Aurangabad

We did get to see this man being paraded around on his horse as part of his wedding celebrations. Jason was dragged into the front of the party with the band, by some young boys. He daggy danced his pants off much to the amusements of the kids and much to the horror of the poor bloke in the posh turban stuck on the horse.

We visited the Bibi-Ka-Maqbara, more commonly called the "Poor Mans Taj." The tomb was built for the wife of the great Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb.

Whilst it is not as detailed as the Taj Mahal that Aurangzeb's dad built for his wife in Agra, it is still a pretty interesting place.

We quickly found ourselves the centre of attention. These school kids and cub scouts were very funny. They would shake our hands and stammer out a "Hello" before running off giggling (in a nice way).

This little chap kept saying "One photo please? One photo please?" Jason eventually gave in as his cheeky little face was irresistible. (Broody Jason?)

Our last stop on our day trip around town was the Panchakki (or water wheel). On paper it sounded like quite a feat of engineering but it was pretty lame. The highlight of the visit was the mosque out the back which tells the men to remove their shoes, and the ladies to leave theirs on, and take a hike. Very PC. We think this Islam thing is going to really catch on!

On the return trip from a pretty full day at Ellora caves we thought we would pop-in, (as Jason sold it to Claire), and explore Daulatabad Fort. The fort was built in the 14th century by Mohammed Tughlaq, who had the genius idea of walking his entire population over 1,000 kms from Delhi to here. Many died on the way, and those who survived would have been pretty pissed when he changed his mind and marched them all back 17 years later.

We are sending this photo of Claire to, "Chicks and Ammo" to see if they want it for their upcoming Cannon special.

We felt like we really bonded with the locals today. We were asked several times for Backsheesh (a bribe) by government employees, for which we have no idea what they were going to give us for their bribe. There were a lot of half-heartedly fenced off tunnels which Jason explored.  This caused a commotion as the man ontop of the fort stayed at a distance whistling for Jason to get out.

As you can see from the photo this dumb-struck, or maybe just dumb, local man can't stop gawping at us.

Claire's all ready to swing her water bottle with fury after yesterdays groping at Ajanta.

To get to the top of the fort, we had to walk through a pitch black spiral staircase, cut into solid rock. Potential invaders who made it to the tunnel would have been met with boiling water, burning coals; or in the case of those who finally took the fort by force, a handshake, for appropriately bribing the guard.

We were just met by these bats and screaming school kids. Thankfully for Claire, their were no men with busy hands!

Auranzeb's tomb in Khuldabad, was a very low key affair compared to his wife's magnificent tomb the Bibi-ka-Maqbara. His dying wishes were for a plain earth grave for this most humble of men.