Every journey A story my perspective.

                                           It was like sophistication during the pandemic. As the relaxation was enough we thought it was necessary for fresh air, so I and my friend planned a road trip to Chikmagalur. Chikmagalur is famous for its hushed environment, lush green forests, and tall mountains.

HOYSALESWARA TEMPLE :

On the way to Chikmagalur, we visited the Hoysaleswara temple. It is considered to be masterpieces of traditional Indian art forms. The magnitude, exuberance of carving, and artistic majesty of the shrine are incomparable. This magnificent shrine dedicated to lord shiva is the largest and the best of Hoysala temples. The sculptural extravaganza has been lavishly praised by experts, critics, and common visitors. There are about thirty-five thousand splendidly carved sculptures in the shrine. Thousands of these intricately carved sculptures depict scenes from the mythological epics Ramanaya, Mahabharta, puranic legends, beasts and beauties, etc. adorn the temple walls.

HIREKOLELAKE:

After an hour’s ride from Hoysaleswara temple, you can reach Chikmagalur. The nearest destination to visit Chikmagalur was Hirekolelake. Hirekolelake was a man-made lake situated at the foothills of Mullayangiri. It was best to visit early morning or late evening so you can see the mesmerizing views of the lake.it was a great place to spend some quality time with family.

MULLAYANGIRI PEAK :

Mullayangiri peak is the highest peak in Karnataka. Mullayangiri is one of the most popular trekking destinations in Karnataka. The scenery was spectacular and it was easy to do the trek. The tourist is allowed from 6:am to 6:pm. During early morning hours, the peak is usually covered by mist and the views are breathtaking. A small temple is located at the top of the mountain. This temple is dedicated to lord shiva.

ZPOINT IN KEMMANGUNDI :

The Zpoint on kemmangundi is the prime places to visit in kemmangundi. ZPoint is a beautiful spot with deep valleys all around amidst thick green surroundings. On the way to zpoint, you can visit kalhatti falls, Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary, and Hebbefalls.

   KALHATTI FALLS – The water here falls from 120m and gushes into the ground. VeerabhadreshwaraTemple was near the temple.

  Hebbe Falls – Hebbe falls is one of the most popular waterfalls in Chikmagalur. Hebbe falls is 168m in height `

To reach Zpoint we have to trek 3km from Raj Bhavan it takes nearly an hour to reach the ZPoint. Shanthiwaterfalls is on the way to point. There are leeches on the path and the trek gets tricker after the Shanthi falls. The trek provides breathtaking views of the hills in kemmangundi. The Greenlands provides a unique setting for the slopes. Once you reach the top it feels like you are on top of the world. It will be the best thing for the whole trip.

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“If you want to improve yourself, you should challenge your own limits”.

From sweltering to chilly weather, we smiled through 1000 miles of our bike trip in karnataka . it was a great experience as it was our first travel 1000miles. We have to exact it was 1106 mileswe travelled through cities, tiny villages, mountains and forests. we had some great and worse experience.

We started our trip at 3’0 clock early morning from salem to hampi. on the way we want to mandaragiri betta, which was in tumkur. There was a jain temple in the hill, you have to climb 450steps to reach the top of the hill. It was kinda of unsafe because there was no fence there and the hill was quite steep. But the view from the top is exquisite. But when we were there  the temple was under construction.It was great place spend time on a weekend.

Then we strated our journey to hampi , we are on NH48 till chitradurga , till that the road was great and it was fun. Then from chitradurga to hampi the road was under construction, so it was hard to drive and it took some time then we thought.

We reached hampi around 8pm, we drove for 15 hours. As it was a weekend most of the good hotel was booked, so we opted homestay, After roaming we end up in decent hotel, but the prices of the hotel and food seems to be expensive .The next day we visited temples, monuments and in the evening we watched sunset at Hemakuta hill.That’s  our day end in hampi.

Next morning, we strated from hampi to jog falls through mountains, small village, agricultural lands and forest. Finally we reached jog falls at 3pm. the view of falls was just exquisite.There are two view points. There are totally 1400steps for the falls. The entrance timing to go down on the steps are 10:00 am to 4;00pm. Make sure you go there before 4’o clock. we missed it by 2minutes. We regret it. Maybe next time we ll make sure we check timings before we start. We spend some time by standing there enjoying the beauty of nature.

Then we continue our ride in the evening to murdeshwar. The road was middle of hills, we somehow managed to reach Murdeshwar before midnight  and stayed in a hotel nearby. Then next day morning we visited the shivan temple and Lord shiva statue ,which is the second highest statue in the world. The we went to top of the gopura which was 123feet and witness the breathtaking view of statue, beach and sea. Then we spent some quality time in the beach.

Then we headed back to home through cities, forest and hills in the rain covered with fog. In this trip we spent most of our time on bike than staying and visiting places and lot of things wasn’t going as per plan . which was out of our comfort zone.

But Everytime when we drove a hills which was covered by fog , Roads of small village, brisk weather and drizzle it all made us excited and bring smile in our faces . It made the 1000miles of this road trip a memorable one.

THANK YOU !!!!

“Fill your life with adventures,not things.Have stories to tell,not stuff to show.”

Our second road trip,racked up our bags,tied our shoes,Hit the road and travelled to  hampi , If “why –hampi ?” is your question then, here’s your answer:Love at first sight is not alone for girls but for beautiful places like Hampi which I gazed in a Malayalam movie (anandam)and immediately it was maneuvered to our bucket list .Surprisingly we came to know that it was UNESCO  historical heritage area.

INTRO:

      Hampi is believed as an ancient  “kishkinda” of Ramanaya times where the monkey kingdom existed. Till now there are lots of myths and superstitious beliefs about how it was created ,but in 1336  CE , the vijayanagara Empire arose from the ruins of the kampili kingdom. the vijayanagara empire built its capital around hampi`. From then the empire was ruled by many kings and dynasties. The aravidu dynasty sucessors ruled the region but the empire collapsed in 1614,and the final remains ended in 1646from continued wars with the bijapur sultanate and others.

 Let us walk you through our journey  to magical Hampi:

Our Adventure began from our hotel which was few minutes away ,we hit the road with our Royal Enfields(Samrats born for Travelling). Our eyes was filled with green sceneric of agricultural fields and hills then we got welcomed by the thalarighatta gate and we went further down for  few minutes and arrived at  the entrances of vitthala temple.

On our way to to vitthala temple from entrance we came across,

GEJJALA (PARANKUSHA)MANDAPA : Used as ustav mandapa for alighting the processional deities.

 KUDUREGOMBE (TOYHORSE)MANDAPA: which is  situated in the vitthla bazaar ,used during the ustav for  processions the deity. the mandapa as the hourse riders in the pillars and hence its named as toyhorse mandapa.

Vitthala bazaar and Pushkarani:

VITTHALA TEMPLE :

This one of the most admirable and most visited place in  hampi . It has devi shrine,kalyana mandapa ,ustav mandapa ,a hundred pillared mandapa and most famed stone chariot.the temple was a Cult example of the architecture of the vijayanagara empire .

After being there for sometime we gazed  at the temple , sculptures and stone chariot. We then, decided to move on for further surprises waiting for us to come and see them, where we saw the king’s balance and two storied mandapa.

King’s balance was meant  for weighing the king against precious gems and metal during the important occasion and gifted to temple or people known as tulapurusha dana.

NARASHIMA TEMPLE: the narashima temple was built in the sloping hillrock built by hiriya timma setti in about 1386ADwhich was approx. few meters away from two storied mandapa .

ACHYUTARAYA TEMPLE:

The achyutaraya temple was at the foothill of the matanga hillock.

 The achyutaraya (Courtesan street) is the widest bazaar with series of mandaps on the either side of the central pathway .

There was Holy lake (pushkarani) with mandapa in the center was alongside  the bazaar .

PURANDARA MANDAPA:

        It was located on rock bed of river tungabadra with main plain pillared mandapa with massive square pillars .it was named after the famous saint and composer of carnatic music –Purandaradasa .

QUEENS BATH:

 It was the much visited structure of hampi,this building was in indo-islamic style .

Near queens bath there is a Beautiful temple named chandrasekara temple .

Very close to chandrashekara temple there was another temple known as saraswati temple which was eye-catching .

Further to the saraswati temple octagonal bath was located .

ROYAL ENCLOSURE :

Royal enclosure is situated near the queen’s bath .it consists of decorated bases ,water systems ,large halls ,pillared shrine and water storage tanks .

Mahanavami dibba :

This was the tallest structure in the royal enclosure .the whole structure is made as a gaint square structure in three layers. the sculptures on the on the sides of the dabba potray daily life of vijayanagara .the king used to get entertained during festivies on the dibba.

Hazzara ramachandra temple was situated near the royal enclosure . You must visit it if you get a chance to.

Lotus Mahal :

      Lotus mahal is an important profane structure at hampi it is also knownas chitrangi mahal and kamal mahal .it was located inside the zanana enclosure.

ELEPHANT STABLE:

The elephant stable was one of the few least destroyed structures in the hampi.it was represented by homogenous group of chambers with high curved façade with lofty doomed roof .this place is nothing but the royal elephant’s shelter.

VIRUPAKSHA TEMPLE:

The virupaksha or pampapati temple is the most scared living temple of hampi .the temple was originally  small shrine ,was expanded into vast complex of present dimensions .

HEMATUKA HILL:

    On the way to top of the the hill ,there was sasive kalu ganesha which was a monolithic sculpture .it was housed by the open plain pillared mandapa .

After seeing the ganesha ,you can go to the top of the hill from best sunset view point .after learning and in the awesomeness of the magical hampi it was the great place to stay quite perceive the mother nature. 

Things to know before going there :

 There was not much good hotels ,so it was better to book rooms before going there .

It takes atleast  two complete  days to sight  all the places in hampi and near it .

The hampi was 12km from hospet where a railway station is located .

The food was not that great  ,but we are not here to eat . less eating is advisable.

If u can visit it was a splendid experience.if u can rent a bicycle ,it will be helpful to cover all the places.

If you have already visited hampi and if we missed out something then please let us know. Cheers!!

We have to reminisce the forgotten beauty of the magical Hampi.

THANK YOU…

As we all have that one trip that we plan for ages,that’s how our trip was going .we nearly planned it for a year and finally made our first trip to Kochi.As we have expected our first bike trip was full of learning experience
We started our trip from Salem to Kochi via Coimbatore .we started traveling from Salem at the evening time ,it was heavily raining and drizzling. After an hour of ride we planned to reach our friend’s place before dawn so we continued in rain. Finally we reached our friend’s place by 10 and then we headed to a movie.

A disappointing start..

The next day we started our drive a bit late than we had planned .It was our first time so didn’t knew the route and we expected great scenery on the way to Kochi but we were disappointed that there wasn’t great sceneries other than a some bridges .the heat was also a bit high in offseason ,we thought it will be cold in Kerala, but it turned out to be same as in Tamilnadu .Then finally we reached azhuva by noon.

Out of the Blue..

After having a sumptuous lunch, we took some rest ,then our friend told about a place near Aluva bridge where a river bank resides. So we went to spend our tym swimming and roaming around. Also there is a Auspicious Shiva Temple… It was a top-notch experience to spend our leisure time there with our family and friends..it was out of the Blue that we visit this place, but it turned out one of the best place we have ever gone.

A prodigious day….

The next day of our trip was prodigious.we thought of going to varkala.But on the way to Varkala there was a light house and a sea Park in the thangassery, so we planned to stop there. We started our trip early in the morning, we had our breakfast. As we were moving, we witnessed a fortuitous sea shore behind the restaurant. loved the exquisite place which gave us a lot of excitement about the trip. We reached the lighthouse after a brudensome drive in the congested traffic road for a hour. Then we finally reached lighthouse and went to top of the lighthouse which was a beautiful sight We were stunned by the scenery. There was a sea Park beside lighthouse ,but it was about to close by that time but we went there before the closing time. Though we were amazed on seeing a beautiful place from the top of the lighthouse which was beside the lighthouse. It had a terapods structure to prevent the water break .we went there to spend some time by snapping pics nd enjoyed the waves…

Varkala…

After a prodigious half a day ,we persisted our trip. On our way from Thangassery to Varkala we were amazed by a blissful beach and on the other side there was a dark sight full canal which made our journey even more relishing..

After a while, we arrived Varkala and were amused by the beauty of its beach and cliff.That cliff was very grateful to watch. it was one of the best beaches I had ever been. Then, we spend our time by playing cricket with a London tourist named Louis had a good convo with him and had a lot of fun while swimming. From the convo we learned that he knows more about India nd Indian culture , history of our country more than lot of us.
Then we had lot of fun while swimming.

After spending a good tym in Varkala we headed to Alleppey , after a few minutes travel from Varkala we stopped on the beaches to see the beautiful sunsets. It turnout to be one of the best moments of the trip..

Final day..

It was contiguous ride from Varkala to Alleppey due to hetic road nd nite tym lights.we reached nd booked a room at Alleppey nd had dinner .
The final day we had enough tym before leaving,so we planned a pathiramanal island which was near Alleppey .for reaching the island we had to took boat , we took small and fast one it was one heck of the ride, we throughly enjoyed the tym riding the boat.then we wandered the island nd saw few snakes nd birds it kinda of thrill nd we spend few hours .we don’t have much tym so we couldn’t try boat house.it was great palce to experience boat house..

Finally Our Frist bike trip ended..