Pongal 2016 Drive

Usually I celebrate Pongal in my native Tirunelveli, Tamilnadu in a very traditional way. This year thought of staying back in Bangalore and celebrate it here. Invited my parents and brother’s families here to bangalore. So, once after completing the pongal celebrations at home, we all decided to drive down to a very famous place in Karnataka which fascinates all the tourists by its stupendous architecture and sculptures. Belur and Halebidu are one of the most renowned tourist places around Bangalore and that’s where we drove to.

Day 1 :

Started from Bangalore by around 12:45PM, took a short lunch break after crossing Nelmangala- to have the packed lunch and marched ahead in full swing towards our accomodation in Hotel Raama, located in Hassan which is about 198 KM away from Bangalore. After reaching Udayapur, which is 20 KM ahead of Hassan, took a short tea break in Adyar Ananda Bhavan and managed to reach the hotel by 5 PM. The entire stretch of road from Bangalore till Hassan was neat and smooth.Except for a few kms, it was a 4 lane road all throughout. There are 4 toll gates before you reach Hassan, which would charge Rs. 41, 41, 40 and 30. The hotel was really good, and economical (compared to many other hotels of similar price in Bangalore). Food was served from the restaurant (Swaad restaurant) attached to that hotel and it was super delicious. That evening, we went to the famous Hasanamba temple which is in very proximity to the hotel, came back and had dinner and crashed out.

Day 2 :

Planned to leave as early as 8:30 AM from the hotel to visit Belur, but as with every plan, finally managed to leave the hotel by around 10:30 AM. Belur was only 31 odd kms from the hotel, and the route was pretty straightforward. We reached the temple around 11:15 AM or so. As soon as we enter the temple, we all were completely awestruck by the architecture of the temple. The Star shaped temple (which we had never seen before) completely blew us all away. The main deity in the temple is Sri. Chennakesava, had a quick darshan and started exploring the temple. You can take a guide in the temple which will cost you about Rs.300/- and its prepaid and you will be given with a receipt for the payment. We also took a guide and he did an excellent job in explaining each and every speciality of the architecture and sculptures. By the time, he completed we all were completely spellbound and were in great shock looking at this amazing masterpiece.

We left from Belur by 1:30 PM and set out to Halebidu which is about 16 KM from there. The road to Halebidu had some rough patches here and there, but overall it wasn’t a very bad driving experience. We reached Halebidu by 2:00 PM went to a small hotel named Hotel Krishna and munched something and then entered the halebidu temple. The main deity here is Sri. Hoysalaeshwara, and this temple is declared as Archealogical monument and there are no regular pooja happening in this temple. Again, this temple is another showcase of exemplary workmanship by the Hoysala architects/sculptors. Since, this is more of a monument/tourist attraction the area around this temple was pretty neatly maintained. It had neatly horticultured plants and lawn surrounding the temple. There was also a small museum of sculptures within the temple premises.

Halebidu has one more temple of similar style which was built for Sri. Kedareshwara. This temple was supposed to be the first one to have built by the Hoysala empire followed by a Jain temple located a few meters before this temple, followed by Hoysaleswara temple, followed by the Belur Chennakesava temple. But, this temple is not visited by many tourists, so this still has a lot of sculptures maintained in good condition

Left from Halebidu by about 5:15 PM and stopped by Kamat Upachar in Udaipur for a short tea break – which turned out to a longer break than we expected cos of those crazy hotel guys – and resumed the journey back to Bangalore by 6:30 PM. By the time we reached bangalore, it was 9:15 PM had dinner on the way and reached back home by 10:30 PM.Overall, this trip was very special and breathtaking for all of us.Though we have a seen a lot of old temples in Tamilnadu before, the temples we visited  now were completely different and left us all spellbound. Clicked a lot of photos of the sculptures in this temple and returned back with some awesome memories.

Trip in a nutshell :

• Origin -> Kaggadasapura, Bangalore
• Destination -> Belur, Halebidu Hassan
• Roundtrip : 480 KMS
• Route : Bangalore –> Nelmangala –> Hassan –> Belur –> Halebidu –> Hassan –> Nelmangala –> Bangalore
• Toll charges -> 41, 41, 40, 30
• Cars : Xcent and Grand i10
• Accomodation : Hotel Raama, Hassan

New year 2016 Drive

Its so refreshing to begin a new year by visiting a new place. It will definitely give you a new perspective. This time it is more special than the previous new year trips for primarily two reasons one, first time went on a trip with parents and second being the first time in the new car. For the past 5 years I have been on a multiple trips on every new year in bike and all the places I had been were coincidentally a place which had a connection with river Cauvery. The place we visited this time is a different place in its entirety. This is one of the most sought after place for architecture/monument/photography lovers and is located about 120 kms from Bangalore on Bangalore - Hyderabad highway. This has been on my list of places to visit for a long time and I am happy to have struck this off the list this new year. 

Lepakshi is a small town in Anantapur district, Andhra Pradesh, India which hosts the temple of Sri Veerabhadra Swamy and a giant monolithic Nandi (Bull) carved out of a single granite stone. The temple located here is built during Vijayanagar Empire dating back to 15th Century. There are a lot of resources already available in internet to know more about the history and the specialities of this temple. To name a few, the temple’s architecture, the paintings on the ceilings, an open air kalyana mantapa, Hanging pillar, Shivalinga surrounded by snake etc., We started from Kaggadasapura, Bangalore at around 1:15 PM and reached Lepakshi temple by about 3:45 PM. The entire stretch of roads were smooth and completely awesome. I must say this is one of the finest roads I have ever driven in the recent past. The route we took was Kaggadasapura –> Hebbal –> Hyderabad Highway (NH7). Once you cross Bagepalli toll plaza in NH 7, after about 4 KMs there are sign boards which points to left turn for Lepakshi. From here, its a narrow two way road that leads us to Lepakshi. This stretch of village road was also smooth, I was surprised to see that there were no bumpy spots in the roads. Just a few meters before reaching the main temple, you can spot the giant Nandi to your right. We went directly to the temple and on our way back ,we stopped at Nandi. 

Since it was the New Year’s day, there were a quite good crowd. I believe the normal weekends should have less people visiting this temple. I was little disappointed with the parking facilities there. Though you will be charged Rs.30/- to park your car, there is no sufficient car parking space or anyone to regulate the parking. I had to argue with a tempo traveller driver to get a space to park my car. The darshan was real quick, despite good crowd. Once we are done with darshan, we started immersing ourselves in the beauty of the architecture. Every pillar in the temple premises is having some or other carvings present in it. The main attraction is the hanging pillar, that hangs from the top. I was seriously awestruck to witness that. Though we reached the temple by late afternoon, no where we felt hot inside the temple, the floor was chill everywhere. One another thing that troubled me was the paintings present in the ceilings are already faded away. I felt, they need some serious renovation and maintenance to preserve them for some more years. We went around the entire premises and took a lot of photographs.

Nandi

  

          

Hanging pillar

         

All 3 Gopurams in the temple

                                                

        

Open Air Kalyana Mantapa

                                              

       

Faded paintings on the ceilings

        

       

   

We left from the temple by around 5:45 PM and stopped near Nandi statue, took some more photographs, had tea in the APTDC restaurant nearby and resumed our returned journey by around 6:30 PM. On the way back, stopped at Adyar Ananda Bhavan (A2B) located after airport to the left in a service lane, had dinner and reached back home by around 9:30 PM. Overall, this is a MUST visit place for anyone in Bangalore who is looking for a day trip and want to indulge yourselves in the mesmerizing beauty of the architecture and structures in the temple.

Trip in a nutshell :

Origin : Kaggadasapura, Bangalore

Destination : Lepakshi, Anantapur

Total distance (round trip) : 260 Kms

Route: Kaggadasapura –> Hebbal –> NH7 (Hyderabad highway) –> Bagepalli –> Left to Lepakshi and retraced back

Toll charges : Rs.240 (120 @devanahalli + 120 @bagepalli)

Throughout the route, there a lot of fuel stations available. So no need to worry about fuel :-)