My Pretentious Study Abroad Blog: Hindi word of the day: गुफा (gupha

Heyo. This past weekend, I visited some of India's biggest tourist attractions, the Ajanta and Ellora caves. They were amazing, but I don't feel like writing all that much and don't really have any interesting musings, so I'll just upload a bunch of photos and caption them all.

We left Pune at 5 p.m. and got to Aurangabad, the nearest hotel-filled town to the caves, at around midnight. Our driver, Suresh, then for some reason ended up following a crazy rickshaw driver from hotel to hotel around the city unsuccessfully looking for a place for us to stay. Eventually Josh and I just got out of the car and found a hotel. It wasn't the cheapest (not cheap being about 14 bucks for a room in India), but it was pretty nice. That is, until we got into the bedroom. The bed in mine looked great until we pulled back the covers and discovered that they had used one sheet to cover two mattresses--but only over the top, to make it look legit when you walked into the room. Good times.

Suresh took us to this chai place the next morning on our drive to Ajanta. There are places like this all along the roads and they make fantastic tea.

After tea, Suresh stopped at another little dukan for breakfast, which was one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten in my entire life. Yummy potato vada, little fried bhajjia, and jalebi. Nom nom nom--Zach, Stefan, and Amy try their first jalebi.

Suresh dancing along to the Bollywood music he blasted for the entire drive (which was amazing and I obviously loved). He was fantastic and just an incredibly nice person. I hope we have another chance to hire him again.

The caves at Ajanta were amazing--there were 30 caves all lining this beautiful valley carved out of the stone centuries ago as Buddhist temples and meditation spaces.

The cave at Ajanta with the most well-preserved paintings. It was built in the sixth or seventh century.

The best photo I could get of the paintings without using a flash.

You can pay 600 rupees to get carried on one of these rather than hiking because obviously the hiking part is not an important part of the experience.

I loved this cave--it's a beautiful temple lined with incredible carvings.

Zach in front of a giant sleeping Buddha in my favorite cave.

The sunset on the drive leaving Ajanta.

Our next hotel--the most ghetto room I've ever stayed in, but definitely cheaper than the first hotel. And all the beds had sheets on them! (Although there was also some stuff on the sheets that we chose not to pay attention to.)

The next day we went to Ellora, which blew my mind. The carvings in the first few caves were absolutely incredible.

The flower on the ceiling is apparently a lotus, but I think it looks like a sunflower.

Stefan and I checked out an area that was technically closed to entry. Before we got kicked out by a guy who was sweeping out the caves (Zach says it was to clean up bat guano), I got a shot of the amazing painting on the ceiling.

We are tourists.

Suresh paid one of the photographers who stand around to take photos of us as a group for him to keep. We then proceeded to take photos of his photos because they are adorable.

Me and Suresh--he specially requested this photo.

Family photo.

The last temple at Ellora was by far the most spectacular. Multiple stories, incredibly intricate details, and amazing carvings of animals and "amorous couples" (think Kama Sutra), it took TEN GENERATIONS to complete.