494 Kilometers in a
day, 600 steps to climb, visit to my college, visit to proposed UNESCO Heritage
sites more ancient than my Engineering degree...
Why not a one day trip to go back in time?
Who was happy? My son, to see that there are too many steps and he starts running. The counting and climbing is parallel done and we complete 600 steps in 30 minutes. The Bahubali statue at Shravanabelagola is monolithic and stands at 57 feet. This statue was regarded as one of the tallest Monolith in the world. First visited the statue and then on the way back all the temples were done.
Why not a one day trip to go back in time?
First the date was fixed as August 9th to beat
the traffic outside Bangalore on the next weekend, 15th August, the
long one. And my son’s school had a different idea. They called in kids to turn
out on that Saturday to compensate for the day lost on the previous week for
Karnataka Bandh. Next best option as we three (The Kid, Wife and me) were
raring to go was not to wait too long and make it on 15th weekend.
We figured out 16th Saturday works well and all of us excitedly were
up by 5AM.
This will be a story and to follow it in pictures and
shorter stories, visit here.
This blog contains links to Wikipedia articles to keep it short and only to
focus on the road trip.
I studied for my Engineering Degree at Hassan (160 Kms West
of Bangalore) and Belur, Halebidu are places of Archeological interest near
Hassan. These two places along with Shravanabelagola (a place of interest for
Jains) are being proposed as UNESCO world heritage sites. These places were
ruled by Hoysala
Kings and famous for star shaped temples with intricate carvings.
We started at 6:15 and as we are a little late, the little
traffic caught us till Peenya. Our first search was breakfast and we were very
specific on Mayura at Bellur Cross. This is because of a program on Kannada
Channel where Mr. Sihikahi Chandru recommended it and my son wanted nothing
other than this. Breakfast done at Mayura and proper deviation taken to Shravanabelagola near
Channarayapatna and we were there by 10:30.Who was happy? My son, to see that there are too many steps and he starts running. The counting and climbing is parallel done and we complete 600 steps in 30 minutes. The Bahubali statue at Shravanabelagola is monolithic and stands at 57 feet. This statue was regarded as one of the tallest Monolith in the world. First visited the statue and then on the way back all the temples were done.
Shravanabelagola to Hassan and a detour at Hassan takes us
to Belur. Belur has intricate
carvings on the inside while Halebidu has more intricate carvings on the
outside. The guides are available at Belur for a fixed fee of Rs. 200 (with receipt). The carvings are
amazing to say the least and explained in detail in the photos. Belur has
Channakeshava temple which has a Vishnu deity (worshipped till today). There are about 48 pillars of various
sizes, shapes and designs with the Shilabalika’s and these are the main
attraction here.
Next up was Halebidu which was the capital
of Hoysala Empire and 12 KMs to Belur. Halebidu means “old city” as it was
attacked by Alauddin Khilji and ransacked twice.
After Halebidu,
we proceeded towards Hassan and MCE, my college was the next stop. Half an hour
inside the campus (Saturday evening and hence all closed) and we were on the
way back to Bangalore. I wanted a piece of nostalgia to feed our hungry stomach
and we checked Hotel Sri Krishna Sagar and Hotel Gokul. I with my friends used
to frequent these places. Both were undergoing renovation and the new revelation
for me was Hotel Parijata at Mallige Residency. From here, it was straight back
to Bangalore.
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