Badami watering hole

The night we arrived in  Badami, Biri took us to what he called `the pond`. It was surreal to sit at the top of the steps that surrounded the pond resting and admiring the night sky. The walk to get to the pond was a walk through what I have come to know now as a typical Indian town. It was hard to see the poverty and struggles that these people live with every day. The thing was that they did not seem sad, this was the only life that they knew. When we walked by, people looked up and smiled and continued on  with their lives.

When we returned to the pond the next day, we saw how vast it was and how important it was to this community. The women were washing their clothes and laying them to dry on the steps and  the boys were washing the cows. This was their source of water. We saw the women carrying huge containers of water on their heads back to their humble homes for the family. We visited  a beautiful temple  that was at one end of the pond which a lovely lady took us on a tour of. Her husband was the caretaker of this temple and now that he had died, it was her job.

The village of Badami from above.The noise coming from the town was incredible. We took  video to remember how bustling this packed community really was. It was loud because of the amount of people, cars, motor bikes, cows, dogs and pigs that there were in a relatively small space.



This is the pond. The girls were washing the clothes in the water and then they would  pick them up and slam them on the cement steps. I could not figure out what this was for? They then created this beautiful mosaic piece of art  by placing the sari's along the steps to dry.

The Pond

The Temple

These carvings on this wall were templates for the temples that were eventually built around the pond. It was amazing to look at these carvings and know that eventually they became these intricate temples. These people had vision!