Aurangabad..Ellora!

I headed to Aurangabad where you can get to the Ellora caves,which turned out to be the most magnificent thing I have so far scene on this trip!

I got in in the evening and in the morning I met a Hollander, Wald in the hotel and we headed together to a fort, a mini Taj and then the caves.  

The fort was quite old and built to withstand crazy attacks.  It is actually up on a mountain but there are many stone walls to cross and a moat as well before you can get there....  The main doors, giant wooden ones have spikes on them so elephants cant bust them down... at least not safely...

The next stop was the baby taj mahal, a replicate in mini, built by some dude....  pretty but not necessary...

The next part was truly the best... The Ellora caves are all cut right out of a cliff face.... There are 30 odd temple/caves, some just a large room with small quarters for monks off to the sides, and some with intricately carved pillars, huge statues...   The main attractin number 16 is a whole courtyard and temple...

first you walk through an archway, then you ar in a huge open space with elephant statues,

 

Keep in mind the elephant wasnt brought in, it was also carved out, so when they made the courtyard they laft parts with rock for such carvings!

In the middle is a temple, cut down from the top, and on the sides caves cut into the cliffs with more statues inside...

If you were planning a building you would pic the site and transport the materials and then put them together.  Here they did the opposite, its almost a negative building in concept.  They brought the building idea to the sight of the materials and cut away the open spaces to leave the buildings where they "already were", under and in the rock...  The lines are all straight, the ceilings flat, perfect square, octogon and round pillars, and thousands of tons of rocks moved.

Here are some more pics...

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