Archive for the ‘trips’ Category
New Year eve @ Hampi
The work pressure in the month of December was a bit more. It has been so for some time now. The only way to get out of it was to get out of Hyderabad for a couple of days and get refreshed. Luckily my office had a shutdown during the last week of December. Initially thought of going to Bidar, but finally fixed Hampi as I somehow missed out seeing it even after staying in Raichur for almost 2 decades. As Hampi can only be visited in winter, I thought this to be the right time to visit. So, booked tickets on Rajahamsa(Bus) and we went there for 2 days trip. Hampi will turn into an oven in summer.
We stayed in Pai Residency (a lodge near Hospet Bus-stand). It is quite decent one with reasonable prices. We had food at Hotel Aamantran (besides Pai Residncy) on day-1. It is not bad for South-Indian food. We booked a cab for Hampi from Hospet (Rs 1000/-). At Hampi we hired a guide for Rs 800/-. It took us that entire day to see Hampi.
Hampi, once capital of the great Vijayanagara empire is a place of ruins. There is a still little bit of architecture left over, but not comparable to that of Belur and Halebidu. It once enjoyed being the most architecturally beautiful places in the world. You will today see it as a vast city, of about 30 sq kms, of ruins everywhere. The little bit of architecture what ever left over is still worth visiting.
With the guide explaining you every prominent ruin you will get a feel of how brutal the invaders were. Almost every sculpture has a broken limb/ear/nose. It might have easily taken the invaders several months to just do eat-destroy-sleep kind of job. You tend to curse the invaders every now and then.
Among the left outs, I liked the Urga-Narasimha statue, Hazara Rama Temple and Vittala Temple. The Vittala temple has many beautiful architectural splendors in it. The iconic sculpture of the Stone Chariot is located here. It also shelters the famous Mantapa with musical pillars. The Lotus Mahal is also worth watching. The Maharnavami dibba looks like a Harappa/Mohenjodaro site replica with all ruins. It took us the entire day of day-1 to see Hampi. It was a bit tiring.
The next day (1st Jan) we reseted ourselves a bit. We had lunch at Iceland Hotel. It is close to Pai-Residency and Bus-stand. We had North Indian lunch and I would say it was one of the best North-Indian food I had in hotels. Very good quality at reasonable rate. Post lunch we planned for Tunga-Bhadra dam and nearby park. It is about 7 kms from Hospet. All the dam gates were closed. So no much fun there. The park has a deer park and an aviary. We waited for evening musical fountain show at the park which was also good. After returning from the dam, we had to catch our bus back to Hyderabad at around 9pm.
In all it was a nice refreshing trip to Hampi, and now I am back to work 😦
Hampi Collage
Goa Trip snaps…
A very memorable trip to Goa with X-Boys.
Hogganekkal trip photos
Click to go to album.
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| Hogganekkal Falls |
Roadies 2: Bangalore-Coonoor-Ooty-Mysore-Bangalore
It was a majesic drive through the Nilgiris – about 600Kms bike ride. Photos to come in next post.
Agumbe Bike Ride
So, I could atlast get some snaps of our Agumbe Bike ride trip from the busy Bangalore guys. It was a wonderful experience to ride almost 800Kms in 4 days. Although it was tiresome on the first day, we some how didnt feel much strain there after. We first rode to Hassan from Bangalore which is 180kms, stayed there over night and left to sringeri via chikmagalur. It is about 160 kms. The route is Hassan – Belur- Chikmagaluru- Aldur- Balehonnur -Sringeri. We reached Sringeri by noon. But it was still raining. The rain-God was following us all the way from Bangalore. We had to see the sunset in Agumbe as it is famous for. We then set out to Agumbe which is about 40kms from Sringeri in the evening. It was an awesome ride. We couldnt get a glimpse of Sun though. We retuned back to Sringeri and stayed overnight. Still raining. We returned back the next day to Hassan. The rain was thankfully getting weaker as we moved away from Sringeri. This is exactly when you need to see the beauty of WesternGhats, just after a rain. It was now when our cameras came out boldly capturing some memories for us. By the time we reached Bangalore it was quite sunny again. A glimpse of Sun atlast. Enjoy the snaps.
Find the link to Album Here.
How about this?
How about a trip through the Western Ghats on a bike ride while it is raining or has just stopped raining? Thrilling isn’t? I had been to one such trip on 21-21-22-23rd March to Agumbe from Bangalore on bikes along with my friends; a round trip of about 800kms. It was an awesome experinece. More to come in next post.
Kaushik's Blog 