Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Srisailam Trip
Prologue
It was as uncertain as the Indian Monsoon…
I’m not talking about Indian batting…
It was as thrilling as a Hitchcockian whodunit…..
I’m not talking about the current Ashes series…
It was just pure adrenalin rush…
I’m not talking about any of those AXN programs…
Its real…
Its raw…
Its wild…
Its fun….
3 weeks of planning…
2 postpones…
1 cancellation…
2 candidates dropping at the last moment…
One full day of nerves….
And to top it all…the trip hasn’t yet started then...and yet we’ve done it again…all over…
The story
It was not till Friday morning, did we come to know that Mastan and Mahender would be missing the trip, as both of them had some high priority work at hand, in the weekend. That didn’t dampen our spirits...We still had good company In Murali and Pradeep...Murali and I started from MGBS at 9:30 in the night. The journey was not the comfortable of all, with some bumpy roads and a cacophonous bunch of girls right behind our seat...Not at least till we got a glimpse of what could be called as one the few visuals that can be worth watching even at 3:30 AM in the mid-night. The bus took us through a labyrinth of Ghat roads with a spectacular view of the water falling from the Dam gates.
That visual almost drove our sleep away and it was 5 O’clock in the morning by the time we reached Srisailam. We immediately booked a room in a chowltry for ourselves and got into a nap very quickly.
Pradeep’s phone call woke us from the deep slumber. He joined us in the Chowltry and we refreshed ourselves with a shower and started off from the room. We reached the Sanctum sanatorium of Lord Mallikharjuna Swamy by 10 O’clock .The temple can be approached by two ways, each of which is flanked on either side by the customary Hawkers trying to lure the pilgrims into buying their wares. The temple complex was approximately of the size of a cricket ground with the temples of Raja Rajeswara Swamy, Raja Rajeshwari Devi, Vinayaka, Bhramaraba Devi and Lord Mallikharjuna. The temple complex also had a Mirror hall where the Lord is believed to have his sleep every night. We had the “Darshan” and bought “Prasadam” afterwards.
We then had our lunch at the chowltry and moved to the next phase of the trip, i.e. “site seeing”. We got ourselves into the State run RTC Site Seeing special bus and the first stop was the “Saakshi Ganapathi temple”. It is believed that Lord Ganesha himself maintains a record of the devotees visiting srisailam. We moved on to “the Hatakeshwara temple”, where Lord Shiva is believed to have blessed a potter and enlightened him. The Siva Lingam was symbolically represented on a potter’s wheel.
The next stop was the ‘Phaaladhara-Panchadhaara’. It was a steep valley-like geography, which could be accessed by a stairway. Small streamlets of water ooze out of the rocks, creating an Ideal ambience for meditation. It is believed that the legendary Saint “Shankaracharya” himself constructed a shrine here and used to meditate there.
We then reached the “Sikharam” by the evening. The “Sikharam” is the highest point of the Nallamala hills. It is believed that anybody who gets a glimpse of the “Garbha Gudi Gopuram”, from the Sikharam from in between the horns of Nandi, will have no re-birth.
The last of the stops was the “Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy Project” also called the “Srisailam Dam”. The dam stood tall against the background of lush green forests of the Nallamala hills, providing a spectacular panorama of beauty, glory and grandeur of Mother Nature. The view of the water flowing down from an astounding 800 ft and ricocheting to almost 700 ft with a horizontal range of approximately the same distance as the height and transforming into a gigantic misty wave of frothing water, left us spell bound. We managed to get a view from the top of the dam by bribing a person there. The sun already slipped beneath the western horizon, when we started strolling along the road towards the base of the dam, against gusty wind filled with the torrent of mist rising from the river water, slapping right across our faces. As we moved nearer to the base of the dam, the sound of the flow of water reverberated in our ears creating in us, a strange feeling of Euphoria mixed with apprehension. The view of the crescent moon disappearing intermittently in the clouds of the mist, only added to the beauty of the whole backdrop. We felt like we really had a sumptuous treat for our senses, satisfying us thoroughly. We returned to the boarding point, rather reluctantly and got into a bus, which took us back to Srisailam.
The small temple town’s streets were still awake and we had a quick dinner at a small hotel. We returned to the chowltry, after booking the tickets for our return journey. Our discussions went long into the night, covering a gamut of topics ranging from World politics to International Cricket, before we slipped into a reasonably good sleep.
It was as uncertain as the Indian Monsoon…
I’m not talking about Indian batting…
It was as thrilling as a Hitchcockian whodunit…..
I’m not talking about the current Ashes series…
It was just pure adrenalin rush…
I’m not talking about any of those AXN programs…
Its real…
Its raw…
Its wild…
Its fun….
3 weeks of planning…
2 postpones…
1 cancellation…
2 candidates dropping at the last moment…
One full day of nerves….
And to top it all…the trip hasn’t yet started then...and yet we’ve done it again…all over…
The story
It was not till Friday morning, did we come to know that Mastan and Mahender would be missing the trip, as both of them had some high priority work at hand, in the weekend. That didn’t dampen our spirits...We still had good company In Murali and Pradeep...Murali and I started from MGBS at 9:30 in the night. The journey was not the comfortable of all, with some bumpy roads and a cacophonous bunch of girls right behind our seat...Not at least till we got a glimpse of what could be called as one the few visuals that can be worth watching even at 3:30 AM in the mid-night. The bus took us through a labyrinth of Ghat roads with a spectacular view of the water falling from the Dam gates.
That visual almost drove our sleep away and it was 5 O’clock in the morning by the time we reached Srisailam. We immediately booked a room in a chowltry for ourselves and got into a nap very quickly.
Pradeep’s phone call woke us from the deep slumber. He joined us in the Chowltry and we refreshed ourselves with a shower and started off from the room. We reached the Sanctum sanatorium of Lord Mallikharjuna Swamy by 10 O’clock .The temple can be approached by two ways, each of which is flanked on either side by the customary Hawkers trying to lure the pilgrims into buying their wares. The temple complex was approximately of the size of a cricket ground with the temples of Raja Rajeswara Swamy, Raja Rajeshwari Devi, Vinayaka, Bhramaraba Devi and Lord Mallikharjuna. The temple complex also had a Mirror hall where the Lord is believed to have his sleep every night. We had the “Darshan” and bought “Prasadam” afterwards.
We then had our lunch at the chowltry and moved to the next phase of the trip, i.e. “site seeing”. We got ourselves into the State run RTC Site Seeing special bus and the first stop was the “Saakshi Ganapathi temple”. It is believed that Lord Ganesha himself maintains a record of the devotees visiting srisailam. We moved on to “the Hatakeshwara temple”, where Lord Shiva is believed to have blessed a potter and enlightened him. The Siva Lingam was symbolically represented on a potter’s wheel.
The next stop was the ‘Phaaladhara-Panchadhaara’. It was a steep valley-like geography, which could be accessed by a stairway. Small streamlets of water ooze out of the rocks, creating an Ideal ambience for meditation. It is believed that the legendary Saint “Shankaracharya” himself constructed a shrine here and used to meditate there.
We then reached the “Sikharam” by the evening. The “Sikharam” is the highest point of the Nallamala hills. It is believed that anybody who gets a glimpse of the “Garbha Gudi Gopuram”, from the Sikharam from in between the horns of Nandi, will have no re-birth.
The last of the stops was the “Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy Project” also called the “Srisailam Dam”. The dam stood tall against the background of lush green forests of the Nallamala hills, providing a spectacular panorama of beauty, glory and grandeur of Mother Nature. The view of the water flowing down from an astounding 800 ft and ricocheting to almost 700 ft with a horizontal range of approximately the same distance as the height and transforming into a gigantic misty wave of frothing water, left us spell bound. We managed to get a view from the top of the dam by bribing a person there. The sun already slipped beneath the western horizon, when we started strolling along the road towards the base of the dam, against gusty wind filled with the torrent of mist rising from the river water, slapping right across our faces. As we moved nearer to the base of the dam, the sound of the flow of water reverberated in our ears creating in us, a strange feeling of Euphoria mixed with apprehension. The view of the crescent moon disappearing intermittently in the clouds of the mist, only added to the beauty of the whole backdrop. We felt like we really had a sumptuous treat for our senses, satisfying us thoroughly. We returned to the boarding point, rather reluctantly and got into a bus, which took us back to Srisailam.
The small temple town’s streets were still awake and we had a quick dinner at a small hotel. We returned to the chowltry, after booking the tickets for our return journey. Our discussions went long into the night, covering a gamut of topics ranging from World politics to International Cricket, before we slipped into a reasonably good sleep.
Monday, January 23, 2006
thatsme
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
My Hampi Trip
The Hampi Trip
The Rayalaseema express was coasting through the dry lands of the Deccan plateau. The darkness of the night was the only witness to what was happening. The cold breeze of the northeast Karnataka was ripping through the bogies of the train. Three sets of eyes were looking eagerly at the on-coming Railway station.
It was Hospet Junction.
They got down there.
The three silhouettes asked something at a shop near-by and started walking towards the Bus-Stand along the newly laid tar road.
Mean while, somewhere else, in the State Run RTC bus, One Guy in a dark jerkin was thinking deeply about something...
The three travelers from the east were restive. One of them tried to call somebody through his Orange colored cell-phone. The action was unsuccessful.
There was something in the air. A sense of strange feeling was quite evident in the three
Travelers.
"Uyire Uyire..Uyire.." ..It was the ringing tone of one of the travelers' cell phones. There was at last some happiness in the faces of the travelers.
After some more time, the wait ended, the man in the Jerkin found the three travelers.
Yes, they were indeed old friends. Mahender, Ravi Kanth and Mastan were the three travelers from the East. The gentleman in the Jerkin is Mr Pradeep!!!!!
Yes Guys..That’s how our Hampi trip started.
Day One
Hampi was about 15KM from Hospet Junction. We took a Bus to Hampi and got there by 8:30 in the morning (30-10-2004). We took a room near the imposing 'Gopuram' of the 'Viroopaksheswara' temple.
We refreshed ourselves and started for sight seeing. We have visited the Viroopaksheswara Temple and walked on to the Banks of the Tungabhadra River. We have spent some time at the bank. The sound of flowing water in combination with the picturesque visuals of the Surroundings was spectacular to watch. Then, we bought a camera. We've hired an Auto to take us around Hampi. They say it was about 24 miles in all.
The first stop was at the Ganesha-Temple. A huge Ganesha was enshrined in an equally huge temple. It was badly damaged though. We took some snaps there and went forward.
We then went to the YogaNarasimha swamy temple and the Shiva temple.
The Rayalaseema express was coasting through the dry lands of the Deccan plateau. The darkness of the night was the only witness to what was happening. The cold breeze of the northeast Karnataka was ripping through the bogies of the train. Three sets of eyes were looking eagerly at the on-coming Railway station.
It was Hospet Junction.
They got down there.
The three silhouettes asked something at a shop near-by and started walking towards the Bus-Stand along the newly laid tar road.
Mean while, somewhere else, in the State Run RTC bus, One Guy in a dark jerkin was thinking deeply about something...
The three travelers from the east were restive. One of them tried to call somebody through his Orange colored cell-phone. The action was unsuccessful.
There was something in the air. A sense of strange feeling was quite evident in the three
Travelers.
"Uyire Uyire..Uyire.." ..It was the ringing tone of one of the travelers' cell phones. There was at last some happiness in the faces of the travelers.
After some more time, the wait ended, the man in the Jerkin found the three travelers.
Yes, they were indeed old friends. Mahender, Ravi Kanth and Mastan were the three travelers from the East. The gentleman in the Jerkin is Mr Pradeep!!!!!
Yes Guys..That’s how our Hampi trip started.
Day One
Hampi was about 15KM from Hospet Junction. We took a Bus to Hampi and got there by 8:30 in the morning (30-10-2004). We took a room near the imposing 'Gopuram' of the 'Viroopaksheswara' temple.
We refreshed ourselves and started for sight seeing. We have visited the Viroopaksheswara Temple and walked on to the Banks of the Tungabhadra River. We have spent some time at the bank. The sound of flowing water in combination with the picturesque visuals of the Surroundings was spectacular to watch. Then, we bought a camera. We've hired an Auto to take us around Hampi. They say it was about 24 miles in all.
The first stop was at the Ganesha-Temple. A huge Ganesha was enshrined in an equally huge temple. It was badly damaged though. We took some snaps there and went forward.
We then went to the YogaNarasimha swamy temple and the Shiva temple.
On the way to the Lotus Mahal, we have seen the Sister stones, and the Under Ground Shiva Temple. The Lotus Mahal was also called the "Chitrangini Meda". The construction style of the Mahal was a medley of the Islamic and Vijayanagara styles.
There were a team of actors and actresses doing rehearsal of the drama they were going to play in the 'Hampi Utsav', which is due that week. After seeing the Elephants Stable, we moved onto the deserted 'Hazararama' Temple. The Hazararama temple has Ramayana in the form of carvings on the walls of the temple.
The next stop was at the Royal "Mahanavami Dibba". It was a huge pedestal standing about 8 meters tall, Covering an approximate area of 250 square mts. After seeing the Pushkarini baavi, we've returned to the auto wallah to move on to the next destination.
We've reached the 'Vitthala Temple’ at almost the dusk hour. We were quite lucky, actually to get a look at the temple in the specially arranged lightings, thanks to the guard on duty there. The Vittala temple was splendidly magnificent in all its elegance, in the lights. The "Saptaswara" pillars and other musical pillars were the pick of the day. It was an amazing experience, to see those stone structures giving out enchanting musical tunes, when tapped upon. The "Stone chariot" was another special attraction of the Vitthala temple. We have taken
Some more snaps there.
Then we have returned to Hampi through an adventurous shortcut, after being dumped in the middle-of-no-where by the Auto-wallah, thanks again to the guard who helped us reach Hampi safely.
We felt tired after the daylong travel. We had a bath in the hotel room and after moving around in the Hampi main street for some more time, we've had dinner in a hotel and returned to the hotel room.
Day Two
The next day started at 7:30 in the morning. We checked out of the Hotel room at 9:00AM.There were two options for us to go to the "Hanumantuni Metta"-The birthplace of Lord Hanuman. One was to go around a de-tour by road for about 50 KM, or to cross the Tungabhadra river on a "Teppa" to cut short the journey. Obviously we have chosen the second route.
After crossing the Tungabhadra River, we have seen the Stone Bridge. It was a huge stone structure, damaged in parts, possibly due to earthquakes of the past. We reached the Hanumantuni Metta by Noon. It was a steep hill, which had steps to reach the Top. After the darshan we had some snaps there and started down hill.
We caught a Bus to a place called 'Vuligi' about 13KM from "Hanumatuni Metta". The bus went along a bumpy road to reach Vuligi at about 3:00PM. We had a mini lunch in a roadside Dhaba and took a bus to Tungabhadra Dam.
The Tungabhadra dam was indeed an engineering marvel, built about 50 years ago, covering a whopping 280 square KM. The view of the Tungabhadra River from the dam was simply awesome. The Dam also had some additional attractions like a Deer park, an aquarium and an Aviary. We had some snaps at some more places and then left for Hospet at about 7:00.
We guys from Hyderabad got a Rajahamsa to Hyderabad. Pradeep had to wait for 2 more hours to get his bus to Bangalore.
I'm sure our experience bored u all!! But what to do… You'll have to bear with all these and more, as the "Trailblazers" will come up with more of such trips.
Hampi Snippets
One could not stop wondering, seeing those young 10 year-old local children speak fluently in almost all of the prominent foreign languages along with all of the south Indian languages.
The helping nature of the Kannadigas needs to have a mention here. The trip could not have been easy without the hospitality and the helping nature of the locals of Karnataka.
One more important observation that one cannot miss is the presence of foreign tourists all over Hampi. They form a major proportion of the total tourists and indeed a good sign of the improving tourism in India.
The omni present Indian Monkey is one thing you cannot miss. They were there at almost all the places, jumping from one place to another, snatching eatables from the tourists. It reminded us of you all people!!!
There were a team of actors and actresses doing rehearsal of the drama they were going to play in the 'Hampi Utsav', which is due that week. After seeing the Elephants Stable, we moved onto the deserted 'Hazararama' Temple. The Hazararama temple has Ramayana in the form of carvings on the walls of the temple.
The next stop was at the Royal "Mahanavami Dibba". It was a huge pedestal standing about 8 meters tall, Covering an approximate area of 250 square mts. After seeing the Pushkarini baavi, we've returned to the auto wallah to move on to the next destination.
We've reached the 'Vitthala Temple’ at almost the dusk hour. We were quite lucky, actually to get a look at the temple in the specially arranged lightings, thanks to the guard on duty there. The Vittala temple was splendidly magnificent in all its elegance, in the lights. The "Saptaswara" pillars and other musical pillars were the pick of the day. It was an amazing experience, to see those stone structures giving out enchanting musical tunes, when tapped upon. The "Stone chariot" was another special attraction of the Vitthala temple. We have taken
Some more snaps there.
Then we have returned to Hampi through an adventurous shortcut, after being dumped in the middle-of-no-where by the Auto-wallah, thanks again to the guard who helped us reach Hampi safely.
We felt tired after the daylong travel. We had a bath in the hotel room and after moving around in the Hampi main street for some more time, we've had dinner in a hotel and returned to the hotel room.
Day Two
The next day started at 7:30 in the morning. We checked out of the Hotel room at 9:00AM.There were two options for us to go to the "Hanumantuni Metta"-The birthplace of Lord Hanuman. One was to go around a de-tour by road for about 50 KM, or to cross the Tungabhadra river on a "Teppa" to cut short the journey. Obviously we have chosen the second route.
After crossing the Tungabhadra River, we have seen the Stone Bridge. It was a huge stone structure, damaged in parts, possibly due to earthquakes of the past. We reached the Hanumantuni Metta by Noon. It was a steep hill, which had steps to reach the Top. After the darshan we had some snaps there and started down hill.
We caught a Bus to a place called 'Vuligi' about 13KM from "Hanumatuni Metta". The bus went along a bumpy road to reach Vuligi at about 3:00PM. We had a mini lunch in a roadside Dhaba and took a bus to Tungabhadra Dam.
The Tungabhadra dam was indeed an engineering marvel, built about 50 years ago, covering a whopping 280 square KM. The view of the Tungabhadra River from the dam was simply awesome. The Dam also had some additional attractions like a Deer park, an aquarium and an Aviary. We had some snaps at some more places and then left for Hospet at about 7:00.
We guys from Hyderabad got a Rajahamsa to Hyderabad. Pradeep had to wait for 2 more hours to get his bus to Bangalore.
I'm sure our experience bored u all!! But what to do… You'll have to bear with all these and more, as the "Trailblazers" will come up with more of such trips.
Hampi Snippets
One could not stop wondering, seeing those young 10 year-old local children speak fluently in almost all of the prominent foreign languages along with all of the south Indian languages.
The helping nature of the Kannadigas needs to have a mention here. The trip could not have been easy without the hospitality and the helping nature of the locals of Karnataka.
One more important observation that one cannot miss is the presence of foreign tourists all over Hampi. They form a major proportion of the total tourists and indeed a good sign of the improving tourism in India.
The omni present Indian Monkey is one thing you cannot miss. They were there at almost all the places, jumping from one place to another, snatching eatables from the tourists. It reminded us of you all people!!!
My first blog
Jai Ganesh!!!!!
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