In early October there was a long weekend, so a group of friends and I decided to take a short trip to Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, formerly known as Aurangabad.
It was a two-day trip. This post is what we did, what went wrong, and what I’d do differently.
The plan
| Day | Places |
|---|---|
| Day 1 | Ellora Caves, Grishneshwar Jyotirlinga temple, Daulatabad Fort, Bibi Ka Maqbara |
| Day 2 | Ajanta Caves |
Ajanta got a whole day to itself because it’s the farthest from the city.
Getting there
We left on Thursday night. I took the Devagiri Express from Dadar to Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar. We reached at 4:45 in the morning.
We had already booked a hotel on Jalna Road, Hotel Raj. It was an OK hotel. We only needed a place to keep our luggage and sleep for one night, and they gave us an early check-in. It cost around ₹2,200.
We checked in at around 5:40 AM and went straight to sleep.
The restaurant just to the left of the hotel had good vegetarian food.
Day 1: The bike rental hunt
After freshening up, we went to rent scooters or bikes. But it was a long weekend, and it seemed everyone had the same plan. Almost everything was already booked.
We started looking at 9 AM and only got bikes by 11 AM. A two-hour delay, and it cost us later in the day.
Pro tip: if you’re going on a long weekend, book your rental in advance.
If we hadn’t found bikes, we would have taken a local bus. You can catch one from the Sambhaji Nagar bus stand or from Baba Petrol Pump.
Ellora Caves
Once we had the bikes, we had a quick breakfast and rode to Ellora. It’s about 35 km from Jalna Road.
You can buy Ellora tickets online, and I’d recommend it. It was a long weekend (or just a weekend in India :)), and there was a huge queue at the counter. The network was too poor for us to book online on the spot, so we stood in line for about 20 minutes.
Since this is a historical site, we wanted a guide. There are official government guides, and ours cost ₹2,500. He explained the Hindu and Buddhist caves, and left the Jain caves for us to explore on our own. His tour took about two and a half hours.
You can also get a local guide for around ₹1,500. The catch is that they only explain the caves from the outside. They don’t go in with you. The government guides all wear an ID card, so they’re easy to find.
The Kailasa temple was my favourite. It’s beautiful and magnificent, and I still can’t believe it was carved out of a single rock. After that, I liked the Buddha temple the most.
We skipped the Jain caves. Time was running out and we were exhausted from all the walking.
A few tips for Ellora:
- Carry an umbrella. It gets hot.
- Don’t throw away your entry ticket. They check it again when you exit. If you’ve lost it, you pay ₹100.
Grishneshwar Jyotirlinga
The Jyotirlinga temple is about a kilometre from Ellora, on the same road.
We parked our bikes and went for lunch first. There’s a nice restaurant called Mewad near the temple. I’d recommend it. The food was really good.
The darshan itself was smooth. We went in, queued up, and came out.
One strange thing: men have to take off their shirts before entering the temple. I’ve never had to do that at any other temple. So yeah, that was a thing.
Daulatabad Fort (or, the fort we didn’t see)
We came out of the temple around 5:30 PM and went straight to Daulatabad Fort.
We reached at 5:50. The fort closes at 6 PM. :(
So we only saw it from outside. We were already late because of the bike rental mess.
You don’t need a guide for the fort. It’s self-explanatory, so it’s fine to do it either first or at the end of the day. If you do it last, reach well before 6. Better still, start your day early, around 9 AM, and you won’t have this problem.
Bibi Ka Maqbara
Disappointed, we took a short break, refreshed ourselves, and rode to Bibi Ka Maqbara.
It’s inside the city, so keep it for last. We bought the entry tickets online and reached around 7 PM. We explored it for about an hour.
It looks lovely lit up at night. But it was crowded. :(
After that we returned the rental bikes, took an auto back to the hotel, had dinner and slept.
Day 2: Ajanta Caves
Ajanta was the only thing planned for the second day, because it’s the farthest from Sambhaji Nagar.
We started at around 8:30 AM. We took an auto from the hotel to the bus stand and caught a bus from there.
The bus fare was ₹220, and the ride took about three and a half hours. That was one hour more than it should have been, because a broken-down vehicle had jammed the road in the ghat section.
The bus drops you off a little away from the caves. From there we walked about 10 minutes to the shuttle bus that takes you to Ajanta. The shuttle costs ₹40 per person. We lost another 30 minutes waiting for it because of the weekend crowd. :(
We finally reached the caves at around 1 PM, bought our tickets and started exploring.
Like at Ellora, we took a guide. Same price, ₹2,500, for about two and a half hours.
To be honest, this guide was in a bit of a rush. With the weekend crowd, he wanted to do as many tours as possible in a day. He didn’t explain things properly and cut a lot short. Still, it was better than walking around with no information.
Ajanta is pretty unique. There are Persians in the paintings, and all of it was made thousands of years ago. That was fascinating. The most beautiful thing for me was the sleeping Buddha.
We left the caves around 5 PM and did the same trip in reverse: the shuttle, then the bus back to the depot in Sambhaji Nagar.
Getting home
We went back to the hotel, picked up our luggage and had dinner at a restaurant nearby. Then we took a sleeper bus to Mumbai.
We got on the bus around 11 PM and reached Mumbai at 5 AM on Sunday.
Tips if you’re planning this
- Book your bike or scooter rental in advance, especially on a long weekend.
- Start early. Be on the road by 9 AM on the Ellora day.
- Buy tickets online where you can. Ellora and Bibi Ka Maqbara both have online tickets, and the counter queues are long. The network at Ellora is poor, so book before you get there.
- Get a government guide at Ellora and Ajanta. They cost ₹2,500, wear an ID, and actually take you inside the caves.
- Keep your Ellora ticket. They check it at the exit. Losing it costs ₹100.
- Daulatabad Fort closes at 6 PM. Plan around that.
- Carry an umbrella for the heat.
- Give Ajanta a full day. The bus is three hours or more each way, plus the shuttle.