Dug up some old photos of a trip to Yosemite.
Archive for category Travel
Yosemite
Oct 30
Visit to Lepakshi
Nov 28
Our journey
A one-day trip to Lepakshi (meaning “rise-o-bird” in Telugu) has always been on our agenda. The trip finally materialized after two failed plans. All of us were excited, did our bit of research on the internet, and set out with lots of food, and fully equipped with our cameras.
Lepakshi is a small village in Anantpur District in Andhra Pradesh. It is located on the Bangalore-Hyderabad highway (NH 7), is about 140 km from Bangalore, and 15 km east of Hindupur.
It is famous for its Vijayanagar style of architecture, and has a very interesting history. There are three shrines dedicated to Lord Shiva, Vishnu and Veerabhadra, the most famous one being the Veerabhadra temple.
We left Bangalore at 8 AM. The weather was not very hot, and was just right to make our journey a pleasant one. We reached Chickballapur at around 9 AM, and starting looking out for Kamat Restaurant. At this point, the road divides into two – one leading to Chickballapur village and the other is the highway. We asked a guy on the road for information on Kamat hotel. He didn’t know, but said that we should take the road on the left, for “nashta” (breakfast).
We took the local’s advice and went inside Chickballapur. We passed a place called Muddenahalli, which is about 7 km from Chickballapur. This is famous for two reasons – Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba’s school, and the birthplace of Sir M.Visveshwaraiah (one of India’s most accomplished engineers). We went about 10 km from the highway, and then realized that there was no Kamat restaurant, and ultimately joined the highway.
We finally spotted Kamat at a place where there was a board saying ‘Ananthpur: 150 km’. The restaurant is located inside a compound housing a Bharath Petroleum station. Like any other Kamat joint, this one was neat, had tasty food, and is probably the only decent food joint on the way to Lepakshi. Bypassing Chickballapur would have definitely saved our time, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the Sai devotee 
.
We continued on the highway and reached Konikonda check post. This is an important landmark where we have to take a left turn to go to Lepakshi, and straight, to go to Puttaparthi. We crossed a statue of a painted stork (good landmark to confirm you are on track), and finally reached Lepakshi after a three hour drive. We were welcomed by a huge Nandi (“Basavanna”) statue. It is made out of a single granite stone, is 15 feet tall, and is the largest in the world. This happens to be the symbol of Andhra Pradesh Tourism.
We went a few kilometers further and took a left turn to reach the main temple. Taking the straight road would lead to Hindupur.
History of Lepakshi
The Veerabhadra temple is known for its beautiful architecture. The story goes that the temple was built around 1500 A.D. by Virupanna Nayak, the chieftain under the Vijayanagar king Achyutharaya. When the king got to know that the treasury funds were used without his knowledge, he ordered that Virupanna should be blinded (this was the customary punishment for theft of the royal treasury). Virupanna being a loyal servant, plucked his eyes himself, and threw them on the walls of the temple. Two dark stains can still be seen on the walls of the temple.
Another interesting reference is the story of Jatayu. It is said that Jatayu, the mythical bird, was injured and was dying at this place while fighting with Ravana, in order to save Sita. Lord Rama came to this spot and called out to the bird “Le-pakshi” meaning “rise O bird”. It is said that Jatayu attained Moksha here (there are other places that also claim to be the location where Jatayu attained Moksha).
The Temple
The main deity is Lord Veerabhadra, the fierce form of Lord Shiva. There are two Sannidhis on either side – one for Lord Shiva and the other for Lord Vishnu. It is said that Sage Agasthya established these sannidhis opposite to each other, to indicate that there is no difference between them. The other sannidhis include Parvathi Devi, Ramalinga, Hanumantheshwara and Durga.
Architectural Highlights
The exterior part of the temple has several beautiful sculptures of mythical characters from the Puranas, like Ananthasayana, Dattathreya, Chathurmukha Brahma, Tumburu, Narada and Rambha. The paintings on the ceiling have interesting scenes from the Ramayana and Mahabharata.
Some of the highlights on the exterior part of the temple are:
‘Naga Linga’, a huge 7 headed snake guarding the Lingam. There is a stone carving of the Sapthakanyas beside this.
The story of ‘Kalahasthi’ is carved on one of the rocks – an elephant spraying water on a lingam, Bhaktha Kannappa offering his eyes to Lord Shiva, and a spider weaving a web around the Lingam as a protection.
‘Kalyana Mantapam’ which is supposed to have been the venue for Shiva-Parvathi’s wedding. The pillars around this have interesting carvings of many sages and gods.
One of the rocks has an interesting sculpture of a rounded Lord Ganesha and his vahana.
Two important features which we missed seeing are ‘Sita’s padam’ and ‘palette’.
Back to Bangalore
We left the temple complex at about 2 PM and a short distance down we pulled off the road into a tamarind grove for late lunch. On the way back to Bangalore we took a short detour towards Nandi hills to visit Sultanpet (near Nandi gram). We turned right off the highway towards Nandi hills and then asked locals for directions to Sultanpet. After a short drive off the highway the roads meets a T junction. Nandi hills is towards the left and Sultanpet is towards the right (back towards Chickballapur).
This is a small nondescript village near Nandi hills that is certainly off the beaten path. The road leading to the village is only one car wide and we would have missed the potter’s area if we hadn’t stopped frequently to ask locals.
This was the highlight of the trip for Amma. She had read about the place online and wanted to visit. We watched a demo of how pots are made, bought a few pots, and then made our way back towards Bangalore. More photos here.
Belur Travelogue
Jan 31
Belur & Halebid
Travelogue January 2010
A view of Chennakesava Temple Belur
We started from Bangalore in the morning around 7.15 equipped with two navigational aides, one human, called Prabha ( who had made extensive notes about the route) and the other being our latest acquisition the MapmyIndiaGPS.(Await a review of it). We had decided to avoid Nelamangala and go through the new connecting Nice road joining the Nelamangala Kunigal Road near Indo Spanish Factory. After reaching Yeshwanthpur we had a little confusion as to the point at which we had to take the left turn to reach the Nice road. After a heated debate, decided to follow the MapMyIndia GPS and surprisingly it took us to the right way. The toll to use the road is Rs.15 and the funny part is you buy the toll ticket at the beginning and at the other end another guy verifies whether ticket is bought or not !!! This is what you can call Over Employment. We followed the GPS for sometime and at some point the GPS showed our car travelling in wilderness. Then we started relying on our human navigator as also the typical Indian way of navigating, that is checking the route now and then with people on the road. We then reached the main Nelamangala-Kunigal road and our GPS started behaving normally. We passed through Kunigal and Adichunchanagiri to reach Hotel Mayura for the breakfast halt. We had an uneventful ride from there to Hassan with both the Human navigator and GPS well aligned. The fun started at Hassan where the GPS advised us to take a right turn which was not in the human navigator notes. After going through lanes and bylanes (the GPS constantly nagging us to take a right turn) we followed the advice of people on the road 
and reached the Belur temple. The road to Hassan is being widened at many places with huge speed breakers located at diversion points. In short, the road was not all that great as many made us believe; on the contrary the road from Hassan to Belur was a beauty. From near the temple, Hrishi called the “General Manager ” of the resort Green Pastures (the place where we were booked to stay) who after enquiring with Hrishi whether he can understand Kannada or Hindi, gave him the directions in English. Probably he thought Hrishi may not know English !!! We reached the hotel with little difficulty around 1 PM. The place has no name board and therefore it is a little tough for first timers to find the place. The resort is built in Malnad style and the interior is tastefully done in Rajasthani style. We relaxed for a while and had a lovely lunch with chappathis and a nice side dish. The rasam was really very good, being hot and spicy. On the whole the food was good. Hrishi took a whole lot of pictures of the artifacts in the lobby of the resort. The resort is situated inside a coffee estate. Pepper also is grown in the estate.
We then drove to the Belur temple. Our first stop in the temple was at the religious endowment office. We thought we should show the permit for tripod usage to them. But the office people there told us that we can take photos of everything except the main deity and we can use tripod. But we later found out the archaeology department office was located outside the temple complex. Considering light conditions we decided that there is no need to use the tripod. However inside the temple where it was fairly dark, Hrishi innovated and kept the camera on a ledge or floor and used remote release cable to take pictures at 3.0 to 8.0 sec shutter release speed. The Belur and Halebid temple were built by the Hoysala kings around the 12th Century. The main deity at Belur is Chennakesava (Vishnu) and at Halebid is Hoysaleswara. The sculptures at both the places are exquisite. But we felt the carvings at Somanathpura are better. Somnathpura temple was also built by Hoysala rulers. The Hoysala emblem (the image at the top of the page) is the depiction of a Hoysala chieftain Sala overcoming and killing a Lion with bare hands. For a detailed reading about the Belur temple architecture visit this link. The photographs taken by Hrishi are here. Regular Poojas are being conducted at the temples or atleast we found the priests in the sanctum sanctorum handing out prasadams. Surprisingly the priests did not object to people using flash and taking photographs of the main deity. We spent about 3 hours at the temple. Our return drive to the hotel was little adventurous as it was very dark and the exact location of the resort is not indicated by any sign board.Though the route travelled earlier was saved in the GPS, it did not show the route clearly.
The night was fairly cold. We played a game of Carrom and the men far outplayed the ladies.
Next day after a breakfast of giant sized Rava idlis we packed and left the Hotel to visit Halebid enroute to Bangalore. Archaeological department has setup a museum at Halebid. The entrance fee is Rs 5/-. Most of the exhibits are lying in an open yard. The descriptions of the exhibits are inadequate. In some case they are misspelt. One wonders why the department calls it a museum and charges a fee for it. One can see most of it from other side of the fence. atleast school children should be let in free.
Our return route to Hassan from Halebid was taken as per the advice of a tourist bus driver and it was quite comfortable. We had our lunch at Suvarna Regency and the food was palatable. The return journey saw the fulfillment of a lifelong ambition of Ambu, namely purchasing fresh vegetables at rural market or ’santhe’. Though there was no santhe on that day, regular markets were there. Vegetables were purchased at three places enroute and Ambu for once was right. The vegetable quality was excellent and the price was one third of Bangalore rate. This proves that farmers do not get full benefit of the higher prices prevailing in cities. On the whole it was a nice and enjoyable week end trip.
