My first mission today was to find an obscure 14th century construction just a block or two from my hotel (according to the map). I walked right past the turn, but when I doubled back, there was a guy there who wanted to help. He led me toward the well (it's a far more elaborate structure than its name implies), explaining that as a tourist stop it was technically closed on Sundays.
No problem: one of the locals can fetch a ladder and get me in, my new host told me. I scanned the walls and read the "closed Sundays" sign posted on the front gate, while a neighbor fetched a ladder and my host asked me where I was from. When the hand-lashed bamboo ladder came it fell right into place--clearly this was a standard gig.
As I stood before a wall, about to climb into god-knows-what, I allowed a passing thought for my safety (in six days here, these thoughts had become increasingly nonchalant, but ever-present). Then I headed up the ladder after my host and the neighbor, and followed them along a precarious wall to the top of the well itself.
They had history and folklore to share about the well: in 600 years it couldn't help but build up a lasting mystique. Hardly just a hole in the ground, step wells like this are ornately decorated and laid-out structures. Not entirely unlike, now that I think about it, the Roman Baths in England.
There were bats and dark passageways and pools of water rumored to be bottomless. When I'd had my fill, I tipped the neighbor. I had a tip for my host as well, but he insisted I give it to the neighbor, who was "very poor and needs it much more."
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