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

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.