Internet opens up such a vast knowledge bank at the click of the search button on Google that it can lead to so many interesting things in life. Something similar happened last weekend – looking for a getaway from Bangalore we found out a place not very far off – where there were ample opportunities to shoot and a long ride to enjoy. For the city dwellers a smooth tarmac is good enough opportunity to enjoy and we got the best of everything – location, weather, birds, history, and food and last but not the least good time.
There are few compelling reasons to wake up to and travel I guess tops my list. Waking up after 5.30 AM after a hot water bath carrying our cameras – my good old S3IS and Avi’s D40, lots of water bottles, edibles, clothes and road maps were all we took and hit the Bangalore roads for the day out. It was an overcast sky and the thoughts that gripped our mind were – will we Get blue skies or will it rain?
It’s interesting to see milk vendors planning to distribute the milk stacked into plastic crates and believe me the city roads (Airport Road – Domlur – MG Road) never looked any better. Within no time we passed Yelahanka, IAF Station and ITC cigarette factory. Believe it or not with in 30 minutes or so we were near the new Bangalore Airport on the NH7 (Bangalore - Hyderabad Route). It was a nice 6 lane highway till Devanahalli. There was only one diversion where there some flyover construction. The 4/6 laning work was completed even about 10 odd kilometers after the Nandi Hills turn as part of North-South corridor of NHAI. It was exciting to see the wheels spinning in motion so that with in almost two kilometers from home we took this
Last to last week I went on a bike trip to Nandi hills testing the engines and feeling the warmth. So until the Nandi Hill turn it was a well known territory. After that the road trip really started. About 10 KMs after Nandi hills we stopped to click a few pictures just like that to put the cameras in order and to feel that we had really escaped out of the city before the traffic to catch us.
There is a small left turn just after the Andhra Pradesh RTO – be very careful it’s very easy to miss as it is a very small road. There are few petrol pumps on the left side just before the turn. Keep on heading the road until there is a statue of two birds on your left. This left road leads to Veerapuram. Keep driving on this road for 11 KMs. You will need to come back to this place to reach for Lepakshi which is about 20 KM from this place. After Lepakshi, another 15 or so KMs and you reach Hindupur. National Highway is under construction but overall the road allows you to hit 100 and beyond quiet a few times.
Just before entering Veerapuram we shot some pics of a man who was ploughing his fields. Not sure why but he got offended at us and was almost willing to hurl some stones at us .
We expected Veerapuram to be a happening village – lots of birds around some water body. So much so that we overshot the place by almost a KM. We parked our car at a corner and started to strain the cameras. The villages were cop-operative and even allowed us to use there roof tops. At 10 AM in the morning not many people were there in the village and we really looked like tourists.
We headed back to the road where we found the bird statue and look a left turn to Lepakshi, but the place was so beautiful we just stopped to click few pictures.
The red soil changes to black as we headed for Lepakshi and the huge Nandi announced the arrival to us. The Nandi is the biggest in India – 27 Feet wide and 15 feet high carved out of a single stone.
Just in front of the Nandi behind the few houses we saw a huge elevated structure and we thought it was a temple. Asked for the directions and almost struggled to climb it up only realizing later that there was a well carved out way to go up. It turned out to be a good adventure to go up – though there was no temple on the top. These local guys helped us go up but we couldn’t understand there language so not much I can tell about them.
Folk Lore Town – history, mythology, religion, culture and everything are all mixed up in Lepakshi. The place is called Le-Pakshi litereally meaning “rise” – o –“bird”. The story goes that when Ravana the King of Deamons kidnapped Sita; Jatayu fought with Ravana and this place and was brutally injured. When Rama and Lakshmana were looking for Sita – they came to this place and saw this bird lying down; Rama said “Le Pakshi” and the name stuck.
There are footprints on stones which people say belong to Sita in the main temple. We walked wrong way as expected on a trip with me to enter the temple from inside the village. The moment we reached we realized there was a wide road to the temple entrance and we walked to get our car to the parking.
The temple is dedicated to Lord Veerabhadra said to be another form of Shiva and Devi Shakti or Durga as she is popularly known. The temple is about 500 years old and the architecture is Vijaynagar Kingdom styled. There are beautiful painting and sculptures carved on the pillars.
Hire an English speaking guide and it will be an interesting story telling session that you would be enjoying. There is story and detail in every wall that is worth paying every penny. Our guide didn’t ask for anything and said its up to your satisfaction and we paid him Rs. 200 only for about an hour of service.
The marriage hall is still incomplete and the story goes that the finance minister who was building the temple was accused by the King of mis-appropriating the funds. The King ordered to remove his eye and when he came to know about it he just took out his eyes and threw them on the wall. The guide showed us marks on the wall and holes claiming that it has been tested by British and concluded to be blood. Anyways, they looked more like rust stains to me.
The marriage hall was never fully constructed and really would have been a beauty considering the details with which the construction was being carried out.
There is another big foot print inside the temple about 20 times bigger than my feet. When Ravana’s was fighting with Jatayu, the balance of the (airplane) tipped off and Sita just set her one foot on the ground – it’s her foot mark and as per the guide the feet always has water around the toes may be a source of water somewhere underground. Interesting isn’t it There is a story behind everything the kitchen, the plates marked in stone, the lime, the small tortoise carving on the corner wall, the paintings on the temple, the hanging pillar, the cement on the big lings because of the evil eye of the mother, pictures of Shiva's boar hunt and Arjuna's battles, picture of Kishna’s eyes which follow you where ever you go, Viranna and Virupanna.
After spending almost two hours in the temple we headed to Hindupur. We ate at the place called Palla’s – Rs 100 for two meals and water bottle and egg bhujiya followed by Rs 8 for two paan before we headed back and hit the roads.
Return trip was marked by ugly traffic on outer ring road because of an accident and we reached home at around 7 PM. A perfect trip and contentment filled our hearts and we opened up laptops and Photoshop: D.
Route Details
Total Distance: 280 Kilometers (Trusting the Maruti Swift readings)
Travel Route from Bangalore – Red Streak on the Map(Bangalore – Chikaballapur – Bagepalli – Andhra Pradesh Border (RTO) – Veerapuram – Leepakshi – Hindupur)
Return Route From Hindupur – Blue Streak on the Map
Hindupur - Gouribadinur - Dodaballapur.- Yahalanka – Bangalore
Once you are on the road from Hindupur, there is no chance you will confuse yourself or miss any turns. The road is bad just for a stretch of about 10 KMs or so but it’s not as wide as the National Highway. The road is still comparable and much more beautiful.
Every trip has something special in its own ways. When we have a good patch of tarmac we drove fast and when there were lean patches or we were into villages we drove cautiously and slowly – stretching the time we spent on the patch.
Life is like that – that’s what just came to my mind. When we have a good patch in life we just rush through it faster and faster without really enjoying it fully at times and when we hit the rough patches we feel “Oh! It’s gone too soon”. On the bad patches we can’t accelerate and struggle spending a lot more time.
Isn’t it interesting?
If you intend to do this trip do let me know your experiences.
There are few compelling reasons to wake up to and travel I guess tops my list. Waking up after 5.30 AM after a hot water bath carrying our cameras – my good old S3IS and Avi’s D40, lots of water bottles, edibles, clothes and road maps were all we took and hit the Bangalore roads for the day out. It was an overcast sky and the thoughts that gripped our mind were – will we Get blue skies or will it rain?
It’s interesting to see milk vendors planning to distribute the milk stacked into plastic crates and believe me the city roads (Airport Road – Domlur – MG Road) never looked any better. Within no time we passed Yelahanka, IAF Station and ITC cigarette factory. Believe it or not with in 30 minutes or so we were near the new Bangalore Airport on the NH7 (Bangalore - Hyderabad Route). It was a nice 6 lane highway till Devanahalli. There was only one diversion where there some flyover construction. The 4/6 laning work was completed even about 10 odd kilometers after the Nandi Hills turn as part of North-South corridor of NHAI. It was exciting to see the wheels spinning in motion so that with in almost two kilometers from home we took this
Last to last week I went on a bike trip to Nandi hills testing the engines and feeling the warmth. So until the Nandi Hill turn it was a well known territory. After that the road trip really started. About 10 KMs after Nandi hills we stopped to click a few pictures just like that to put the cameras in order and to feel that we had really escaped out of the city before the traffic to catch us.
There is a small left turn just after the Andhra Pradesh RTO – be very careful it’s very easy to miss as it is a very small road. There are few petrol pumps on the left side just before the turn. Keep on heading the road until there is a statue of two birds on your left. This left road leads to Veerapuram. Keep driving on this road for 11 KMs. You will need to come back to this place to reach for Lepakshi which is about 20 KM from this place. After Lepakshi, another 15 or so KMs and you reach Hindupur. National Highway is under construction but overall the road allows you to hit 100 and beyond quiet a few times.
Just before entering Veerapuram we shot some pics of a man who was ploughing his fields. Not sure why but he got offended at us and was almost willing to hurl some stones at us .
We expected Veerapuram to be a happening village – lots of birds around some water body. So much so that we overshot the place by almost a KM. We parked our car at a corner and started to strain the cameras. The villages were cop-operative and even allowed us to use there roof tops. At 10 AM in the morning not many people were there in the village and we really looked like tourists.
We headed back to the road where we found the bird statue and look a left turn to Lepakshi, but the place was so beautiful we just stopped to click few pictures.
The red soil changes to black as we headed for Lepakshi and the huge Nandi announced the arrival to us. The Nandi is the biggest in India – 27 Feet wide and 15 feet high carved out of a single stone.
Just in front of the Nandi behind the few houses we saw a huge elevated structure and we thought it was a temple. Asked for the directions and almost struggled to climb it up only realizing later that there was a well carved out way to go up. It turned out to be a good adventure to go up – though there was no temple on the top. These local guys helped us go up but we couldn’t understand there language so not much I can tell about them.
Folk Lore Town – history, mythology, religion, culture and everything are all mixed up in Lepakshi. The place is called Le-Pakshi litereally meaning “rise” – o –“bird”. The story goes that when Ravana the King of Deamons kidnapped Sita; Jatayu fought with Ravana and this place and was brutally injured. When Rama and Lakshmana were looking for Sita – they came to this place and saw this bird lying down; Rama said “Le Pakshi” and the name stuck.
There are footprints on stones which people say belong to Sita in the main temple. We walked wrong way as expected on a trip with me to enter the temple from inside the village. The moment we reached we realized there was a wide road to the temple entrance and we walked to get our car to the parking.
The temple is dedicated to Lord Veerabhadra said to be another form of Shiva and Devi Shakti or Durga as she is popularly known. The temple is about 500 years old and the architecture is Vijaynagar Kingdom styled. There are beautiful painting and sculptures carved on the pillars.
Hire an English speaking guide and it will be an interesting story telling session that you would be enjoying. There is story and detail in every wall that is worth paying every penny. Our guide didn’t ask for anything and said its up to your satisfaction and we paid him Rs. 200 only for about an hour of service.
The marriage hall is still incomplete and the story goes that the finance minister who was building the temple was accused by the King of mis-appropriating the funds. The King ordered to remove his eye and when he came to know about it he just took out his eyes and threw them on the wall. The guide showed us marks on the wall and holes claiming that it has been tested by British and concluded to be blood. Anyways, they looked more like rust stains to me.
The marriage hall was never fully constructed and really would have been a beauty considering the details with which the construction was being carried out.
There is another big foot print inside the temple about 20 times bigger than my feet. When Ravana’s was fighting with Jatayu, the balance of the (airplane) tipped off and Sita just set her one foot on the ground – it’s her foot mark and as per the guide the feet always has water around the toes may be a source of water somewhere underground. Interesting isn’t it There is a story behind everything the kitchen, the plates marked in stone, the lime, the small tortoise carving on the corner wall, the paintings on the temple, the hanging pillar, the cement on the big lings because of the evil eye of the mother, pictures of Shiva's boar hunt and Arjuna's battles, picture of Kishna’s eyes which follow you where ever you go, Viranna and Virupanna.
After spending almost two hours in the temple we headed to Hindupur. We ate at the place called Palla’s – Rs 100 for two meals and water bottle and egg bhujiya followed by Rs 8 for two paan before we headed back and hit the roads.
Return trip was marked by ugly traffic on outer ring road because of an accident and we reached home at around 7 PM. A perfect trip and contentment filled our hearts and we opened up laptops and Photoshop: D.
Route Details
Total Distance: 280 Kilometers (Trusting the Maruti Swift readings)
Travel Route from Bangalore – Red Streak on the Map(Bangalore – Chikaballapur – Bagepalli – Andhra Pradesh Border (RTO) – Veerapuram – Leepakshi – Hindupur)
Return Route From Hindupur – Blue Streak on the Map
Hindupur - Gouribadinur - Dodaballapur.- Yahalanka – Bangalore
Every trip has something special in its own ways. When we have a good patch of tarmac we drove fast and when there were lean patches or we were into villages we drove cautiously and slowly – stretching the time we spent on the patch.
Life is like that – that’s what just came to my mind. When we have a good patch in life we just rush through it faster and faster without really enjoying it fully at times and when we hit the rough patches we feel “Oh! It’s gone too soon”. On the bad patches we can’t accelerate and struggle spending a lot more time.
Isn’t it interesting?
If you intend to do this trip do let me know your experiences.
