Deccan Odyssey - Maharashtra Wild Trail

Mumbai has been India’s busiest port and industrial centre since the opening of the Suez Canal in 1969. As famous today for its traffic jams as its record-breaking movie industry, the Maharashtrian capital tends not to feature high up most visitors’ ‘must see’ list, but as a point of arrival has a lot to recommend it.

Before the last British troops garrisoned in the country slow-marched past it to board their ships back to Blighty in 1947, the Gateway of India – a huge triumphal arch in the colonial Indo-Saracenic style – was the first landmark most new arrivals from Britain set eyes on. The second was the famous Taj Mahal Hotel beside it. Both still stand tall on the waterfront, as emblematic of the city today as they were in Victorian times.

Still, more impressive monuments of the empire dominate the Kala Godha and Fort districts beyond the Gateway, among them Victoria Terminus, the world’s grandest railway station, and the white-domed Prince of Wales Museum (both nowadays renamed after the 17th century Maharashtrian warlord, Shivaji). Nearby, the vast High Court and University buildings line the palm-fringed Maidans, where cricketers in their whites play through the afternoons as commuters stream home through Churchgate Station.

Nowhere else in India does the distant past feel closer to the surface than the rock-cut complexes of Ellora and Ajanta, a day’s journey northeast of Mumbai. Carved from the mountains of the Deccan Plateau between the 2nd century BC and the 11th century AD, these temples, monasteries, and shrines hold a wealth of exquisite sculpture and painting, miraculously preserved in their remote settings – and guaranteed to induce goosebumps. In their day, the sites lay on busy trade and pilgrimage routes.

Ellora’s crowning glory, rising from the centre of a 2-km-long escarpment, is the Kailashnath Temple. The towering edifice looks as if it was built in blocks but was a megalith scraped laboriously from the bare rock over several decades. Unlike the other caves that honeycomb the surrounding cliffs, the carvers started from the top and cut downwards, sculpting the myriad deities, creatures, mythological scenes and complex ornamentation that adorns the great shrine as they progressed. Even today, the scale of the undertaking bewilders. In its time, Kailashnath must have inspired awe and spiritual ecstasy in the pilgrims that travelled across India to see it.

Aurangabad takes its name from the last great Mughal, Aurangzeb, who made this his capital at the end of the 18^th century. The latter years of Aurangzeb’s rule were dominated by conflict with the Maratha warlords further south, and the town, which he expanded and fortified with imposing battlements, made a better forward base from which to command his armies. Aurangzeb’s son, Prince Azam Shah, was responsible for the grand tomb on the outskirts, the Bibi-ka-Makbara – dedicated to his mother, Begum Rabi’a Daurani. Originally intended to rival the Taj Mahal but lacking the graceful proportions of its predecessor, the mausoleum ended up becoming a poor cousin. For all that, its Persian-style gardens offer a glorious place for a stroll in the late afternoon light. Other sights you’ll cover in today’s guided tour include an ancient cave complex, on a hill overlooking the city, a Mughal-era water mill and Sufi tomb, and a workshop where traditional, Persian-inspired ‘Himroo’ fabric is woven. The technique, which blends silk and cotton to sublime effect, was originally brought to the region when Mohammed Tuqluq, Sultan of Delhi, moved his capital here in the 13^th century.

With its miles of teak and bamboo forests, and open meadows of tall, bleached grass, the landscape of Pench National Park is straight off the pages of Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book. The reserve flanks the southern border of Madhya Pradesh and northern border of Maharashtra, encompassing a wild, uninhabited zone bisected by the Pench River.

The tiger population is stable and sightings occur daily here. Touring the park’s pot-holed roads in Jeeps, you’re also likely to come across packs of wild dogs and striped hyena, and herds of deer and antelope as well as the odd gaur (bison) or two lumbering through the forest.

The Taboba Tiger Reserve is the largest and oldest national park in Maharashtra, and sufficiently off-the-beaten track to have escaped the attention of the hordes, despite boasting one of the highest tiger density figures in the country. Nearly 87% of the reserve is covered in beautiful dry deciduous forest  – a renowned storehouse of rare trees and medicinal plants. Over 60 tigers live within and around the park borders, along with leopard, wild dog, striped hyena, gaur, nilgai, sambar, chital, civet cats, marsh crocodiles and nearly 200 species of birds.

Ajanta’s wonders are a more modest in scale than those of Ellora, but no less thrilling. Cut from the flanks of a horseshoe-shaped ravine, its caves are renowned above all for their ancient murals. The tempura paintings, created between 150 BC and 650 AD, depict a rich cross-section of life in the ancient world, from court scenes to processions, markets, great rituals, battles and boudoirs.

As one of the four sites of the Kumbh Mela bathing festival, Nasik ranks among India’s most visited pilgrimage sites. Even outside festival times, however, its sacred ghats on the banks of the Godavari River attract a steady stream of worshippers. You’ll be guided on a walk around the temples and markets surrounding Ram Kund, where Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes were immersed, and visit sites associated with famous episodes from the Ramayana.