Kollur, Murudeshwar And Jog

(Written on 18th Jul 2005)

This time I was sure to visit as many places as I could with my parent. We booked a mini-wan and left at 7:00 am from our house. It was drizzling outside still wasn’t pouring heavily so we were hopeful that the trip will be fun.

We first decided to go to ‘Mookambika’ temple at kollur in Western Ghats. It’s a famous place is Karnataka. Adi Sankara is said to have composed the classic work Soundarya Lahiri here. The complete journey was through dense forest and small waterfalls in between were at display as a bonus to the tourists. Really, it was awesome. Had darshan there in the temple and after some time we left to another destination.

Murudeshwar - now this is something I call a step towards attracting tourists. The place is on Mangalore Bombay highway. Wow!! The new Shiva statue there is 15m tall and is situated on a hill surrounded from three sides by sea. Now this is the place one would definitely like to be there at least once in lifetime. I really liked it. Also the place is actually famous for an old temple at the foot of the hill – the murudeshwara temple.

After lunch at murudeshwar we decided to visit the Jog falls. Actually this place is of some importance to me. Whenever someone asked me from where my parents are living now, I reply – Shimoga, a place very close to world famous Jog falls. Now how many times did I go there? None. But now onwards I can say that I had been to that place recently. It is simply beautiful. The Sharavati vally is a place one adventurous person would really like to explore by foot. The falls is just like any other falls… of course it’s the highest fall in India for sure (and is in worlds highest waterfalls also) but the water quantity is not so much. My dad actually worked on the power generation plant there some 40 years back. My mom also had been to that place in her childhood. This time it was a beautiful experience for all of us.

Guindy National Park!!

(Written on 30th Jul 2005)

Zoos are meant for kids. Come on!! Then what’s wrong if I like to go there? But the worst part is none of my friends are so keen on this idea. Somehow on one Saturday I convinced them to visit GNP. We first went into the Snake Park and I was awed by the variety of snakes, crocodiles that they have. I feel these crocodiles have become very lazy after getting food without any effort. Ya ya… I know they lost their freedom, but at least they are getting food regularly

Next we went to the Zoo where I saw Emu (The second largest bird), Pelican and many other birds. But nowadays park means a place to kiss your fiancé or fiancée or someone of opposite sex (yep… not same sex), without fear. I at least saw 10 to 15 couples kissing each other.

From GNP we went to Elliot beach, had some food, and just roamed round here and there and back. This was the first time I went in a Zoo after reading Life of Pi. At least after a couple of years, I managed to visit a Zoo. It was overall a good day.

Kudali

(Written on 9th Jul 2005)

This time when I went home I was with a mission to visit some nearby places. Every time when I go home, I just sleep, chitchat, watch TV and come back. But this time it was a bit different experience.

On the fine Sunday afternoon, Mom Dad my niece and I went in the Auto. Yep, we went in the auto as the distance from my place to Kudali is less than even 10 kilometers.

Kudali is the place where Tunga and Bhadra rivers meet to become Tungabhadra, one of the major rivers in Karnataka. Kudali is a separate lineage of Sringeri math. The guru of Kudali is called Kudali Shankaracharya and I was fortunate to get his blessings this time. He is very old now, around 82 years. The place is very clam and beautiful, may be because not so many people come there.

Dad mentioned an old saying in Kannda ‘Ganga Snanum Tunga panum’. Which basically means that take the holy bath in Ganga and drink the water of Tunga - all your sins will vanish soon. As the water was very muddy because of heavy rains, we were not able to drink the river water, but still the whole trip was short and a very sweet experience.

Lakkavalli, Kalhatti and Kemmangundi hill

(14/10/05 - blog was written)
Last Sunday 6 of us went to Bhadra wild life reserves, Lakkavalli, very close to Shimoga. We all reached there and started going into the forest by 7:30 in the morning. Within a mile of entering the forest we saw a peacock. Of course nothing special as I have seen beautiful peacocks in zoo. Come on... what am I talking. I did not go in the zoo. It was a wild life reserve of around 500 sq. km. No food is served like in zoo. Constant fear of predators. No veterinary doc regularly observing them of their health. But... you get your freedom!!!

In that two hr journey we witnessed a bison, a sambhar, 30-40 deers and a couple of peacocks. In the dense forest we saw many trees, parasites. I mean these parasites were leaving and eventually will kill the trees of the size of banyan tree. God.. I was told about this in my childhood. And I understand now.

After that wonderful and memorable time we all went to a scenic waterfall in Tarikere taluk. Kalhatti giri. In this rainy season the land was very slippery. We spent around an hour in that place. Wow... walking upstream the fall is a great fun. I think one should go there for trekking. May be next time I will try that.

Then finally to a scenic place, Kemmangundi hill. Good place... but I had been to other places where I was so close to nature. So seeing the hills and valleys from one point was not that big fun. But of course, if you go to this place directly, you will still appreciate the beauty of nature.

Gajnur, Mundagadde and Safari!!

(Written on 11th Nov 2005)

Last Diwali weekend I got the opportunity to visit Gajnur dam on Tunga river. I bet, it is one of the beautiful places nearby Shimoga. Very calm place and not many tourists visit it I think. But for me, I had a company and overall it made my day. May be it was the company that was good or may be the nature itself had that effect :-)

From there I also went to Mandagadde – a bird sanctuary on the same river. Actually there is just a view point and from there you could see the birds across the river. Umm… may be I did not like it much. I would have loved it, if there was some boating we could go a bit closer to the birds. I think I don’t understand much about birds.

This time I also visited the Shimoga Lion safari with my niece and nephew. For them it was a best treat they have received from me. It was a safari or a zoo I don’t know. I mean they call it safari but just within a km of the forest all the wild animals we saw. I love visiting forests and zoos and animals. Fortunately that part of kid is still alive in me.

Hampi Trip: A quick glance

Six of us (Raghu, Srikanth, Prem, Sakthivel, Vinod and myself) started from Bangalore railway station at night and reached Hospet (Bellari Dist.) in the morning. We took a KTDC trip as we needed a guide and also wanted to cover the important places of Hampi.

We first went to Virupaksha Temple were the guide explained about the history of Hampi. It is temple of Shiva. Also there is temple of Parvati and Bhuavaneshwari. The guide also showed us one important place where the reflection of Gopura of temple gets inverted. In that temple there is Manmatha pond and is situated adjacent to river Tungabhadra. In this temple the Pooja is still conducted. In all the other places in Hampi, there is no pooja conducted and they are just monuments.

After that on the way we saw Kadalekai Ganapati and Sasveganapati statues. On the way back we saw two stones close to each other and they are called ‘sister-stones’. Then we saw beautiful ‘Yoga-Narasimha’ Satute, adjacent to Badawalingeshwara (It is surrounded by water).

From there we went to Janana palace. I found most of the names here are influenced by Muslim rulers. Here we saw treasury museum, elephants stables, Mahuta’s houses, Lotus mahal

Then in Hazara Rama temple, we saw 4 beautifully carved pillars. There was a trade area in front of this temple. We saw Queen’s bath place. There was also one ‘Nagalapura temple’ which is half way submerged in water. The govt should maintain this one place. Rests of the places are well preserved.

Finally there was a places, now totally ruined but still we could see one secret chamber, celebration stage, water canal, pushkarni pond, common man’s pond, 2 stone doors (on the way back). On the way back we saw the city museum as well.
Second beautiful temple after Virupaksha is Vittal temple. There we can see the stone chariot, musical pillars, Chinese trading carves, dragons carved, marriage halls, and thousands of pillars outside.

Near vital temple there is one ‘tula-bhara’ place and Purandara dasa stage. We can do boating there in the river.

The same day we also went to TB dam. It’s a pretty large dam and has a small garden, deer park, aquarium nearby.

Next day we went to Anegundi (Kishkinda) which is considered as birth place of hanuman. There is one nice temple situated on top of the hill. We then went to panpa sarovara which was almost dry and filled with lotus flowers. There we also find ‘shabari’ hut, rama pada, vijayalkshmi and shiva temple. When we went to chintamani, there is Narasimha temple, Kashi Shiva temple, Rama pada, Tara mountain, Sugriva milana, chintamani gufa.

We went to Navabrindavana in boat and also saw the suspension bridge on the way back.

Piriyapatna

Since long wanted to go to one rural place and get my lungs filled with fresh air. Got that opportunity when this ramanavami(24/3/2010) we went to Pirya pattana. This time we decided that every Subramanya Shrashti we will go to N.R.Pura and every Ramanavami we will go to Pirya Pattana. I am not sure about Pirya Pattana but will try to go to N.R. Pura at least. Lets see how the life goes on.

After many years I had seen a snake (kere haun) in wild. Approx 12’ length and green in color… really a nice watch. Also been to the Addike thota and rided a bicycle been to deepa’s high school. Overall a nice experience.