Road Trip: Ellora,
Duration of Trip: 3 Days
Distance Covered (to&fro): 956 KM
Starting Point: Malad, Mumbai
Points of Interest: Ellora, Daulatabad
Acco: Hotel Janki, Aurangabad, Rs 1500/night
Travel Time
To Aurangabad: 9:30 Hours, 6AM – 3:30PM
To Mumbai: 10 Hours, 10 AM – 8:00 PM
Choice of Route:
1. NH3, SH24, SH16, NH211, 378 KM, Mumbai, Nashik, Manmad, Aurangabad
2. Mumbai Pune Expy, SH27, SH60, 407 KM, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmednagar, Aurangabad
Route 1 is shorter, maintains the right direction all along and as per google maps, takes lesser time. I, however, chose Route 2 because of 1 key reason, Route 1 becomes 2 lane after Nashik and quality of roads is not as good (as told by friends). 
Route 2 is longer, appears misdirected as it goes south east initially whereas the destination is north east, however, it takes the trusted Mumbai Pune Expy and post that is 4 lane with dividers all along. The road is good, and once you get past 40 km of Pune, the traffic is less and one can drive reasonably close to 100 kmph all the way. What to watch out for: Something I noticed on the state highways is that there is traffic coming in the wrong direction sometimes. Though they are careful and attempt to drive on the curbs, alertness on your part helps.
April is not the most pleasant time to travel in and around Mumbai and specially, if you are heading for the interiors, do pack lots of drinks, a cold case would be ideal. Temperatures on the road and around Aurangabad were hovering around 40 degrees and the ac of my car was not always able to keep up, so I had to let in fresh air whenever we were at higher altitudes. There are very almost no hills/ghats to negotiate on the route I took, the surroundings were very dry and either farmlands or low level grassy hills. Ahmednagar was the only big city and the route goes inside the city, which will slow down the speed, but it gets over within 15 mins-20 mins. The high point of my trip was Ellora. The road from Aurangabad to Ellora is very good not only for the condition of the road but also for the vegetation and topography. Ellora has 33 caves, and in my short trip, i knew it was not going to possible to visit all of them, so i had selected a few caves beforehand. We went through caves 2, 6, 7, 10, 12, 15, 16, 21 and 22. We had plans to visit 30, 32 and 33 as well, but the route to these was blocked and we could not visit them. These rock sculptures were created between 5th and 11th centuries with caves 1-12 belonging to Buddhism, 14-29 to Hinduism and 30-34 to Jainism. One has to be there to feel the sculptures, touch them to feel the quality of work, there are caves that are were made into 3 storeys and sculptures done on the walls. It amazed me to think of the kind of planning and thought that went into designing these caves and the images. You can find some pictures taken by me here. 
Also visited Daulatabad fort and Bibi ka Maqbara during my stay, however, felt that I should have gone back to Ellora rather for caves 30-33. Ajanta, which is famous for cave paintings is ~100 km from Aurangabad and is on radar. Will cover the rest of Ellora caves on that trip. It was a very satisfying trip to one of the most beautiful historical places in India. I can still feel myself walking inside the caves sometimes.
