We reached Ajanta cave bus stand surrounded by high hills from all side. One can have a taste of good palkis* are there. Unlike Ellora here drinking water, toilet facility and lighting arrangements are provided at required places. Temperature is comfortable here and no strong stinking smell. We are required to remove shoes before entering every cave so it is advised to carry only no hill in hill station*. There are queues before cave-1&2. Cave inside is partly illuminated because of paintings. You can carry one small torch or your guide will have the same. Other caves are not so dark and not so much crowd at a moment but still there will be some less sensitive people in between lens and object to prevent you from taking a clean picture. Do not hesitate to request them to get aside. Please remember use of flash is strictly banned here even for naturally illuminated caves. The return route is almost in plain and on the way there are vendors selling guava and cucumber, have a taste!
Ajanta, Ellora and Aurangabad surrounding places is suitable for a wide age group of people from journey point of view. But everyone can not enjoy and to be specific only few can. The places are not like red roses on green garden which will look beautiful to every one passing by. In a gross view if stone is taken apart then such creations can easily be made in other constructing material like POP with better perfection accuracy surface finish and colorful too. What I am insisting is do not to take family members there who can not enjoy. First take them to some other nearby caves – Elephanta, Canheri caves or Karla caves etc and see the reaction else Ajanta-Ellora visit will be a memorable painful journey.
Anyway we returned back to hotel around 6-00 pm, after taking dinner our driver dropped us at Adalat road around 9-30pm. Bus came in time and inside we found there is shortage of blankets in this bus but we managed by sharing comfortably. I realized this bus does not have a good suspension.
I feel semi sleeper i.e. pushback with leg support is a better option compared to sleeper for up to over night journey. We get better control on our position in sitting posture.
Finally we are back in Mumbai on 30/12/2009 at around 4-30 am.