Day 11: January 29

While we were recovering a bit, we got a call from the reception inviting us to breakfast. It turned out that a free breakfast was included in the room rate. Breakfasts in non-touristy India are, of course, quite peculiar — there’s no traditional fried eggs here, let alone oatmeal, so we had to eat the traditional breakfast of the Maharashtra region (where we are now) — upma! Upma is a coarse semolina porridge with vegetables, and it turned out to be surprisingly delicious, just spicy…

After breakfast I lay down for a nap, but for some reason Volchiy couldn’t sleep, so he sat down to work. Then we sat a little while on the balcony. We decided to go and check out the situation with the buses to the caves. The bus station is only a kilometer from our hotel. On the way we found a supermarket; we hadn’t been in a store for more than 10 days! Supermarkets in India are a big rarity, we bought everything from vendors in little stalls.

After we found out about the buses, we had to decide what to do next. It was around 4 o’clock, and it seemed too early to go home, so we decided to ask how much it would cost to get to Bibi Ka Maqbara — a miniature copy of the Taj Mahal.

We made arrangements with an auto-rickshaw driver and set off. Volchiy really wanted to see a copy of the Taj Mahal. Bibi Ka Maqbara is known as the “Taj Mahal of the poor,” built as a mausoleum and very much resembling the Taj Mahal.

However, it is much smaller in size and has few marble elements; and to recreate the white color, they used lime, which of course has long since flaked off over the years, and so the mausoleum now looks quite shabby.

But still, the building is impressive. First of all, because of the shape of the dome. Secondly, there is a very beautiful green area here. Thirdly, (of course it’s not the Taj) the building still looks majestic, I just don’t quite understand why build such beauty for a person who has died…

Actually, I thought Aurangabad was a fairly touristy city, since the famous Ellora and Ajanta caves are located nearby. But so far we haven’t seen a single tourist.

There were a lot of people at Bibi, but all of them were Indians. I hoped that here we wouldn’t cause such a stir as in Maheshwar, but no such luck. Everyone wanted to take photos with us again, from young to old!

At first we walked around Bibi along the perimeter, and then sat in the farthest corner to watch Bibi and the local people. But even there they spotted us and didn’t let us sit quietly, think, and look around. People kept coming up to take photos.

Then a crowd of schoolchildren came, they ran up to us shouting “hello-hello” and started shaking our hands. It was so fun. A bunch of shouting kids greeting you by the hand one after another.

Everyone asks the same thing — where we’re from, what our names are, and whether we like it in India — so by the end you get really tired of answering the same questions a hundred times, but what can you do? For people here, talking to us is such a joy. There were even some very elderly Indians, and from the way they looked at us, it was clear that they were probably seeing a white person for the first time.

Everyone shook our hands, thanked us for the photos, and looked at us almost with admiration. Anyone with self-esteem issues — welcome to India — I promise you, you won’t go unnoticed here and you’ll be treated almost like Angelina Jolie.

I was very tired of so much attention to my person; I wanted to hide somewhere and just look at Bibika, but wherever we went, as soon as we stopped or sat down, someone would immediately come up and ask to take a photo. Phew.

In the end, we escaped to a green lawn, where we could sit quietly for a while. From there, the whole of Bibika was clearly visible. Even though they say it is the Taj of the poor, it is still very beautiful, especially in the rays of the setting sun.