We went to Aurangabad for couple of days during the Diwali weekend & I found the city to be execellent.So, thought of writing my first review here, as I have got lot of help from other’s reviews while planning my trip:-). And I will be more focussing on conveyance/accommodation/food and less description on the historical values of the places, because I feel the historic importance of places can be easily found on the net/any good books, but it is more difficult to find information about accomodation/food etc.
I am staying in Pune, it takes around 5-6 hrs on an average from Pune to Aurangabad via VOLVO.There are also state buses available running in frequent interval, these buses start from Shivaji Nagar bus stand.Suitable VOLVO bus timings are 6am(reaches A’bad around 12pm), midnight(reaches A’bad next morning 6am) and 2-3pm which reaches A’bad around 9pm. I was preferring to catch the early morning bus, so that I reach A’bad in the afternoon & I have sufficient time to find hotels etc.But because of the diwali rush, I had difficulty in getting bus tickets, otherwise in normal time, I think if you book your tickets in advance around 3-4 days, it would be sufficient. But in long weekends, it is better to plan as early as possible.
Anyway, so I took the 3pm bus & reach A’bad arond 10pm, the reason being heavy traffic & the roads from Ahmednagar to Aurangabad very bad, The road from Pune to Ahmednagar is quite good, but gets worse after Ahmednagar, so people should think before going there on their personal cars, but taking your personal car has its own advantage, which I will be describing below.
I had made early reservation in MTDC resort(standard double bed room 900/=. family room with 3bed 1000/= etc both Non-AC, did not check for the AC tariff).I booked over phone and it did not require me to pay anything in advance.There is also provision to book over net through MTDEC website, but I am not sure whether it requires any advance payment.One note for people booking over phone, please call them 2-3 days before your journey and also on the journey day/the day before to confirm your booking, because for telephone booking, there is no such booking confirmation document.
After reaching A’bad, I thought of looking for some other hotels, whether I get anything better in cheaper prices.But keeping the constraint in mind, that we reached there around 10pm & I went there with my wife, i preferred to stay at the MTDC hotel only, after visiting 1-2 hotels in stn road, which I did not like.But my suggestion would be, if you are in a group or reach there not as late as I reached, try to look for some more hotels, you might get better deal.
We reached there on Sat night.Sunday, we headed for Ajanta(this is closed on Monday).it is around 100km from Aurangabad, so it takes 5-6 hrs for to & fro journey and we were allowed hardly 3 hrs in Ajanta including lunch.We even did not get any time to look for some shopping.Having personal car really helps here, as it reduces your journey time and you also can spend more time in Ajanta.The road from Aurangabad to Ajanta is very good, my hands were itching like I want to drive here.
Monday we headed for Ellora tour(this is closed on Tuesday).I think the conducted tour for Ajanta and Ellora on buses are only arranged by MTDC, I checked in couple of pvt travel agency and they told they do not have their own tours.Ellora tour included Doulatabad fort, Ellora caves, Grishneshwar Temple, Khultabad, Bibi ba Makbara, Panchakki. This was a good tour, I did not feel like missing my own vehicle unlike I did in Ajanta.
There is also a place called Paithan, which I heard very good, but I did not go there, rather did not have time.
Feedback about the MTDC resort is that it is ok kind of, but I feel one should get better deal.In our room, there was no intercomm working, no geaser working etc.And there was 2 more family, who had AC room & they even did not have proper water supply in their room.I had my return bus on 6am, so requested for a wakeup call, did not get that even:-(So, my suggestion would be to look for better hotel, but the positive about the resort is it is very quiet, no concern of security etc.
Overall, I found the place to be quite good.A very good option for a weekend trip.If you have school/college going children/you are kind of peple fond of history/art/culture, you will find the place very good.Otherwise, you may find the place to be boring (This is completely my personal opinion).