Bekal Fort and Kasargod (Kerala)

Another of the long weekends, this time around Easter Sunday, decided to visit Manish, a friend of mine working at Bekal (Kerala) on one of the upcoming high end luxury resorts. With everyone having travels plans for long weekends and with almost all buses full, though managed to find a single seat in one of the Airavat Volvos, thanks to excellent KSRTC services.

To reach to Bekal, an overnight KSRTC Volvo from Bangalore to Kasargod seems like the best option. Comfortable night journey starting from Bangalore goes past Mysore and then through Coorg region (this place immediately took the first priority for my next long weekend gateways ;) leading Kasargod at early morning at 6... local Kerala transport buses allow you to get to Bekal in next 20mins...

...I had to take the local bus to reach Palakunnu (Manish's gaon ;) ... mere 20 mins drive past Kasargod, Pallakunnu is just one of the tiny little village lying in God’s own country. Quiet laid back lifestyle with quiet backwaters... surrounded by green landscapes of rice fields and coconut plantation all around... laterite stone hills and Mangalore tiled roofs all over adding that red tint to predominant green landscape, everything just revives the typical image of Kerala village you have in your mind. I guess I have been lucky to witness the actual non touristy parts of Kerala (thanks to Sahil and now Manish) to explore the actual Kerala in here...

... there is practically nothing touristy about this place except for proximity with Bekal Fort. After a quick breakfast with typical warm water of Kerala (...reminded me of all food times we had at of India Coffee House... though I couldn’t expect this place anywhere closer to it...), we headed ourselves at the Site where Manish is presently slogging ;) .... nice pristine plots of land under Khanna Hotels Group, along the river where this resort is shaping up was quite a sight... walk across the upcoming resort under construction was quite informative and entertaining...thanks to Manish ;)... though I clicked lot of pics, am not uploading them to save Manish’s life ;)

... till the time Manish was working on site, I decided to go ahead and visit the only ‘tourist attraction’ out here... .the ‘Bekal Fort’ ... apparently the biggest fort in Kerala, spreading over 40 acres...

...with glimpses of this fort seen years back in Maniratnam’s ‘Bombay’, I had not imagined the scale of the fort to be that huge... especially when the sun was pouring heat, immediately I realised that its absolutely not a good idea to be here in these parts at least in noon times... but I had no options... as the case with most of our monuments, you are welcomed by that protected rather caged archaeology board with no information what so ever on the fort or the history (.. or maybe they don’t want you to spoon-feed you and expect tourist to do their homework before they come... possible ;) ... essentially a defence architecture, even this fort is more like huge linear fort walls with bastions enclosing a huge empty piece of land where apparently some old structures must have been there as seen from the plinths and some of the remains... the only structure remains today visible is the striking ‘observation tower’...

... some of the views of the Bekal beach though fort bastions are quite amazing... am sure this place will be great relief for surrounding villages during evening times ... Bekal Resort Development Corporation (BRDC) is now taking up some initiatives to develop new activities and facilities for tourists...

... concluding the afternoon visit to Bekal, I headed back to Palakunnu to go to Kasargod in turn. ... YES YEM YES (SMS) travels is what I saw as I got down from bus and Manish decided to took me to one of the best places to eat in Kasargod ;) .....

... with an interesting celone paratha for lunch, we made a move from tiny village of palakunnu to relatively bigger town of Kasargod... though we didn’t get time to visit the ‘Malik Dinar Masjid’, this famous mosque is apparently worth a visit. Local transport buses from Kasargod took us to Kumbala, where we were heading to visit the ‘Sri Anantha Padmanabhswami Temple’. This 8^th century temple located in quite an isolated place and untouched by any construction activities nearby. Built with laterite stone, the temple lies in the middle of fresh water lake.

...Again our timing was not correct as the temple is closed in the afternoons and opens only after 5.30pm, so we were not fortunate enough to witness the main shrine from inside and the beautifully painted interior walls, murals and wooden carvings inside of the temple...

...as the case with most of our religious places, interesting stories that are linked with these religious structures, this temple has story links with a ‘crocodile’ residing in the temple complex. The temple people call it ‘Babia’ and there goes a long story of why it is of great importance here... apparently this Babia is a vegetarian crocodile being in the temple complex... hmm... interesting.... ;)

We could not go inside the temple so we spend time in blazing sun waiting to see if this Babia actually exist ;) ... and guess what we actually got glimpse of it ... she was enjoying cool waters while we were getting drained off in that heat ;) ... but no doubt was fun to sit around that lake and see people’s reactions and different approaches taken by then to call a crocodile out of water... sometimes you wonder how we treat and call all animals as if they are next door dogs, cats or cows... quite funny ;)

... almost completely dehydrated in that heat, we made a move back to our small village. With next day plans for Mangalore and Udipi in mind, IPL T20 Mumbai Indian’s match was the ideal end to the days play J

... Udupi - Mangalore ...

... with a bit of struggle on Manish’s part, spending the night working on site, we managed to get to local railway station near Palakunnu to catch the 9.10 am train to Mangalore to execute our travel plans. An hour long journey took us to Mangalore station. Near to town hall of Mangalore, there are plenty of bus options for Udipi. Being in Karnataka, again you can take advantage of the KSRTC Volvo bus services that drop you to Udipi in an hours time... Again we were roaming around in the middle of the day with blazing sun ;)

... Udipi essentially is famous for ‘Sri Krishna Matt’ and the ‘Udipi Cuisine’ (Apparently this is supposed to be the birth place for ‘Masala Dosa’) ... 5 mins of walk from the main bus depot of Udipi is the famous ‘Sri Krishna Matt’, founded by the Vaishnavite saint Shri Madhvacharya in the 13th century.

Even in that blazing sun, there was quite a long queue to enter the matt. Surrounding the temple were series of chariots dedicated to lord Krishna. Apart from the wooden chariots the matt has exclusive ‘Golden chariot’ and ‘Navgraha Chariot’ kept under high security and only a window left to have a look at them.

The temple has its uniqueness in its orientation of deity and administrative structure.

As with the religious stories, Lord Krishna in this temple faces towards the Kanakana Kindli (named after devotee Kanakdasa who used to see Lord Krishna from here) To this day, the deity of Lord Krishna faces its back to the temple towards the Kanakana Kindi. All Hindu temples have their Vigraha (Deity) facing the entrance of the temple, except Krishna Mutt.

As for the administrative structure, Shri Madhvacharya, the founder of this matha handed over the puja and administration of Krishna Mutt to his 8 disciples. Each of them set up their Mathas around Krishna Mutt, known as the Ashta Mathas. Since then, the daily sevas (offerings to god) and administration of the Krishna Mutt are managed by the Ashta Mathas, each of these perform temple management activities for two years in a cyclical order. During the Paryaya festival, held every two years, the temple management is handed over to the next Matha.

After the simple and special prasad at Temple Bhajanalaya, we visited two other temples in the same complex. As we came out of temple, the town of Udipi was already enjoying afternoon nap and we decided to make a move towards city life of Mangalore... journey to Mangalore through KSRTC Volvo full of young crowd from Manipal Institute was a serious change from spiritual, quite setting to the city culture and movie schedules ;)

As we landed in one of the hotspots of Mangalore city, Bharat Mall, we were back to Pantaloons and Pizza Huts... Manish finally got chance to enjoy some pizza after being trapped in the village for a month ;) ... we had no time in our hand to look at Mangalore sights so we just decided to hang around in this mall till the time we both had our buses ready to pick us up to drop to our daily destinations... Quite an exhaustive trip I must say but for sure was a good change and now I was all set for even challenging journey to Bangalore being on the last seat of KSRTC Rajahansa ;)

.. a visit to Lord Bahubali.. Shravanbelgoda..

Heritage Triangle: Belur - Halebidu - Shravanbelgoda

Bangalore–Shravanbelgoda-Halebidu-Belur-Bangalore

26th December 2009; Day Trip (7am-10.30pm)

Long weekend of Xmas and no travel plans yet ready...for sure I didn’t want to be alone at home doing nothing and was busy working out some exciting day travel plans..... luckily I got across Karnataka Tourism (KSTDC) web page and decided to capture on the day trip of ‘Heritage Triangle’ of Karnataka- Belur, Halebidu and Shravanbelgoda... After long time I was heading for hardcore Heritage Tour so was kind of exciting... For some reason was not expecting too many people to opt for this route but was totally wrong when I managed to get the last available coach ticket... huh...

It was a pleasant experience to be there at 7 am at KSTDC office, Badami House, BLR from where these coaches depart. I quite liked the Karnataka Tourism efforts to boost the tourism sector across the state may it be online booking facility, decent accommodations or even the quality of coaches they have. Wonder MTDC (Maharashtra Tourism) have failed to upgrade themselves at least to this standard. y other states (...honestly I shouldn’t talk about other states as I don’t know much about their initiatives...)

Shravanbelgoda (158 kms from Bangalore)

Coaches for this day trip left Badami House at 7.15 am sharp. We were heading toward Shravanbelgoda, a Jain pilgrimage centre of prime importance. After a quick breakfast stop at around 9.30am, we marched ahead to reach this town at around 10.30am. We all got down from the coach with strict instructions from the driver to be back in an hour’s time. ...

Shravanbelgoda... about 158 kms from Bangalore, it is a city located in the Hassan district of Karnataka and is a Jain Pilgrimage Centre of prime importance today!!... Located between the two hills, Chandragiri and Vindhyagiri, it is famous for the 57 feet monolithic statue of ‘Bhagavan Gomateshwara Bahubali’, located on the Vindyagiri. It was erected by Chamundaraya in 10^th century and is considered to be the tallest monolithic statue in the world till today…

…to get to this giant statue you have to climb around 700 steps of Vindhyagiri…

… its all worth it for the great view of the town against the backdrop of Chandragiri Hill…

… effort has been made to protect the old scripts carved in the rock by the travelers visiting the place during 9th-14^th centuries…

… as you are a top, you are fronted by this giant monolithic statue of lord Bahubali carved out of granite…

… the base of the statue has inscriptions in Kannada and Tamil. Also it hold the oldest evidence of written Marathi, dating from 981 AD…’Shri Chamundaraye Karaviyale’ is what it suggests according to one local there…

… this place is also famous for the great event ‘Mahamastakabhishek’ that takes place every 12 years… the statue is covered with milk, curds, ghee, saffron and gold coins then… the next ‘Mahamastakabhishek’ is suppose to take place in 2018…

So after witnessing this magnificent statue, surprisingly everyone was back to the coach almost in time …it was already 11.45 am and from here on we were on move to our next destination.. the ‘Hoyasaleshwara temple’ in Halebidu… UNESCO World Heritage Site….

A Masterpeice ... Hoyasala Architecture...

... Off from Shravanbelgoda we were on our way to Hoyasaleshwara Temple, A UNESCO World Heritage Site at Halebidu ... following the roadway to Hassan and moving further, Halebidu is located 31 kms from Hassan... reached a small town of Halebidu at around 1.30 in afternoon and after a quick lunch we were all set for a guided tour of temple....

Halebidu was the capital of 12^th century Hoyasala Empire and today is essentially famous for the spectacular Hoyasaleshwara Temple dedicated to Lord Shiva, built around 12^th century by King Vishnuvardhana. It is a distinct piece of Hoyasala Architecture on which almost three generations of craftsmen have said to be worked and still considered as an incomplete piece.

These temples are not spectacular in terms of their grand scale or prolific gopurams like in other south Indian temples, but are spectacular in the sense of the intricate carvings and stonework that they display.

... climate sensitive approach to design and panning... North and east wall with perforated walls for light and wind whereas south and west are dead walls with extreme carvings ...

...Hoyasala Architecturere specialises with its star shape form for the temple and plinth that allowed them an extra surface area on which they can further carve out stories from Indian mythology... even this temple has two shrines but connected by this common platform ...

...Most distinct feature of this temple is that the stone they used, locally called as ‘soap stone’, is basically a softer stone compared to Granite that you find everywhere in South India. This is one the reason why artists were able to produce such intricate carving work all over the temple surfaces...

... Temples have a very strong base with extremely well detailed carvings... and each of these carvings and order of layers depict a story or has a meaning...Also, check out the deep crevices... stone slabs were placed on top of each other interlocked... and each section of slab then is taken over by craftsmen to work on for their entire life producing such an masterpiece.... some of these slab panels can be still seen incomplete ....

... Every surface of temple is sculpted out with characters from Hindu mythology and each surface narrates these stories from Hindu mythologies that we have heard in childhood...

... if you are really keen into admiring every single detail that the temple offers, the hour long tour really don't do the justice... anyway, with the plan of visiting this temple again in near future, I decided to move further to see yet another masterpiece of Hoyasala period at Belur ...

Belur ... Channakesava Temple ...

... Belur... our next destination is located just 16 kms from Halebidu and at around 4pm we reached to witness yet another masterpiece of Hoyasala Period, the famous ‘Channakesava Temple’... Shoes and Cell phones are strict 'No No' here but thankfully the management allows carrying cameras inside...

As we entered we were taken a hold by a tourist guide, thankfully for us turned out to be a great boon because of his sense of humour and of course knowledge of history... Like Hoyasaleshwara temple is for ‘Shiva’, Channakesava temple at Belur is dedicated to lord Vishnu...

First striking feature of the temple complex is the Gopuram through which we enter the temple complex... what we understand from the guide is that this Gopuram along with the compound wall was added later on in 14^th century by Kings of Vijayanagara Empire to protect the temple complex....

... Channakesava temple at Belur is specifically appreciated for its interior beauty and carvings unlike the Hoyasaleshwara Temple at Halebidu which is widely appreciated for its external carvings... Even if I listen to this, the temple surfaces at Belur too were extensively detailed out with Hindu Mythology characters and stories...

... Below is the detail and intact piece of emblem of Hoyasala Empire ... basically indicating a warrior fighting a Tiger ...

... some of the engineering details like surface water discharge well worked out and performing efficiently till date...

.. Inside of temples are equally well detailed out may it be pillars, walls or even ceilings, all depicting and narrating mythological stories... some of these surfaces are amazingly well polished... wonder how they manages to get these mirror polished finishes in 10-12th centuries..

... the Channakesava (Vishnu) deity inside the temple...

... another wonder in the temple complex... this free standing pillar is connected at the base only at 3 corner whereas 4th corner of the pillar at base is not attached to the base... its brilliant engineering with calculated centre of gravity principle and is one of the major attractions for kids and people present in the temple complex...

... it was around 5.30 pm and essentially the end of our heritage day trip ... an all in all worth experience ... and worth visiting again.. may be on my own to spend longer times at these temples....

... now we were on our back to B'lore straight from Belur... tired with day long activities, return journey went off mostly sleeping in the coach except for dinner break at Kamat's on the way back... the coach was all over quiet again as everyone fell asleep again after a dinner break ... 10.30 in night as we reached back B'lore Badami House and everyone dispersed their own ways........ was totally satisfied the way the day went along and had promised myself to get my friends here next time they visit me in B'lore ...

...reaching the skies ...lohgad-visapur...

... mid-July now over... rains everywhere... really a tough time for anyone to be just at home and not being there out in the rains.... but we didn't had to wait a lot...

this time it was Lohgad-Visapur... at Malavali, just 3 hrs from Mumbai...22nd -23rd of July 06...

...Unfortunately not many of us were there for the trek... ultimately me, Aditya, Manish, Rahul T and Rahul V ( from Rachana Environment Course) were the lucky ones to experience this heavenly trek...

...Pandharpur express from VT got us to Malavali station at 2*30am... the climate was amazing .... tried to sleep for a while but was impossible to even rest your back.. thanks to the killer winds adding to already chilled atmosphere...6*00 sharp we started to move on and then it was a journey worth experiencing... not writing....

..... start your trek and these waterfalls just keep on coming your ways...

... walking through the clouds... killer winds its great 2 hour walk to the fort...

... actual fort itself... Lohgad... we could hardly see anything of the fort due to fog... anyways next visit we can catch that...

... excellent piece of rock cut architecture.... Bhaje caves... essentially Viharas... planned with tremendous visualisation... the way this place and its setting in the context has been conceived is truly marvelous...

...sometimes its really nice to have small group of ppl ... at least to make other friends.... this time there was this gang from Lalbag to join all the way... great fun ...

... after too much of Rajmachi and Matheran this was certainly a great destination to hit on ....

....an agro-tourism experience....

... A visit to the Neral farm...24-25th June '06

... Nisarg Niketan... an 55 acre farmland developed with a concept of agrotourism by Mr. Chandrashekhar Bhadsavle... Great example set up for the farmlands in Maharashtra...Everyone caught up in their routine work...tired of everyday work... a must needed break awaited by all......its been a long time we all had a great time together...Jahnavi, Pooja, Vignesh, Swetal and Amol at Neral station...

... simple cottages within the farmland...

... outdoor dining area within Bamboo forest...

.. greenmiles to take you through the farms and lakes...

... the Pond House... star attraction of the place...

... on the lake in the shade... what more can you expect in afternoon times...

.. its been one of the great weekends to keep you refreshed ....

.... its masti and bhankas all the day.... the PJ gang is all here....