The road less traveled - cycling to Mahakoota

There are many ways to explore the area around Badami - the cradle of Hindu temple architecture. Obviously, if you are a tourist, you don't really want to be walking, or cycling or doing anything hard like that - you'd want to sit in a little auto rickshaw and be bumped to deathdeath around the different sites as fast as possible for an outrageous amount of money that could probably feed the entire village for the next week or so. But, if you like to see things the slow way, you might be able to get them to rent you a pair of bicycles for the day, along with some very general instructions on where you might want to go.

So, we set out one fine morning after many warnings from the man at the hotel...."you should buy food to eat along the way, bananas and biscuits, because there will be no food at all where you are going..." Now, being seasoned Indian travellers, we have difficulty thinking of any village so small it doesn't have some little snack stall with tasty things for us. "Well," he said "there will be only INDIAN food, and it might be SPICY".... ooooh now we are really worried. Only Indian food, how terrible for us! (we should have kept this in mind when he did recommend the hotel restaurant which served bland and unpalatable "pseudo-Indian" food).

After about one hour of fiddling with the bike (including a trip down to the local bike repairmen) we finally headed out along the beautiful country road that connects Badami with Banashankari, a little temple dedicated to the goddess. Once we managed to get out of the busy traffic of the dusty downtown the road became much quieter, with graceful trees arching over is, and with only the occasional bullock cart or herd of goats sharing the road with us.

The most beautiful thing about this temple was a 1500 year old water tank, about a kilometer square, surrounded by stairs and guarded by rows of ancient stone pillars. The tank is still full, and although its original intention was to provide a place for people to bathe before going to the the temple, it now also functions as a local Laundromat and a swimming pool.

From there, we headed out to Mahakoot, a sacred pilgrimage site dedicated to lord Shiva. Upon entering the little temple courtyard we ran into a young priest who volunteered to show us around the place and tell us all about it. Back in the Chalukiyan era you had to make a choice: you could either be a follower of Vishnu or of Shiva. This, as the priest explained, is like the difference between Sunni and Shiite, and "Roman or Catholic"... well, apparently the dudes here were all Shaivites (followers of Shiva), judging by the hundred of lingams scattered around the place. A lingam (see right) is a phallic-looking pillar that represents lord Shiva, and is usually the main icon found in Shiva temples. Across from the Shivalinga, you will always find Nandi, Shiva's loyal bull vehicle, of whom Kim is rather fond (see below)

Apart from all of the above, one of the main highlights of going to this temple is the beautiful little spring water pool in the middle of the courtyard. It's meant to have curing and purifying powers, or, in other words, people don't use it for their laundry. Boaz hopped in for a short swim, Kim came along more reluctantly, being expected, out of modesty, to swim fully clothed and didn't have anything else to change into.

The place is well known for its powers of fertility (possibly because of all the lingams lying around), and our priest decided that we were obviously in need of help. He took us through the temple, and explained to us how when a couple wants children they come to the temple, and put a rupee coin in a little silver crib hanging next to the main lingam, and they rock it together. I am sure many of you will be happy to know that we followed all the rituals - you never know when you might need a bit of help in the future, and since we didn't think that we'd be able to come back any time soon we , and put a TWO rupee coin in the crib. The good news is that this fertility treatment is really affordable. The bad news is that you are expected to come back with your offspring and shower the lingam with many thousands of rupees. (Our first family vacation?)

The priest also invited us home for lunch. He pulled a mobile phone from somewhere under his dhoti, and called his wife back home in the village to say that company was coming. We rested a bit and then headed to the little village on his shiny, spiffy, bright red motorcycle. He lived in a two-room mud house, along with his wife, two children, and their cow. His wife had prepared a typical humble village repast, composed of jowar roti - a local flat bread made of sorghum, or as our friend called it, a "hungry", some dal, fiery red chilly paste to mix into it, and very tasty peanut chutney accompanied by curd from the cow sitting in the same room with us. It was probably one of the best meals we have had here, simple, yet tasty. After an extra helping of "hungry" and an an other soak at the temple pool, we headed back to our mosquito-ridden hotel in Badami, were we watched the the sun go down over the palm trees.

Barfi: You may not have realized it, but our blog also awards prizes to the best participants. Dorothea, for all of her excellent information on the Lambani women, is going to be (in the distant future) the proud recipient of a pair of original Lambani anklets with red embroidery, antique 2 paisa coins and lots of jingly jangly things! Congratulations Dorothea!