Mahabaleshwar - Sahyadri Splendor - 3rd -7th Nov 2012

It has now become a common habit for us to make week long trips to Mumbai and within that plan a 2-3 day vacation to a place around Mumbai. This time around the chosen place was Mahabaleshwar and here's how the trip panned out.

Mahabaleshwar is a 5-6 hour drive from Mumbai going through the Mumbai - Pune expressway to reach Pune and from there to mahabaleshwar via Wai and Panchgani.

Day 1: Mahabaleshwar
Mahabaleshwar is both a hill station and an important Hindu pilgrimage site. It houses the Mahabaleshwar temple and Panchaganga Mandir among others. Water from five different rivers (Koyna, Krishna, Venna, Savitri and Gayatri) join at the Panchaganga Mandir.

The innumerable view points in Mahabaleshwar bring out the spendour of the Sahyadris. Some points that we visited were Wilson point, Monkey point, Window point, Kate's point etc.

The Venna lake is the other tourist hotspot here. The must do's here would include - boating in the lake, horse riding near the lake and enjoying strawberries with cream!

I would also recommend a walk along the Mahabaleshwar market street for the shoppers and the non shoppers. What I enjoyed here was the roadside vendors selling fruits like strawberries, mulberries, rasberries etc.

Day 2: Pratapgad
Pratapgad is a fort located in Satara district of Maharashtra. It is at a distance of about 22 km from Mahabaleshwar. It was a comfortable half hour hike to the top of the fort with multiple breaks on the way. There breaks included a temple, a handicrafts store and many petty shops selling hats, bags etc. along the way. The top of the fort offers some breathtaking views.

You can see buttermilk being prepared in every shop in unique looking machines.

While climbing down, we stopped at one of the restaurants inside the fort to taste some authentic Maharashtrian food

Day 3: Tapola
Tapola is a little village about 25 km from Mahabaleshwar. The main attraction is the Shivsagar lake - a 90 km long water body which is the reservoir of the Koyna dam. You could take long motor boat rides to some nearby places like triveni sangam, datta mandir etc. or take a water scooter ride, or take a relaxing ride on a row boat.

The route from Mahabaleshwar is extremely scenic dotted with strawberry farms. If you are lucky to be there during the strawberry season (Dec - Mar), you can walk into these farms and pick some strawberries. Our visit was probably a month too early. But, we were still lucky enough to see some strawberries in the farms and eat them fresh.

As you get close to Tapola, you get some amazing views of the lake.

We got some superb views of the sunset on the way back.

Nandi Hills - A new look

We have made innumerable trips to Nandi hills - Nandi hills for sunrise, Nandi Hills for sunset, Nandi hills on the way to office etc. But on all our earlier visits, we hadn't seen any signs of development in this mini hill station.

We made another visit to the place last weekend after we saw the weather changing favorably around Friday. The place didn't disappoint us. The weather was pleasant as usual and we were pleasantly surprised to see quite a few new developments. Do watch out for these the next time you visit the place.

1. A view point that feels like a walk into the clouds.

2. Tree houses to walk around.

3. The area surrounding the temple on the hill and the view point has been tiled with stone slabs.

On the way back, we were also treated to another surprise. A huge farm of Chrysanthemum flowers. It almost felt like we have a valley of flowers close to home!

Belur - 01 Sep 2012

We stayed at the Hoysala Village Resort on Belur Road in Hassan as part of out trip to Kukke Subrahmanya recently. That allowed us to make a quick jaunt to Belur.

Belur is about 35 KM from Hassan along this road. The road condition is good and can be reached in about half hour. But, we decided to take the slower mode of transport thats most popular with the villagers here - a tempo that shuttles between Hassan and Belur stopping every 200 meters to pick up and drop people and goods.

The main temple in Belur is dedicated to Lord Chenna Keshava, another name of Lord Vishnu and the construction is typical Hoysala style.



Main temple area

Temple entrance

It almost looked like every part of the temple here tries to beat the other in terms of architectural grandeur.

Every pillar seems unique. Someone explain to me how this kind of symmetry could be achieved without modern machines!

Some more clicks from the temple below.

 

 

Halebid, another site of Hoysala architecture is located close to Belur at a disance of about 16KM.

You can see striking similarities with Hoysala temples at other places -
Turuvekere - 16 Aug 2009
Shimsha & Somnathpur - Nov 2009
 

Lonavala - 19 April 2012

I just spent a nice little vacation week in Mumbai. When starting from Bangalore, I was mentally prepared for the scorching Mumbai heat. So, it came as a pleasant surprise when the two day visit to Lonavala from Mumbai planned.

We stayed at the Club Mahindra Lake Pavna Resort in Tungi. This is one of Club Mahindra's newer properties and not fully occupied yet. Since the resort was not really "in" Lonavala but more than an hour's drive from there, we didn't do the normal touristy stuff and instead decided to stay in and around the resort.

Here are a few of the stand out attractions of the trip.

1. Pavna lake
A beautiful lake surrounded by mountains and had a decent water level for this time of the year. The resort did a great job of providing some amazing views of the lake with the hills in the background.

 

2. Shivling
This is a hill in the shape of a Shivling near Lonavala. It is best viewed from the Shivling Darshan view point on the way from Lonavala to Tungi. The panoramic view from this point is simply breathtaking.

3. The infinity pool at the resort
The pool is built in such a way that it gives you the feeling that it merges with  lake Pavna.
 

An interesting coincidence occurred when we were at the pool. We saw a cloud that looked very much the same shape as the Shivling peak.

 

Sahasra Veena Jhenkara - 28 Mar 2012

The palace grounds witnessed a spectacular musical event yesterday (28 Mar 2012) with 1008 musicians performing the Veena on a single stage.





The event organized by the Art of Living Foundation with Ranjini Kalakendra was a symphony in which Veena exponents from all over Karnataka came together to entrall the audience for close to two hours.

Among the guests present were Sri Sri Ravishankar Guruji (founder of the Art of Living Foundation), Mr. D. V. Sadananda Gowda (Honorable Chief Minister of Karnataka) and Mr. B.S.Yeddyurappa (Former chief minister of Karnataka).

The concert started with Vatapi Ganapatim Bhaje in raaga Hamsadhwani. This was followed by the main track, a fusion composition - a raaga maalika in Mayamalavagowla, Mohanam, Hindolam, Brindavani and Revati raagas. This was followed by a Thillana in raaga Dhanashri and Bhagyada Lakshmi Baramma in raaga Shri.

Teams from the Art of Living Foundation also presented Bhajans and a dance signifying the relevance of Suryanamaskar.

It was an extremely satisfying experience for me to be a part of this and share this stage. The event was streamed live on youtube and is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-NlRCmhHH4



Some photos from the stage rehearsal on 27th Mar 2012