woke too late to do too much. Bus to Dalautabad (huge hill-top fortress, involving a dark passage). There's a big military area to the soth-east of Aurangabad. It's a busy city with many touting for business ... Panchakki (ancient water-heel/aqueduct) ... Bibi-ka-thingy (can't remember)
Another bumpy bus-ride (this time only 8 miles) took Hans and I to the site of 'some of the greatest carnage in the region'. The Wikipedia article sums it up.
I was particularly impressed with the black hole: 50 metres or so of twisting, utterly dark passage which attackers would have to negotiate to get towards the centre of the fort. The darkness was enhanced by soot from guides' torches.
I remember being very unimpressed with the attitude of a couple of tourists we met near the top of the fort. I haven't encountered anything so patronising since I last looked in the mirror!
I've lashed the photos captioned looking around into a panorama.
Hans and I bussed back to Aurangabad to see the town's two major tourist attractions. The first was the Bibi ka Maqbara, a supposedly blatant rip-off of the Taj Mahal. I was very impressed and glad of this - I wouldn't need to Agra to see the real thing in the company of so many other rubber-neckers. I recall some locals being very amused by me photographing some pigs in the street on the way to the Bibi ka Maqbara. Just what would they have made of Marianne?
The Panchikki is meant to be an ancient water-mill, part of the Dargah of Baba Shah Musafir (Aurangzeb's sufi spiritual guide). We didn't get to see the grinding action, just the tank that feeds it. Hans went into the mosque but I didn't feel comfortable about going into a religious place, especially one belonging to a religion to which I have no affiliation.
© (except the blatantly ripped-off bits) Random Bozo 2006