The Incredible Caves

During the weekend of February 19 − 21, Ali, Oliver, and I hitched a ride on the local bus to Aurangabad, India to spend time touring the Ajanta and Ellora caves - official world historic sites.

Wow. WoW. WOW. How Buddhist monks could carve these temples into the rock hillsides is beyond me. Imagine - without CAD, power tools, and good light. It blows my mind!

To learn more, visit http://asi.nic.in/asi_monu_whs_ellora.asp for information on the Ellora Caves and http://www.sacred-destinations.com/india/ajanta-caves for the Ajanta Caves.

We visited the Ajanta Caves first and the Ellora Caves the next day. It was difficult to take very good photos as the interiors were often very dark, and I did not have professional lighting capabilities.

At any rate, here are some of my favorite photos of Ajanta...my next post will have photos of Ellora...

(Remember, you can click on any image to zoom in; just use your browser's "Back" button to return to the blog).

Mmmm...fresh roasted peanuts - delicious!

Walking up to the caves & viewing them from the top of the hill...breath-taking.

The Ajanta Caves are known, not just for their incredible carving,
but also for the paintings within the temples.
I found it amusing that monks painted these colorful erotic images.

Ali & Oliver by entrance to the first temple.

Awestruck is all I can say...

View of surrounding hillsides and river below.

Being dwarfed...

I loved the contrast of the ornate carvings and the rugged rock above.

HUGE beehive

For some reason, Nubian came to mind...
Beautiful paintings that I wished I could have photographed better.

So many Buddhas were missing at least one hand...
I'm guessing bad karma followed the thieves!

Had to dramatically slow the shutter to get photos of the corbels above,
which must have been inspiration for the Jain temple's corbels in the Amber Fort at Jaipur.

Ceiling painting

There was even a clerestory-like level in here - amazing.

The famous Sleeping Buddha - 9m long.

Had to tickle the toes...

View from across the river, up on a lookout point.