Day 297 Aurangabad - Ellora - Aurangabad

Time for a short cycle trip: I left my luggage at the hotel and met up with Hadet who had managed to rent an Atlas Royal bicycle from a bike shop. The bicycle was not in the best possible condition. But we gave it a try. Did not work out for long: the back tire kept its air for a whopping 4km. So just when we were cycling out of town we had to stop and push the bike back. As it was already noon we decided to bring the bicycle back to the shop and take a riksha to Ellora instead - this turned out to be a very good idea because the way was more mountainous than expected and walking around the caves of Ellora was exhausting enough.
Yep, now I understand why the travel guides read that yesterdays Aurangabad caves are nothing compared to Ellora.
The caves/rock-cut temples at Ellora are many, huge and incredibly amazing!
There are 3 groups: Buddhist, Hindu and Jain caves. As you enter the side you directly approach the biggest of all, the megalomaniac Kailash temple - actually the biggest rock-cut monolith in the world. I thought I had seen my fair share of rock-cut sights before - places like Petra in Jordan, Lalibela in Ethiopia and several smaller places in Turkey and Georgia. But this Kailash temple here still managed to make a lasting impression on me. 20 generations of workers cut this piece of art from top to bottom out of the rock using nothing but the most basic tools. It is a huge marvellous structure, adorned by wonderfully detailed carvings including stairways, bridges,... It is simply unbelievable that anyone could possibly envision such thing and find the means to make generations work on it.
There are several smaller - but still huge and impressive - hindu temples around it. A bit down the road the older buddhist caves start, some of them monasteries with several storeys. Most impressive of the buddhist structured is an assembly hall with a remarkably chapel-like shape and a ceiling with ribs which provides for a divine acoustic. Of course I had to try it out and started to sing, which eventually led to many Indian tourist making a lot of noise because they wanted to try it, too. After the buddhist group we made a short rest and drank some 2 liters of water before taking the riksha to the smaller, newer Jain caves - where newer means 800 - 1000 AD. Which are beautiful in their own right.  Here nearly all caves are connected through small tunnels and they have very specific, very filigree carvings - some typical Jain symbols I knew (e.g. Naked standing man) and some I did not know yet (e.g. some huges chalices).
Even though we were completely overtempled already we went to one last Hindu cave just minutes before the site closed. This one was pretty simple in decoration but huge and very interesting in layout: a pillared hall surrounded by 2 open courtyards which were cut from top to bottom.