Early rising today, with bags outside 1 hour before we leave on our long bus ride to the Rathambore National park. By our mapping, it looks like it will take over 6 hours to get there – but in reality it will take a lot more than that (more on that later) – so we are prepared with our charged up Kindles, extra power pack and my PC to try to do a little blogging. Haha.
As it turns out, there is far too much to do on the bus to try to read the Kindle, and eventually it is far too bumpy to even try to use the computer! First, Bhanu always has tons of information to impart upon us, and I’m not sure if it started today, but he has introduced us to Mulla Naseruddin, a 13th Century wise man from Turkey, whose wisdom is repeated all over Turkey and SE Asia. All his stories have a little humor (which leads me to believe he is a comedian, until Bhanu sets us straight on that little error) mixed in with a moral tale. As the tour progresses, everywhere we go and for every circumstance, Bhanu has a Mulla Naseruddin story for us – mostly including Naseruddin’s donkey, which just cracks me up.
So, we listen to Bhanu’s informative patter for hours (very willingly, I might add, he is wonderfully full of interesting and humorous info), while looking out the window watching scenes of India unspool before our eyes: A cow auction, an abandoned city across the distance, and general street scenes at different intersections and villages.
It takes well over 4 hours, including comfort stops to finally reach the Chand Baori stepwell in Abhaneri. It’s well worth the detour though. What an amazing place! The well was originally built in the 8th Century by King Chandra, but the enclosure wall, side verandah and entrance pavilion were added much later on by the Mughals, some time in the 1700’s. Regardless, it is a stunning example of creative architecture. Because Rajasthan is such an arid state, the well was created to preserve as much water as possible, and is 100 feet deep with 3500 steps covering 13 stories, making it one of the largest and deepest stepwell in India..
The buildings in the middle were used as royal resting places, while the rest of the community could lounge on the promenade flooring and arched porticoes surrounding the top of the well.
It’s hard to look away, the design is so captivating. And also so frightening. Even though the steps are all large and cantilevered into a double staircase configuration, it is still dizzying to look down at them and then imagine climbing down to get the water, not to mention back up with water jugs on your head. Phew, gives us the sweats just to think about it!
In the portico (pavilion) surrounding the stepwell are artifacts and carvings, that we assume come from the well itself, as you can see areas that need some restoration. We spend a few minutes perusing these carvings, letting Sunny loose to enjoy the beautiful day…
…before heading out to the little souvenir market outside the stepwell. There isn’t too much here, just the basic trinkets, although we do find a guy making lacquer bangle bracelets. It is the most amazing process, and we stand and watch him for about 5 minutes making the prettiest bangle – without even taking ONE picture or video. Sigh. We were all too enthralled. So much so, that I bought the bangle he made, Maggi bought some others for herself and then we bought some thinner bangles for gifts. The process was so amazing we ended up searching YouTube to find videos if anyone is so interested! Here is a long video and a short video for your viewing pleasure.
No comments:
Post a Comment