Aurangabad / Japanese tourists complain the journey to the Ajanta is “very painful”

The famous Ajanta Caves are beautiful, but the journey to the site is “very painful”, tourists from Japan have complained.

A group of six Japanese nationals visited the caves on Friday, located around 100 km from the district headquarters, where footfall has been going down due to poor condition of the key connecting road.

“Once we go back, we will surely recommend to our countrymen to visit the Ajanta Caves, but we will also let them know about the bad condition of the Aurangabad-Ajanta road. We will ask them to check the road conditions before planning the trip,” tourist Sakai Hiroshi told PTI.

“It took us just about two hours to see the caves, which are beautiful, but we spent eight-long hours on our journey, which gave us body pain,” he said, speaking through translator Dayanand Upadhyay.

Mr. Hiroshi said he would like to visit the caves again, but only after the main road is smoothly operational. “Our government is also spending money here and tourism is a key area for that. The Indian government should check this and resolve the bad road issue fast,” he said.

Oda Yaoyi, a Tokyo-based woman who was part of the tourist group, said, “During the entire journey on the Aurangabad-Ajanta road, we couldn’t find a toilet facility till we reached near the caves.” “The buses are big and tourists (arriving early) need to wait for a sufficient number of passengers before these vehicles start,” she said. Instead, they can operate smaller vehicles which will help visitors save some time, she suggested.

Mr. Upadhyay, a Delhi-based guide, said earlier when the road was not so bad, he would visit once or twice every a month with Japanese tourists. “But this year, this is just my second trip to the caves,” he said.

An official of the Public Works Department here said last week that the work order for repairing two lanes of the Aurangabad-Jalgaon road with paved shoulders was given in June 2017 and was supposed to be completed by June this year. In the meantime, this work was expanded to four lanes in January this year. “Now, a new deadline of January 2021 has been set up for completion of the work,” he had said.