There has been a great victory. After months of trying, I have finally beaten Edd at backgammon. Apparently we are now playing for best of three, I have been relishing the victory (and dodging a rematch) all evening...
Of all the places to have my first backgammon victory the setting was spectacular. Sitting outside a temple on the top of a cliff face overlooking Badami town, an enormous 5th century water tank (read lake) below us, and the fort where Tipi Sultan hid all his treasure from the British behind us.
It's tricky to know where to begin when describing Badami. We arrived early in the morning on the night train from Mysore. The train station is slightly out of town, and we had to take a tuk tuk to get to the hotel. Even at 7.45am on a Sunday morning the main street was chaos. The ratio of cows, oxen and pigs in the road soon confirmed that this place was a new level of bonkers, with the four legged beasts seemingly having a better grasp of rudimentary Highway Code than their two legged counterparts.
Having dropped our bags off at the hotel, and had a much needed shower we headed up into the old town. Badami was once the capital of the Chalukyan empire, which stretched from Tamil Nadu in the south east to Gujarat in the north. Its heyday was from 540-757 AD. The old town is built round a 5th century water tank, which is essentially a reservoir with steps leading down to he water on three sides. The steps were continually full with a least two ladies beating their laundry into submission, a man fishing and some children jumping into swim to cool off in the hot weather. Around the edge of the tank are large red cliffs, which look like the product of an affair between the state of Arizona and Petra in Jordan. In the morning we climbed up one set of cliffs to see four cave temples, which were carved from the rock. Sitting in the cool of the cave it is possible to look out across the water tank and watch the world go by. Given the echo from the steps and the valley the ladies beating their laundry in the water at the bottom of the steps sounded distinctly like gunfire.
In the afternoon we walked around the tank visiting the small, plainer temples. At all times we were avoiding the 'Monkey menace.' Gangs of monkeys are very keen on stealing water bottles (and probably any other thing of value they can get there hands on.) Our shoes (which we took off to go into one of the temples) were only saved by the quick thinking of the temple care taker and a small scythe from the pilfering monkeys.
We then climbed up the left hand cliffs, and it all became a little bit like entering an Indiana Jones movie. Sadly Harrison Ford was nowhere in sight- sorry Edd..Stairs cut out of the rock led off into passage ways that opened into temples. The main path was being rebuilt and a long line of workers carried cement bags on their heads from the bottom of the cliffs to the fort at the top. Even though it was 5pm at this point the temperature was probably still in the mid thirties, and it looked pretty unpleasant work.
Heading back into the town at dusk we walked through the old town houses, which were interspersed with more ruins. The houses themselves looked ancient, with flat roofs and ornate wooden doors. They were interspersed with more gates and rubble from the ruins.
I had better go now as Edd wants another match of backgammon... We head off to Hampi at 7am tomorrow.
Of all the places to have my first backgammon victory the setting was spectacular. Sitting outside a temple on the top of a cliff face overlooking Badami town, an enormous 5th century water tank (read lake) below us, and the fort where Tipi Sultan hid all his treasure from the British behind us.
It's tricky to know where to begin when describing Badami. We arrived early in the morning on the night train from Mysore. The train station is slightly out of town, and we had to take a tuk tuk to get to the hotel. Even at 7.45am on a Sunday morning the main street was chaos. The ratio of cows, oxen and pigs in the road soon confirmed that this place was a new level of bonkers, with the four legged beasts seemingly having a better grasp of rudimentary Highway Code than their two legged counterparts.
Having dropped our bags off at the hotel, and had a much needed shower we headed up into the old town. Badami was once the capital of the Chalukyan empire, which stretched from Tamil Nadu in the south east to Gujarat in the north. Its heyday was from 540-757 AD. The old town is built round a 5th century water tank, which is essentially a reservoir with steps leading down to he water on three sides. The steps were continually full with a least two ladies beating their laundry into submission, a man fishing and some children jumping into swim to cool off in the hot weather. Around the edge of the tank are large red cliffs, which look like the product of an affair between the state of Arizona and Petra in Jordan. In the morning we climbed up one set of cliffs to see four cave temples, which were carved from the rock. Sitting in the cool of the cave it is possible to look out across the water tank and watch the world go by. Given the echo from the steps and the valley the ladies beating their laundry in the water at the bottom of the steps sounded distinctly like gunfire.
In the afternoon we walked around the tank visiting the small, plainer temples. At all times we were avoiding the 'Monkey menace.' Gangs of monkeys are very keen on stealing water bottles (and probably any other thing of value they can get there hands on.) Our shoes (which we took off to go into one of the temples) were only saved by the quick thinking of the temple care taker and a small scythe from the pilfering monkeys.
We then climbed up the left hand cliffs, and it all became a little bit like entering an Indiana Jones movie. Sadly Harrison Ford was nowhere in sight- sorry Edd..Stairs cut out of the rock led off into passage ways that opened into temples. The main path was being rebuilt and a long line of workers carried cement bags on their heads from the bottom of the cliffs to the fort at the top. Even though it was 5pm at this point the temperature was probably still in the mid thirties, and it looked pretty unpleasant work.
Heading back into the town at dusk we walked through the old town houses, which were interspersed with more ruins. The houses themselves looked ancient, with flat roofs and ornate wooden doors. They were interspersed with more gates and rubble from the ruins.
I had better go now as Edd wants another match of backgammon... We head off to Hampi at 7am tomorrow.
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