While in Gujrat, we spent few days in Ahmedabad and the city has it's own stepwell called Dada Harir Vav. While lot of people visit Adalaj ni Vav in Gandhinagar and Rani ki Vav in Patan, we found Dada Harir Vav a good place to visit in Ahmedabad as all of these are different from each other. This photo journey will take you through details about Dada Harir Vav in Ahmedabad, how to reach this stepwell, other places to explore around Dada Harir Vav and some tips to make your visit special to beautiful stepwell of Ahmedabad city of Gujrat.
It's little away from hustle bustle of the town but still approachable. Let's talk about how to reach Dada Harir Vav from other parts of the Ahmedabad. Ola and Uber operate in Ahmedabad city of Gujrat which means it's a very easy option to book a cab and reach Dada Harir vav from any place. Auto-rickshaw is another convenient and cost-effective option in Ahmedabad. Auto would be cheaper than app based taxis in Ahmedabad city of Gujrat.
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It was very easy for us to get an Auto-richshaw from old town of Ahemdabad, so we took auto to reach Dada Harir Vav. While we had to come back, we couldn't get an auto. Although there were few autos parked but it seems everybody wanted to have a lunch break. We booked ola and that was pretty quick & convenient option.
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There is no entry ticket for Dada Harir Vav in Ahmedabad and it's maintained by Archeological Survey of India. The day we visited Dada Harir Vav, a group of art students were there at different levels of the stepwell noticing beautiful architecture of the stepwell and drawing it on their canvases. Above photograph shows one of the artists capturing beauty of Dada Harir Vav in her notebook. The red adds beautiful contrast to overall photograph.
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There is a caretaker at Dada Harir Vav who doesn't mind telling you some stories about the stepwell and show the place around. If you take his time, do pay some tip as that's the small token of appreciation we can give to encourage good behaviours around us. At times, it's debatable if the person should focus on taking care of the place but if he can do both why not. We should enable such people work hard for overall good of the society.
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Many of these photographs may seem posed but they are not. Let me take the credit that while I observe a good place to click a photograph and I sense that Vibha is going to be there, I wait and I prompt her to look at me, as if I have discuss something :) . She gets irritated at times but at the end if I get a reasonably well composed shot, she is ok :).
It was drizzling when we were at Dada Harir Vav in Ahmedabad and my phone did fantastic job at clicking this beautiful effect. Please have a look at above photograph with rain drops around Dada Harir Vav. Thanks to the lighting condition which made shutter speed go slow to capture the scene well and also capture these rain-drops beautifully.
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Above photograph is closed from bottom of the stepwell, and from the place closer to water tank. As you can make out, it's circular at the core and looks wonderful from bottom of the stepwell. This certainly covers 2nd floor and above and not the complete view what human eyes can see & enjoy.
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Above photograph is probably clicked from 2nd level of the stepwell from bottom. Each floor is spacious and at times it's hard to guess how many floors you need to go down to see water-body.
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These stepwells are deep to access ground water at that level and the architecture signifies how to preserve rainwater for longer period of time and that's why you would find different styles of stepwells in different parts of the country. All levels of the stepwell have enough light and air. That's the beauty of the architecture. Imagine that someone has to take out water at any point of the day from 5th level and natural light is only source to see water & pick it. Above photograph is showing roof-top of the core of the stepwell with light coming in.
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Dada Harir Vav is a sandstone structure in Solanki architectural style and this beautiful stepwell has five levels or stories. I personally prefer to call them levels, not sure why :). The actual waterbody of the stepwell is octagonal in plan at the top, built on intricately carved large number of pillars.
Entrance of Dada Harir Vav is from the East and there are two spiral staircases in West which are near the well & very narrow. We took one of them to reach the top of the stepwell. The scary part of bats roaming around and as we entered the spiral staircase, a dozen of bats flying out. Vibha has not in favour of taking the stairs but I would convince here.
Above photograph is clicked from the top of the stepwell and you can count the levels in has along with square section in the bottom which used to contain water.
Above photograph shows the view of the stepwell at ground level as 5 levels of the vav are underground and created after excavation. This photograph shows the length of Dada Harir Vav and if you notice closely, There is one section with roof and then blank. This is done 5 times for 5 levels of the stepwell. This the reason that stepwell as light till 5th level under the ground level.
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