This is the river that fills the Daulautabad Fort moat.

This is pretty much the most beautiful place I've ever been.

So... four days and 342 pictures later, I'm back from the Ajanta and Ellora Caves. We spent about 16 hours of it on a bus.

Our first stop on the trip was to the Daulautabad Fort. It was pretty impressive. It was basically a medieval Indian castle, founded in the 11^th century A.D. Generally, I start to lose interest in historical things when it's too far past Jesus, but I couldn't help but be fascinated by this castle. I'm very much a Classicist, so I have to admit, I spent a lot of time comparing it to what Rome would have had... and I'm not quite sure what I came up with. Rome and India seem to have had completely different ways of thinking. In Rome, they kind of had the philosophy that they'd build a very huge, very pretty wall. If you were not intimidated enough by that wall, Rome had a huge, undefeated army that probably already conquered you while you were contemplating the pretty wall. The Daulautabad Fort was kind of set up on the principle that they built a wall... and if you got past it, there was another wall... and then 59 trick doors that led to empty space... and then there was a trip-step to add some chaos to your ranks... and then a couple of moats with random places designed to make you fall into them... and then there was a labyrinth (complete with bats... it was amazing... Daedalus would be proud) that tricked you into fighting your own men... and then you'd find a staircase leading to a small defense that would pick off one by one anyone who hadn't self-destructed yet. There were just two entirely different ways of thinking.

Our second day, we took an 2 hour bus ride to Ajanta where we looked at a bunch of cool cave-temples. There was an amazing waterfall that some of us hiked back to see. That was pretty much the most epic experience ever.

Day three, we saw some more cool cave temples at Ellora, and then I took a really long nap.

Day four, we spent six hours on a bus. Again.

That waterfall in the other pictures?  This is me behind it.