Thalai cauvery

when i was at the Dubare Elephant camp my family and i decided to visit Thala Cauvery, which was abt 70 odd Km from there. we went with great expectations of having a nice dip, thinking it was gng to be flowing water gushing out of a rock... alas.. thats exactly where all our expectations ended! what you see in the pic happens to be the Thala Cauvery! its not even the the big pond that you see there, its almost invisible in the pic. its a small square hole on the ground, right next to that mandap, where a pujari who sits and does puja. apparently its highly auspicious to take a dip in the pond and also have some of the water from that very small spring sprinkled on your head. so in the end, we jus didn't take a dip, but went to the temple up there and headed back! what is interesting about the Thala Cauvery is not this pond, but the small water hole that i have been mentioning... so it made me wonder as to where exactly the water for the river cauvery come from?? and you wouldn't believe it if i told you, it all.. i mean all of it that flows for almost 800kms comes from that small water hole!! apparently it never floods the place, but thru research they have found out that it seeps thru the rocks under the water hole, and joins at the base of the thala cauvery abt 12 km away at a place called bhagamandala with 2 other small rivers and that is what forms the cauvery.. but believe you me, not a drop of it is seen anywhere else except in bhagamandala- which is the proud host of a 300 year old temple!! you have to see it to believe it! with copper plated tiled sloped roofs, and entrance to each sannadhi half my height! isn't that amazing!!