj Mahal but made of painted stone rather than pure white marble, and therefore referred to as “the poor man’s Taj Mahal”.  The name literally means ‘tomb of the lady’ and was commissioned by a Mughal emperor to commemorate his wife at the end of the 17th century.  To the casual observor it does look an awful lot like the 'real thing’, albeit in need of a bit of a paint job.  It seems to be tradition to throw money onto the tomb within the mausoleum - a tradition which seems pretty strange considering that there are a fair few beggars outside the gates and the lady within obviously wasn’t in that much need of money, even if her husband couldn’t afford to commemorate her with a full Taj.

Panchakki

From here our tuk-tuk driver drove us to the city’s other major (and I use that term slightly loosely) sight, the 'Panchakki’ or Water Mill, an early example of hydrological engineering in India which used water from 6km away to grind flour.  Unfortunately the sight was looking quite unloved and in need of renovation and we didn’t stay too long as after grabbing some lunch we would be heading over to Aurangabad airport.  Having, frankly, chickened out of getting the sleeper bus from Aurangabad to Hyderabad, we had decided to go by plane - with a connection in Mumbai.

I should have known straight away that the journey was not going to be as easy as it should have been, as I made the rookie error of leaving my Swiss Army Knife in my hand luggage - though with Aurangabad being a pretty tiny airport, the lovely security staff let me pass back through and re-check my bag in with the knife inside.  From here however things didn’t get much better however - unfortunately our first plane from Aurangabad to Mumbai (a flight time of less than 50 minutes) was quite heavily delayed and we landed in Mumbai airport in a rush.  From here things got even worse as we had to change terminals and the system at the airport was truly awful - we had to (for some reason) go from the domestic terminal to the international terminal on a connecting bus that including waiting and driving took a whole hour.  We arrived at the international terminal with 45 minutes until our flight took off, with heavy queues for everything.  Faced with missing the flight and spending an extra night in Mumbai, back where we started, we ploughed through the crowds, waving our boarding cards in the air frantically by way of an apology to our fellow passengers.  Incredibly, we got to the gate with moments to spare, only to find that all the passengers had caught the bus to the plane already.  The people on the gate called us one of the airport maintenance buggies to get us to the plane and, unbelievably, took us all the way from the international terminal back to where we had started in domestic.  We had therefore, in effect, spent an hour travelling from domestic to international to go through security and then come back to domestic. A total, total joke.

To conclude:
Mumbai International Airport: 0/10 rating.  
Air India on the other hand (for holding the flight until we arrived): 10/10

All things considered, myself and Sergei only made the flight about 20 minutes late and after arriving at the super-modern Hyderabad Airport we got a taxi into the city (about 40 minutes away) to our hotel for the next two nights - checking in at around midnight.  Having decided to fly in order to avoid the stress of the sleeper bus, I can’t say I am convinced that it was actually the right decision… But, I have to say, all’s well that ends well.

The Ajanta Caves

While Aurangabad itself has a few sights of its own, the main reason for visiting was to see the nearby caves of Ajanta and Ellora - two separate ancient networks of caves.  The caves at Ajanta are the older of the two, constructed between the 2^nd century BC and the 6^th century AD.  They are carved into the cliff face of a dramatic bend in a river and, after being superseded by the caves at Ellora, were forgotten for over a thousand years until they were stumbled upon by a British hunting party.  There are 28 different caves at the site, ranging from the small and relatively unimpressive to grand, vaulted temples.  Incredibly, partly due to their being in ‘hibernation’ and partly due to their protected location, the paintings within the caves are very well preserved, despite some of them being over two thousand years old.

Painting on a cave roof

Team Photo

Reclining Buddha statue

Incredible Vaulted Ceiling

A painted ceiling in one of the caves

Sitting at the viewpoint

The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya

Our train from Mumbai to Aurangabad was to leave in the afternoon, leaving us with one last morning in the city.  We had seen a lot of the major tourist sights in the city already so decided to visit the main museum, formally called the ‘Prince of Wales Museum’ but now called the significantly less catchy (and less British) Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vatsu Sanrahalaya.  This museum is one of the best in India and we had far too little time to do it justice, but still got to see some interesting exhibitions about Ancient India as well as a visiting exhibition from the British Museum containing the Cyrus Scrolls from Persia.  We grabbed some food for the train from an excellent French patisserie and then made our way over to Dadar Station, one of the many suburban stations in Mumbai, for the six hour journey to Aurangabad.  This journey wasn’t too bad, though the carriage was full of noisy kids and pretty lax parents (amusingly I even saw one mum give her kids a box of matches to entertain themselves with).  We were picked up at the station by a driver from our hotel, the Athiti, where we would be spending three nights.

Inside the museum

I am sure that I will have plenty of stories to blog, so set a bookmark.