Rajasthan|India

July 2017

Our trip to India saw us take some long and sometimes convoluted journeys between the stops on our itinerary. One of these journeys was to see a ‘stepwell’ called Chand Baori.

Charlotte sold it to us by showing us pictures of this Escher-like structure. With not much persuasion required, but a little more planning, we added the stop to our journey from Jaipur to Agra.

A ‘stepwell’ is a water-harvesting stucture: multi-layered steps descending down to a pool. There are thousands of stepwells across India, although some are far better maintained than others, especially as their function is now obsolete.

We’d already seen one (Mahila Baag Jhalra) just outside the Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur. Even in its slightly dirty state, it was still an impressive and unique sight, so the idea of seeing one of India’s largest and best maintained stepwells, was appealing.

Built in the 8th or 9th century, Chand Baori has an impressive and very distinctive geometric pattern of steps snaking down to the well at the bottom. It is also one of the deepest stepwells - around 20 metres in depth.

Understandably, the steps down to the bottom are closed (imagine the Health & Safety requirements - not nearly enough handrails!), and instead, we walked around the top, marvelling at the skill and precision required to build something so striking.

We only needed an hour or so there, but what a detour! We’d never seen anything like it - a subterranean marvel and a photographer’s dream. If you get the chance to visit, don’t hesitate.

The useful bits:

• Chand Baori isn’t too difficult to include into a trip, but it does require a bit of planning. The best information we found was online, rather than in our Lonely Planet book.
• We took the bus to Sikandra, and then a 15 minute taxi to Abhaneri village and Chand Baori.
• The bus cost 75 rupees (around £0.80) and took 90 minutes.
• A note, there are plenty of (expensive!) jeeps hanging around at the bus stop, but we found many more taxis by just walking down the road to the taxi rank.