Ajanta’s 30 caves are chipped out of an almost sheer-sided, horseshoe-shaped cliff above the River Waghora, hidden by jungle and known only to tribespeople until their ‘rediscovery’ by a British tiger hunting party in 1819. Ellora, 100 km away, is significantly more sprawling, with over 100 caves burrowing into a gently sloping escarpment in the Charanandri Hills. Taken together, the two chart the evolution and coexistence of India’s great religions, from Ajanta’s earliest Buddhist caves in the first and second centuries BCE, to the culmination of Ellora’s mind-bogglingly ornate Hindu temples in 1000 CE.

Now, we’re pretty careful with superlatives, but here, they’re earned. These are the most spectacular rock-cut cave temples anywhere in the world, and the finest gallery of art surviving from any ancient civilization (you heard us, Egypt, Greece and Rome). They contain not just delicate carvings, but extensive, richly colored frescoes that have lost little of their luster in the past 800 years. The excavation of Ellora’s chariot-shaped Kailash Temple alone was an unparalleled feat of engineering, requiring its 8th century builders to remove 200,000 tonnes of rock by hand. And we’ll say it again: nobody even knows they’re here!

Of course, ‘nobody’ is an exaggeration. Indians know they’re here, and they visit in droves. But you may well be one of only a handful of international visitors on any given day – and if you arrive early enough, you can have them to yourself.

Aurangabad (recently renamed as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar) is a bit of a ho-hum city, notwithstanding some rather interesting Mughal buildings dating from its heyday in the 17th century, while Ellora’s ‘town’ is little more than a clutch of hotels. Either makes a fair base, as the caves are the real attraction, but Dhyaana Farms knocks the socks off both. A working family farm just 15 minutes south of Ellora, it’s the kind of place you just don’t think you’ll find in India. Tranquil, peaceful, incredibly idyllic, and run by people with a vision for what sustainable, responsible tourism in India should be like, it’ll transform your experience of the region – guaranteed.