Trip to younger daughter's town (Chikkamagaluru)

  " Chikkamagalur district gets its name from its headquarters of Chikkamagaluru town. It is alternatively spelt as Chickmagalur or Chikmagalur. Chikkamagaluru literally means "The town of the younger daughter" in the native Kannada language. The town is said to have been given as a dowry to the younger daughter of Rukmangada, the legendary chief of Sakrepatna and hence the name. As one can guess, there is indeed a town called Hiremagaluru which means "The town of the elder daughter" which is about 5 km from Chikkamagaluru town" 
     "Chikmagalur is at an elevation of 1090 meters (3,400 feet) and the hill stations around Chikmagalur are famous summer retreats since they remain cool even during summers. The temperature of the city varies from 11-20 °C during winter to 25-32 °C during summer."

   We had just celebrated our 3rd wedding Anniversary a week back and were talking about how 3 years of our married life has gone by. And we realized we have not had a vacation in 3 years after our honeymoon. We did a quick search for possible destinations and decided about trip to Chikkamagaluru.

Driving directions

Distance to few hot spots of manlad from Chikkamagaluru

 Day 1 (11/02/2010) :-  

    We left from home at 1:00 PM in the afternoon as Susham had some had some work and she had to go to college in the morning. Traffic was heavy inside the city and by the time we were near Yashwanthpur it was already 3:00 PM. My original plan was to reach Belur by sunset and leave from there to Chikkamagalur, that went out of the window straight away.

   We stopped for lunch Agarwal Bhavan near Peenya at 3:00 PM and by the time we reached Nelamangala Junction it was already 4:00 PM, thanks to Bangalore traffic. 

     From here road was decent with very less traffic but due to the road widening work we had a lot of diversions to take. We stopped for a coffee at Cafe Coffee Day on our way. By the time we reached Hassan sun was setting so we stopped to view the sun go down behind the western ghats.    

Sun set on the way

    We reached Chikkamagalur at 8:00 PM. We booked our accommodation at "The Planter's Court", went to the next door garden restaurant "Hotel Ashoka" and had a wonderful dinner. We reached back to the room and made quick plan for the next day and went to bed.

This is where we stayed

Day 2 (12/02/2010) :-  

   Woke up early morning and went out for a walk, weather was pleasant. I was rewarded with one of the best sun rises i have seen for sacrificing that early morning sleep.

Sun rise @ Chikkamagalur

   

This man was getting ready to set his shop

An early bird like me ;) 

   After the morning walk i returned back to the hotel and saw these 2 vintage bikes parked right in front for display.

Vintage bikes on display

  

 They also had a lot of plants in the garden and this flower got my attention

  Back in the room, had a coffee, freshened up, got ready, had breakfast and left to explore Chikkamagaluru at 9:30 AM. We started our drive towards Seethalayyana giri. Drove through winding roads, road condition was good though narrow. Stopped for photos on the way and reached Seethalayyana giri in an hour.

A road less taken

A tribute to religion of India

A wild flower

Save trees

men and their machine

     We parked our car and went into the temple. This is a Shiva temple and it was Shivarathri.  There were not many people around so we explored the surroundings. It was close to mid day and it was getting hotter.

Seethalayyana giri temple

An old lamp at the main gate

These were hidden in the hole in a wall

Sculpture on the wall

Lord Shiva

Divine light?

   Aftr the visit to the temple, we drove towards Mullayyana giri. I was told Mullayyana giri is one of the highest peaks in western ghats. it is just a 3 KM drive to Mullayyanagiri from Seethalayyana giri. But road is very narrow and it is a steep climb. I was driving behind a bus on a road which is barely wide enough for 2 cars to pass each other. After this slow climb we reached the bottom of the Mullayyana giri. We parked our car and started our climb of 500 steps to the top of this hill. Sun was beating down on us, we climbed slowly stopping for water breaks and photos and reached the top.

The climb begins

We had come this far

Scenic surroundings

Mutt of a saint on top of the hill

    After spending some time on top the hill we started our walk back to the parking lot which is 500 steps away. We climbed down the hill and drove towards Datta Peeta. We found this runs of a building on the way.

Ruins of the building near Mullayyana giri

  Drive to Datta Peeta with narrow average road took us almost an hour to reach. When we reached there we found that it is closed for renovation. Disappointed we left from there to Manikydhara. We had more disappointment in the waiting. So called Manikydhara falls was no more than trickle of water flowing down and it was made dirty by tourists taking bath in it. A waste of couple of hours and on top of it we had not found a place to have lunch till now so hunger was at its peak. 

Manikyadara falls

   We drove to Kemmannugundi from here. Road condition was good till half way through and from there it worsened. We had to take a alternate route through a reserve forest as the main road was blocked for repair. This road was strictly made for 4X4 jeeps and my poor maruti 800 had to contain with such bad road condition. Hunger, hot weather and bad roads were compounding our  disappointment of not able to see what we had planned for the day. We reached Kemmannugundi, but we were late for a walk to Z point to watch the sunset. But thankfully we found a hotel and had some snacks. Watched the sunset from there and started our drive back to hotel.

Sunset @ Kemmannugundi

  Road from here to Chikkamagaluru city was in good condition, finally some relief to my left foot and my car. We reached the room by 7:30 PM and freshened up ourselves. We feasted our selves with some hot Kerala parata and tomato curry in "Hotel Ashoka" and opted for a early sleep.

 Day 3 (13/02/2010) :-  

  We woke up a bit leisurely today, finished our morning courses, had breakfast and left at 9:30 AM.  First we went to "elder daughter's town (Doddamagaluru)" which is about 6 KMs away from "younger daughter's town".  We visited "Kodandarama temple" here. 

Kodandarama Temple

  This temple was very quite with very less people around and very nicely maintained too. This is Lord Rama's temple as the name suggests. Specialty of this temple is Devi Sita is on the right side of the Rama instead of left side.

Lord Rama, Sita and Lakshman

   This temple too has its share of sculptures and we spent an hour exploring this place.

Lord Narasimha statue

Sculpture in the temple

Divine light was following us here too

  We left from here and went in search of a place called Marle as per the priest's recommendation, but we could not find it. We drove around for some time and decided to move on to our next destination of the day Halebidu. Halebidu is 54KMs from Chikkamagaluru. Roads are in good condition and less traffic, but need to be careful about villagers riding on the bikes and tractors going to the fields. We reached Halebidu  at 1:00 PM. 

Halebidu Hoysaleshwara Temple.

  "Halebidu (literally "old city") is located in Hassan District, Karnataka, India. Halebidu (which was previously called Dorasamudra or Dwarasamudra) was the regal capital of the Hoysala Empire in the 12th century. It is home to one of the best examples of Hoysala architecture in the ornate Hoysaleswara and Kedareswara temples. This name is given because this city was ruined two times by Bahmani Sultanate."

   We first energized ourselves with a juice as it was very hot out there. Couple of things we realized as soon as we entered the premises, first it is very crowded, second mid day is the bad time to visit this place as footwear are not allowed and the entire temple area which  is made of stone is burning hot so walking around is going to be a challenging task.  But beauty of this temple overshadowed the heat below the foot soon and we started moving from pillar to pillar with our jaws dropped seeing the sculptures on display. I had visited this place about 20 years before during a school trip, but i hardly remembered anything else from that trip.

Sculptures on Halebidu temple wall

matchless attention to details

Not an inch left blank

Water draining system in the temple yard (what we call rain harvesting system now)

  

It is mesmerizing to see the way these sculptures are replicated to look exactly the same

They looked full of life

It looked sea of sculptures

And still there was more

This made me wonder what level hatred can make someone destroy a piece of art like this

   

    After draining our energy and camera battery we left in search of food. We went to a nearby hotel and ordered for food. Hotel owner was kind enough to let me charge my camera battery too. We filled our stomach mainly with juice, water and buttermilk and ate very less. After lunch we left for Belur. We reached Belur at 4:30 PM.

  

   

main gopuram of Belur temple

 " Belur was the early capital of the Hoysala Empire. With Halebidu which is only 16 km away, this is one of the major tourist destinations in Karnataka, India. Belur is located in Hassan district. According to inscriptions discovered here, it was also referred to as Velapuri."

  Compared to Halebidu, Belur looks a bit pale in terms of sculptures but has lot of small temples around. It is not as well maintained as Halebidu as well. 

Belur Chennakeshava temple

Small temple in the yard

This temple was in the shape of star

This looks more real than the real one

Inside the Chennakeshava temple

Sculptures on the wall

Below the Garuda Kamba

This is how the Hoysala dynasty was born

The famous Shliabalika of Belur

Narasimha avathara explained

    It was close to sunset, we did some shopping, drove back to Chikkamagaluru and reached room by 7:30 PM. It was a total drive of 100 KMs today. We had a nice dinner and went to sleep.

 Day 4 (14/02/2010) :-  

   Walking around in the hot sun the previous day made us sleep a bit longer and we woke up late. Had our breakfast and it was time for our return journey. So settled our bills  and left room around 11:30 AM. We drove leisurely stopping for photos and reached Hassan around 1:30 PM. 

Windmills en route Hassan

   Met my cousin in Hassan and had lunch at Kadamba. We did some vegetable shopping here for the coming week. After a heavy lunch left from there and reached Sravanabelagola at 3:30 PM. 

First glimpse of Bahubali statue

  " Shravanabelagola is a city located in the Hassan district in the Indian state of Karnataka and is 158 km from Bangalore. The statue of Gommateshvara Bahubali at Śravaṇa Beḷgoḷa is one of the most important pilgrimage destinations in Jainism, one that reached a peak in architectural and sculptural activity under the patronage of Western Ganga Dynasty of Talakad. Chandragupta is said to have died here in 298 BC after he became a Jain monk and assumed an ascetic life style. 

    Shravanabelagola has two hills, Chandragiri and Vindhyagiri. Acharya Bhadrabahu and his pupil Chandragupta Maurya are believed to have meditated there. Chandragupta Basadi, which was dedicated to Chandragupta Maurya, was originally built there by Ashoka in the third century BC. Chandragiri also has memorials to numerous monks and Śrāvakas who have meditated there since the fifth century AD, including the last king of the Rashtrakuta dynasty of Manyakheta. Chandragiri also has a famous temple built by Chavundaraya, who was a disciple of Nemichandra.

  The 57-feet tall monolithic statue of Gommateshvara is located on Vindyagiri Hill. It is considered to be the world's largest monolithic stone statue. The base of the statue has an inscriptions in Kannada as well as the oldest evidence of written Marathi, i.e. devnagari script, dating from 981 AD. The inscription praises the king who funded the effort and his general, Chavundaraya, who erected the statue for his mother. Every twelve years, thousands of devotees congregate here to perform the Mahamastakabhisheka, a spectacular ceremony in which the statue is covered with milk, curds, ghee, saffron and gold coins. "

  First we went to climb the Chandragiri hill. There are 250 steps here to climb. We encountered the same challenge of walking barefoot on hot stone here too. (Early morning  is the best time to go here). We climbed slowly, a full stomach was not helping either. 

  Chandragiri hill

There was alternate arrangement for less able

The trees were full of flowers on the top of the hill

And some cactus too

This large pond is right in between Chandragiri and Vindyagiri

There is a tall pillar on top of the hill

And on top of the pillar there is tiny statue of Bahubali

One more statue of Bahubali

Open this door and you can have a free fall from Chandragiri.. :)

    After spending an hour on Chandragiri we climbed down and went straight away for a tender coconut to re hydrate ourselves. It was about 5:00 PM then. We had to walk around that huge pond to reach the bottom of Vindyagiri.

Found this beautiful but nonfunctional fountain in the middle of the pond

    We started our climb of Vindyagiri at 5:15 PM. This is much taller hill and here we have 650 steps to climb. We climbed slowly, took breaks generously and reached the top in about 30 minutes. 

View of Chandragiri from Vindyagiri

These walls tell a story

   Incidentally once to start the climb till you reach the top of the hill you never get to see Bahubali statue anywhere on the way. One of the shop keeper there informed me about this and he also reasoned that it is made that way to keep the pilgrims motivated to reach the top to see the statue. But once on top we forgot all the tiredness of climbing once we saw the majestic view of the monolithic statue of Bahubali.

Bahubali statue

Portrait of Bahubali

   We explored this place and found some sculptures here too.

A black beauty

Group photo of gods

A beautiful piece of art

Writings on the wall (Devanagari lipi)

There is a story behind this short finger too

self explanatory

Gods come in all shapes and sizes

It was getting darker

We watches the sunset on our way down

   We left Sravanabelagola at 7:00 PM and started our journey back to Bangalore. We reached home after dinner at 11:00 PM.  A day where i had 900 steps to climb and close to 300 KMs to drive, what a Valentine's day.