Jog falls, Ikkeri and Murudeshwar

A neat little combination for a weekend away from Bangalore.

We started from bangalore Friday evening towards Shimoga on the inter city express train (leaving Bangalore city railway station at 4:30 PM). This turned out to be a quick and comfortable way to reach Shimoga from Bangalore. The train reached Shimoga by 9:30 giving us enough time to grab dinner and find a place to stay.

The next day, we hired a cab to take us to Jog falls. Jog falls is about 100 KM from Shimoga and take a bit more than 2 hours if you head there directly. We stopped on the way to visit a temple at Ikkeri, a 3KM deviation from Sagara town. This 15th century temple is definitely worth a visit.

The temple was supposedly built during the reign of the Vijayanagara chiefs and follows the Nayaka style of Architecture.

We spent an hour at the temple and moved on towards Jog falls.


The first sight of the water fall was breath taking. There is a stairway to take you to the base of the waterfall. We took the stairs and reached the base of the waterfall. Watching the falls from the base is even more stunning. It rained on and off during our climb down and we could see a rainbow in the water fall.

We spent some time playing in the water at the base of the waterfall and started back. The climb back was daunting but we managed it with a couple of breaks.


From there on, we headed to Murudeshwar, which is about 100 KM from Jog. The roads are bad, especially the ghat section and it turned out to be a two and half hour drive.

By the sea at RNS residency
At Murudeshwar, we stayed at RNS Residency. This is probably the best place to stay in Murudeshwar located close to the temple and beach and with beach facing rooms.

Observatory atop the gopuram
Both the main temple and the Shiva cave temple are beautiful. The temple gopuram also doubles up as a 16 floor observatory to get a birds eye view of Murudeshwar. The views from the top are amazing.




We headed back to Bangalore by the KSRTC Volvo bus that leaves Murudeshwar bus stand around 8:40 PM. I think the KSRTC buses come into Murudeshwar only if there are passengers boarding there. If you haven't booked a bus in advance, it would be better to take an auto to the highway and look for buses there.

Turuvekere - 16 Aug 2009

Turuvekere is one of the not so popular centers of Hoysala architechture in Karnataka. A visit to this place gives you an opportunity to see the obvious similarities and subtle architectural differences in comparison with the more popular destinations like Belur, Halebid and Somnathpur.

I heard about this place from my friend Chetan. It immediately fired my curiosity and we planned a weekend visit. Turuvekere is about 135 Kms from Bangalore. You can either travel through Bangalore - Tumkur - Turuvekere route or Bangalore - Kunigal - Yediyur - Mayasandra - Turuvekere route. We decided to take the second route through Magadi road and reached Turuvekere in about 3 hours.

Turuvekere has 3 main Hoysala styled temples

1. Gangadhareshwara Temple
the name suggests, this is a Shiva temple and has a huge bull statue.



Apart from this, a stone bell caught our attention. Unfortunately, we did not have the services of a guide to tell us more about these temples.


2. Channakeshava Temple



3. Sri.Moole Shankara temple



Turuvekere is a temple town and apart from the above temples, it has a number of contemporary temples including Sri Lakshmi Beteraya temple.

We heard from the people in Turuvekere about the Channakeshava temple in the neighboring town of Araluguppe and decided to go there. This place looked better maintained by the tourism department than the Turuvekere temples. The temple exteriors were glaringly similar to the temple in Somnathpur.


We saw some very intricately made roof carvings here.


All in all, it was a day well spent.

Central park changing colors

In late 2007, I had the opportunity of visiting New York City twice in a span of two months. Those days, my favorite pastime in NYC used to be walking in central park. During that time of the year, trees in central park first change their color (fall season) and then shed leaves (towards winter).

It was interesting to see a certain place in central park (the mall) in four different shades.

In late summer ...


In fall ...

In snow during winter ...


In winter ...

The Hyderabadi Experience (15 Dec 2010)

In December 2010, I got this opportunity of traveling to Hyderabad for an official cause. I had recently watched the movie 'Angrez' and had been totally fascinated with Hyderabad's old city culture. So, I grabbed this opportunity with both hands.

It was a short trip and I didn't have much time to roam around the city. We flew to Hyderabad the day before the work day and settled into a guest house in the IT area by 6 PM. We were to fly out immediately after work the next day. So, I only had that evening to experience the city.

Fortunately, I had the services of a local guide, my friend Siddharth.

We shot into the old city area an auto and went straight to charminar. Let me tell you one thing - a simple auto ride can be pretty entertaining in Hyderabad.


The charminar area and the adjoining Chudi bazaar are almost exactly as they were potrayed in the movie Angrez. An interesting thing that I noticed at charminar was that there is a Bhagyalakshmi temple at the base of charminar.


From there, we headed to the Gokul chats. What amazed me here was the scale of preparation of chats (see pic below)


We then went on to Nilofer cafe, an Irani Chai shop. I an a tea addict and it was a great experience to sit there with a cup (or maybe 2) of Irani Chai and a plate of biscuits.


On the way, I bought biscuits from the Karachi bakery to bring back home. These are delicious. Don't miss them whenever you go to Hyderabad.

We rounded of the hectic evening by going to necklace road and then watching Harry Potter in 3D at Prasad's IMAX. That was my first IMAX experience.

Hogenakkal and Yercaud (13 Aug 2011)

It was a Friday evening before a long weekend and the search for a suitable getaway had to start...

Any search of this sort involves answering 3 questions
1. Where to go ?
2. How to reach ?
3. Where to stay ?

The impending long weekend meant that most touristy places would have absolutely no accommodation available. Dipti and I went through the above list of questions for 3 places and found no accommodation.

1. Shimoga and jog falls
2. Waynad
3. Kemmangundi

We finally settled for a road trip on NH7.

We started from Bangalore on Saturday morning and headed to Hogenakkal falls. The safest route is to take Hosur Road towards electronic city, go past Attibele, Hosur, Krishnagiri and reach Dharmapuri. At Dharmapuri, you have to go under the fly over and take a right. You then continue straight on this road for about 43 Kms to reach the falls.





The best way to enjoy this place is to first walk around for a while and then take a boat ride to the main water falls. You would have to haggle with the boatmen to stike a deal. Something like Rs 500 for a coracle for a group of 6 should be reasonable. However, even if you are just 2-3 people, it might be hard to strike any better deal than this.


We spent time at the waterfall till 3 PM and then started towards Yercaud through Salem. We hadn't managed to find any accommodation in Yercaud because of the long weekend. So, we had decided to stay in Salem for the night and start early next morning to Yercaud. It was good to roam around in a new city and enjoy some good food at Saravana Bhavan. However, I would suggest the best option would be to look for accommodation in Yercaud so that you can enjoy the hill station early morning.

We started from Salem towards Yercaud around 7:30 AM the next day. Its a distance of 30KM and an hours drive. The drive was pretty scenic going through coffee plantations and we got glimpses of fog even though it was late.

Yercaud is a typical hill station in the Ooty model with some view points (Ladys seat, Gents seat, Childrens park, Pagoda point etc.), a lake with boating and a water fall (Kiliyur falls).

We spent some time at the view points, did boating and then went to the water fall.




The water fall was interesting. It is apparently formed by the Yercaud lake overflowing. To get to the falls, you need to climb down a few hundred steps into a valley. The water is extremely cold and refreshing.


After the visit to the falls, we headed back to Bangalore, stopping only for a late lunch at Salem. We covered the 200 KM from Salem to Bangalore in about 3 and half hours and reached bangalore around half past 7. The road is great but it comes at a price. The one way toll fee was Rs 228 :(


All in all, I think this route is a good option for a weekend getaway, especially during monsoons when hogenakkal falls is full.