AURANGABAD Dust Never Sleeps

Not a place to hang around in, other than as a useful hub for the Ajanta and Ellora cave complexes.

It is extremely dusty here. The roads, pavements, buildings, trees and plants are coated.

Whether it is cement powder (there's a national obsession with building everything from the stuff), dried soil and earth (as there is very little rainfall), volcanic ash or nuclear fallout - we don't know, but it is grim.

Everyone coughs here, and pity the poor inhabitants who must permanently suffer the dust and pollution.

The crops are largely of hardy corn, or cotton for the world-renowned Paithani sari weaving industry, and little wonder, as not much else would survive.

We visit Bibi Ka Maqara the "mini" Taj Mahal, a cute, cut-price version of the real thing.

In this story, the grieving widower's old man refused to cough up for the full marble version, so they used stuccoed lime stone and brick instead.

It's still grand and impressive in its own right, just don't look too closely.

The other highlight is a water mill, to which we gave a swerve (Lonely Planet suggested it may be of interest to civil engineers), and the old 'bazaar'. We couldn't find it anyway, and don't think we missed much.

Still, we were recommended a fab Maharashstra thali at local That Baat restaurant.

Only one item on the menu, served up on  already laid out dishes, each one filled by a different uniformed waiter, including curried buttermilk (an acquired taste), plus fruit and custard for dessert. Around £2.70 per person - delicious!

One other plus point about Aurangabad was that our hotel was coincidentally next door to the bus station, where we caught our dustcloud out of town.