Somanathapura

This post is about a quaint little place steeped in history near Mysore called Somanathapura. It is about 35 kms from Mysore. We visited this place along-with my parents and sister in April 2008 on the day of the Ugadi festival. This place is of historical significance due to the presence of the 13th century Kesava/Chennakeshava temple built during the reign of the Hoysala dynasty.

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Journey

We started off in the morning around 10 AM from Mysore to this place. We took the right turn from the highway after about 2 kms after crossing the historical town of Srirangapatna. This road leads to the town of Bannur from where one  needs to take a right turn after crossing the bus stand which has a sign board to Somanathapura. The way  before Bannur was dotted with lush green fields. We reached Somanathapura around 12 PM since the road was not great after Bannur.

Kesava Temple

This is a lovely temple built similar to the temples at Belur and Halebidu. There is a plaque of stone with inscriptions written in Hale Kannada (Old Kannada) at the entrance. The temple stands on a pedestal and the outer walls have star fold shapes. The intricately carved walls of the temple are a sight to behold. They are adorned with the carvings of gods, goddesses, shila balikas (dancing girls) and several animals which symbolize the gods like the Varaha (Boar), Kurma (Turtle), etc. Even the inside walls of the temple along-with the ceiling and the Garbha Gudi (Inner Sanctum) have beautiful carvings on them. What skills the sculptors had in those times! Their love for their work and the perfection they achieved in it has been reflected in the monuments they left behind for the future generations to see. The beautifully carved Vimanas (Gopuras) have stood the ravages of time. The temple is a protected heritage site under the ASI (Archaeological Survey of India) at present.

After spending around 2 hours here all of us were very hungry and decided to go home. It had been a pleasant trip throughout. One of the things on my to-do list is to go on the Hoysala trail of temples! There are many obscure temples which are not as well known as the ones in Belur and Halebidu but beautiful nonetheless. My recent trip to one such place was the Amrutesvara temple at Amruthapura which is a small village outside Shimoga city near Tarikere. Will write about it soon :)

Melukote

This post is about a beautiful place tucked away near Mysore and has a charm of its own. This quaint little town is very popular mainly for two things – Puliyogare (a south Indian rice preparation) and Sanskrit college. Yes, I am talking about Melukote. Majority of the population here are from the Iyengar community. Its very close to Mysore or rather Mandya.

Reaching Melukote

While driving from Mysore, you need to take a left turn just before the arch near entrance of Mandya and drive for around 35 kms.

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I had been here long ago when I was in college with a friend. I vaguely remembered sitting in a temple and having delicious puliyogare. Nagesh and I always used to plan to go here and somehow it never worked out till April this year!  I was already in Mysore at my parents home for the Good Friday long weekend. Nagesh and a couple of his friends whom he knows thanks to his Photography (Chitra, Niranj and Pratap) decided to go to Melukote on Sunday. Nagesh called me up excitedly and said that he would come down to Mysore to pick me up and then we could go to Melukote :)

The day arrived and the guys happily came home at Mysore after Birding at Ranganathittu.  After having lunch in Mysore, we started our journey and reached Melukote late in the afternoon as the roads were not good after taking the left turn from the highway. The road to Melukote was dotted with scenes from rural life and lush green fields. It felt nice to be in the countryside. For once, driving took precedence over photography for Nagesh and hence no pics. Only memories :)

Temples and Sights of Melukote

Chitra and her family were already near the Cheluva Narayana Swamy temple and waiting for us. There were lot of Puliyogare vendors near the temple! We decided to head there as soon as we finished the temple visits :) This temple has an annual Vairamudi festival which is very popular. There was a board near the temple with direction to the memorial of Pu Ti Na (Pu Ti Narasimhachar), the noted Kannada poet and playwright who hails from this place.

There is a beautiful Pushkarini behind this temple which has been used as  a location in many movies. When we reached there, a kannada movie/serial shooting was in progress. A Hoopoe was darting about swiftly but we were unable to get a pic.

We then started climbing the hill to go to the Yoga Narasimha Swamy temple. The path was lined with beautiful Frangipani trees and the flowers were scattered around. Chitra’s daughter had a good time collecting quite a few :)

The views of the little town of Melukote and the pushkarini from the steps was quite a sight.

We spent some time in the temple. The sunset from there was a glorious sight! On our way out we were greeted by a few monkeys with a baby in tow posing for the cameras happily!

Some other sights of Melukote

Pooja being performed of a new car

2 old men sharing their thoughts with each other

Puliyogare. Slurp!

The descent was quick and it was pretty dark by the time we were back near the Cheluva Narayana Swamy temple. The puliyogare vendors had left by then. On the way to the hill, I had noticed Ganapathi Mess about which I had read in a blog long back. We decided to go there for dinner. This is a 100 year old mess where you can get absolutely delicious puliyogare. We spent some time there talking to the owner. We left Melukote with packets of Puliyogare and Vangibath mix as well as mango pickle which we had eaten along-with the puliyogare :)

Hope to be back in Melukote again to see the Dhanushkodi which is very scenic and a short distance away from the Cheluva Narayana Swamy temple as well as the akka thangi kola which is another pushkarini.

Lepakshi

This post is about a place steeped in history and unknown to many people though it is so close to Bangalore. I am talking about a quaint little town called Lepakshi just across the Andhra border. We started the year 2009 with a visit to this place. We were very excited as the place held a lot of promise in terms of its architectural beauty which meant a lot of photography options for Nagesh :)

We left home at around 11 AM and reached Chikkaballapur by 12.30 PM. Had lunch at a place called Hotel Sai Palace or something similar to that.. I would recommend people not to go here as the food was so-so. Instead you can go to Hotel Shanthi Sagar which is on the highway (map below). Chikkaballapur is really that barren when it comes to eating options. On the two occasions that we have traveled through Chikkaballapur, the other being the trip to Rangasthala and Muddenahalli,we have not found any other worthwhile place. Me thinks its a good business opportunity for some enterprising soul :)

After lunch we continued the drive and reached the Andhra border around 2 PM. Sadly there are no boards which indicate the presence of Lepakshi. Andhra tourism clearly has to learn a lot from Karnataka tourism :) Its very easy to miss the left turn from the highway to this place. Once you cross the state border, go past the petrol pump on the left and you can see an APTDC restaurant/hotel. After this you can see a lot of lorries parked on the left side of the highway. There is a narrow road here and you need to take a left turn and proceed for another 10-12 kms to reach Lepakshi. This road eventually leads to Hindupur. You can see a statue of painted storks midway along this narrow road. A left turn here will lead you to the Veerapuram bird sanctuary. Keep going straight and you will reach Lepakshi.

The Nandi

The giant monolithic Nandi statue carved out of a single granite rock on the right side of the road was a welcome sight at the entrance of Lepakshi. Nandi aka the sacred bull is considered as the vehicle of Lord Shiva. Some of the largest Nandis in India can be found in Lepakshi, Chamundi Hills in Mysore, Bull temple in Bangalore and Brihadeshwara temple in Thanjavur.

To the left of the Nandi was a hill with a lot of boulders and the ruins of what must have been a watch tower during the reign of the Vijayanagara Empire.

The Temple and Architecture

We then proceeded to the Veerabhadra temple which is a classic example of the Vijayanagara style of architecture. We decided to take a guided tour of the temple as it has so much to offer. I would definitely advise anybody who goes there to hire a guide as the information that they know will make you appreciate the place more. This temple was commissioned by Vijayanagara rulers. The temple has a huge courtyard. The sheer architectural beauty of this temple is awe-inspiring. I would let the photographs do the further talking :)

There is a huge statue of the Lord Naga. I am not sure if this can be found in any other temple. Our guide informed us that this statue was carved in a single day when the sculptor had some free time on his hands as his food had not arrived! We were awestruck at what had apparently been accomplished in a lunch break :)

The Kalayana Mantapa

There is an unfinished Kalyana Mantapa within the temple premises which is of mythological importance. Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvathi are supposed to have been married at this place. When this Mantapa was being constructed, the chieftain Virupakshanna who was responsible for obtaining the funding from the king was accused of misappropriating the funds by his enemies.On coming to know of this, he blinded himself at this place in disgust at the accusation. Today we can see a smear of red on one of the walls near the Mantapa which is supposed to be his blood. It is said that the place got its name due to this incident as Lepakshi i.e.,Lepa-Akshi means village of the blinded eye.

On the floor in the temple courtyard there are huge palette shaped carvings in stone which were used as plates for having food by the sculptors. Similar patterns can be found in the Chennakesava temple at Somanathapura near Mysore.

Wall Paintings

The walls of the courtyard are dotted with beautiful paintings which have been ravaged with the passage of time.

The Pillar which is Not Grounded

Another amazing feature of this temple is a free standing pillar with support only at the roof. Our guide demonstrated that a fine piece of cloth can be placed below the pillar.

Lepakshi definitely has its own charm and has stood a witness to the glorious past of the Vijanayagara empire withstanding the ravages of time. We spent some time at the temple after thanking our guide for the myriad of information that he provided us without which we could not have appreciated the beauty of this place. We then started on our way back at around 4.30 PM with heavy hearts as it was getting late. I would definitely want to go back here.

Last but not the least.. Am happy that I have finally managed to write about this lovely place. All excited about my next trip which is to Hampi next week!!! This has been on my wishlist ever since I heard about it first as a kid.

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Vellore

This post is about a trip to Vellore in Tamil Nadu. On a Saturday last year, a good friend of ours called and asked if we could go to Vellore and visit the Golden temple the next day. As we were free and had heard about this temple we decided to go :)

Given my usual habit of finding out beforehand about any place to which I plan to go, I browsed about Vellore and found that there is a beautiful fort which one should not miss when there. Saw some lovely photographs of the fort on flickr taken by a localite. Given the fact that we had planned to start from Bangalore (JP Nagar to be exact) at around 10 in the morning we felt that we might end up going only to the temple.

The drive was pretty peaceful and scenic. We reached Hosur quite soon. After Krishnagiri, we took the left turn towards Vellore. Managed to reach Vellore around 1 PM on time for lunch :)

Now we faced a queer problem at hand. We were not sure where to eat. Unfortunately I hadn’t read about the eating options in Vellore…We did enter a restaurant on the Vellore bypass road before entering the town. But our friends were not convinced of the place. So we were back in the car immediately :)

We decided to enter the town and figure out by asking people there. To our luck we saw a Sardarji on the road and asked him if he knows a good place to eat. He directed us to Hotel Darling Residency! The name of the place made us feel skeptical :) Anyway we did not have any options and decided to try the place. It is very close to the Officer’s Line which is one of the important areas in Vellore. To our surprise the place was bustling with activity and lot of people! Lot of foreign tourists were also staying there. The restaurant turned out to be pretty good. Without wasting anymore time we ordered meals and were served a full fledged South Indian meal on banana leaves :)

By the time we finished lunch it was 2.30 PM. We headed out towards the Golden temple. On the way we saw the CMC college for which Vellore is famous. On reaching the temple complex, we learnt to our dismay that it would take at least 2 hours to enter the temple as there was a long queue :( We decided to call it quits as it would delay us quite a bit and we had to start from there before 5 PM so that we could reach Bangalore at a reasonable time.

As we had some time left, we headed to the fort. The fort is quite large and in good condition. Tipu Sultan is supposed to have taken refuge here along-with his family during his war with the British. The moat around the fort adds to its beauty.

The fort houses an ancient temple dedicated to Lord Shiva called Jalakanteshwar Temple. This has been built in Vijayanagara style. We spent some time within the temple.

Had good coffee at one of the shops housed inside the fort. There is police training camp also within the fort. Took a short walk near the walls of the fort and left as it was getting late.

Would have loved to have walked around the entire area within the fort. Alas the trip came to an end. Might head back in future with more time at leisure and see the Golden temple too! Another place nearby on my to-do list is the Yelagiri hills. A visit to both Vellore and Yelagiri could be done in a short trip of 2-3 days.

On our way back we were lucky to view a fabulous sunset!

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Omkar Hills, Bangalore

There are many places in and around Bangalore of which not many are aware. This post is about one such place in south Bangalore near Raja Rajeshwari Nagar called Omkar hills. This place is said to be the highest point in Bangalore.

I had read up about this place and decided to go there on a weekend.This was 2 years ago. It was hard to find out the route to this place as there was no map/directions! We tried to approach this place from Rajarajeshwari Nagar. Alas any road that we took was leading to a dead end. With the frustration level mounting, we almost gave up and decided to drive back home. This was not to be so :) We found an easy route thanks to some gentleman!

When driving on Mysore Road from Bangalore,take the left at Uttarahalli Main Road,drive past the BGS Apollo hospital and then take the right next to JSS College. This road goes to the top of Omkar Hills. You will find a detailed map and link to Google maps at the bottom of this post.

Omkar Hills has a temple and Ashram which was founded by Shri Shivapuri Mahaswamiji. More details can be seen here.

One of the main attractions of this place is the huge clock tower built by HMT at the entrance which is claimed to be the second biggest in the world. It is also said to be bigger than the Big Ben. The clock was supposed to chime the sound of a conch being blown followed by the om sound five times at the striking of every hour.  Sadly the clock has stopped working now.

The swamiji’s samadhi is also housed – opposite the clock in a little enclosure. There are a beautiful set of steps leading up. These steps are laden with beautiful flowering trees and plants. When you look up those steps you sort of feel that they are leading you to the edge of the earth into another world!

Upon climbing a few steps one can see an old banyan tree surrounded by statues representating various faiths/religions. Ramanujacharya, Shankaracharya, Madhwacharya, Jesus, Koran, Buddha, Mahaveera and the Guru Granth Sahib as far as I recollect.

The view of the city outskirts from the top is nice. A new temple was being constructed in the premises opposite to the banyan tree.

And finally leaving you with one final look of the whole place!

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