India 2012: Jalgaon & Ajanta Caves (Jan 27)

After three days and two nights in Mumbai, my travel buddy Kelly and I headed north to see the Buddhist caves of Ajanta, just outside of the cities of Jalgaon and Aurangabad in Maharashtra state.

Executing this route independently required a little DOING and some patience as well (like most transit routes in India), and took about 12 hours total.  The steps:

• At 9:30 PM, we boarded a sleeper train direct from Mumbai’s main train station to Jalgaon, which arrived the next morning at 4:15 AM.  I spent the better part of the ride feeling ill from a Mumbai meal that didn’t quite agree with me.
• 6:00 AM, we boarded a one hour bus ride from Jalgaon to a drop off point on the road near Ajanta in a town called Fardapur (bus cost around 60 rupees).
• On arrival in Fardapur, we hired a short autorickshaw ride from where the first bus drops you on the road to where the Ajanta caves minibus will take you to the caves’ entrance (basically, it’s a complex of gift shops, not the caves themselves).  Make sure to ask someone where you can buy a ticket for the minibus – when we were there in 2012, you couldn’t buy it from the driver.
• We then waited 1.5 hours until the Ajanta minibuses actually started running (first bus 8:30a, 7 rupees one way).  The minibus took about 15 minutes from point to point.
• And then we waited again for 15 minutes until the actual entrance to Ajanta opened (9:00 AM opening).  Why they haven’t figured out that the entrance should be open at the time the first minibus arrives, the world may never know.  It’s India for sure.  All bags are checked on entrance, which costs 4-5 rupees per bag.  We brought our big backpacks with us and stashed them here.

By the time we arrived at the caves, we were exhausted and a bit exasperated given the effort it took to get there.  Fortunately, the cave complex was interesting and scenic.  Ajanta is a half-kilometer horseshoe-shaped rock face with around thirty man-made caves containing Buddhist rock carvings and paintings from the 2^nd to 6^th centuries.

There’s some wildlife to see here as well – make sure keep your eye on the troops of (rather aggressive) monkeys gathered on the rocks overhead – they make swift business out of stealing anything edible and/or colorful from oblivious tourists and small children.

Crowds of tourists mobbed the place before long.  Ajanta was hosting a slew of school field trips that day, and I’m not sure these kids had ever seen people with our skin tone (but who can be sure).  Kelly was instantly transformed into a celebrity, mobbed by kids that wanted her signature on their school notebooks and individual pictures with her as well.  Indian guys in their 20s targeted me, wanting group photos and for me to wear whatever hat they were wearing.  Interactions were friendly but the level of attention was intense and became somewhat oppressive in its repetition.

mobbed for autographs at Ajanta caves.

Caving and fending off crowds could only go on so long – around two hours at Ajanta was enough for us.  We retrieved our backpacks from the entry point and waited for a minibus out.  There was just enough space for us to cram onto available standing room on a departing bus with a whole middle school class.  When we paid our fares to the driver, the kids inhaled in anxious anticipation.  When we stepped onto the bus, they applauded loudly as if the whole thing had been planned prior.  The ride back was an equal exchange of nervous smiles and curious gazes.

We caught the one-hour bus from Fardapur to Jalgaon, and then things started getting difficult and annoying.

We wanted to get out of Jalgaon that same day, because Jalgaon isn’t a pretty nor interesting place – it’s one of those transit towns that you set foot in, check out the nearby attraction, and get out as fast as you can afterwards.  Ever been to Pisa, Italy?  Sort of like that.

Our desired next destination was Udaipur, in Rajasthan.  We knew what we needed to do – get on an overnight train from Jalgaon to Ahmedabad, then a bus or train to Udaipur.  This would take an estimated 15 hours of continuous travel.  But we faced a problem: we hadn’t booked onward train travel out of Jalgaon, and December through March is high season in India.  Foreigners are traveling in India, and (more importantly) Indian nationals are too.  Transportation and lodgings can be a bit more difficult to come by during this time.
Upon inquiry at the Jalgaon train station, we were told (rather brusquely) that there were absolutely no berths left on any of the trains from Jalgaon to Ahmedabad.  We walked to the bus station, probably a mile away.  They told us there were no available tickets on buses that would take us anywhere we needed to go.

We walked back to the train station, asked more questions, got no help.  Walked back to the bus station.  Getting out of Jalgaon required about four or five trips back and forth, with our packs and all, between the train and bus stations – each trip a little more frustrating than the last.  Nothing was available but 2nd class train fare (lowest available class) to Ahmedabad, on a 9:30 PM train.

Second class fares are fine for short day trips, but for an overnight, it’s not what I’d prefer.  It’s often packed with people – a possible security risk for the packs if we both fell asleep (at least in my mind), and a comfort risk for sure (sometimes the benches are wooden, not padded.  Ten hours of that?).  Staying awake in shifts on the train to watch the packs was discussed, but we had hardly slept the previous night, and had hiked all day.  How could that work?  Another option:  delay our departure until morning.  But who wanted to stick around in Jalgaon?  Not us.  We paid for the fares and shrugged.  Come what may.

We had one last hope though – try to upgrade our ticket to a sleeper berth of some sort (at additional cost) when the train pulled into the station.

At 9:20 PM, we more or less jumped on one of the arriving conductors to ask the question.  He told us to wait a minute and walked away, leaving us nervously holding our packs on the platform.  He returned a few minutes later and hustled us into a 2AC class carriage (four beds per air-conditioned sleeping compartment – comparative luxury to 2nd class).  With sighs of relief, we climbed aboard and into our bunks. I slept soundly until arrival in Ahmedabad, where we caught the first available bus we could find, toward Udaipur, Rajasthan.

NEXT STOP: Rajasthan – Udaipur, Khumbalgarh, Ranakpur & Jodhpur.