Trip to Cultural Capital of Karnataka - Mysore - Day 3

Good Day Reader :)

This day would be the last day of our trip. We had planned for Talakad as we had missed it from our previous trip to Somanathapura, because of time constraints.

We started from Mysore around 09:30 am in teh morning. Talakad is a desert-like town on the left bank of the Kaveri River 45 km  from Mysore and 133 km from Bangalore. It once had over 30 temples, most of which now lay buried in sand. Now it is a scenic and spiritual pilgrimage centre. Here the eastward flowing Cauvery river changes course and seems magnificently vast as here the sand on its banks spreads over a wide area. (source Wikipedia).

Except for the Vaideeswara temple built by Raja Raja I, all the other temples were buried under sand dunes. Out of these, the temples of Pataleeswara, Maraleswara, Anandeswara, Arkeswara, Gauri Shankar, Kirti Narayana and Chowdeswari have been excavated by the Central Archaeological Department. These 5 temples together been called as Panchalingas and are believed to represent the five faces of Siva. The Panchalinga darshana is a popular festival held once in 12 years. There are only 3 Siva temples in Talakd, other two are in nearby villages which we did not get a chance to visit.

Now interesting part. Once you finish visiting the temple you will be welcomed by a river side where the eastward flowing Kaveri river changes course as the sand on its banks spreads over a wide area. It is a very good picnicn spot. You can take a coracle ride and play in a calm water. It is just a beach with no salty water.

There are few street food vendors on the bank of river, apart from that there is no place for a food till you reach Kanakpura town. Please plan ahead for food, better would be carrying your lunch packed from Bangalore/Mysore.

Please make sure you were good chappal as the place is fully covered by sand and makes it difficult for walking. Beware of monkey's. Follow Google maps for direction and take help frol localites.

We spent some time here and set off to Bangalore via Kanakpura Road. Had a stop over for lunch in between which was pathetic. Apart from this the trip was memorable. We reached Bangalore in the evening with a sweet memories of Mysore.

Hope the itinerary helps you in planning your trip.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Tripping :)

Iternery for Day1 is here
Iternery for Day 2 is here

Trip to Cultural Capital of Karnataka - Mysore - Day 2

Good Day Reader :)

After a sound sleep in Mango Suites we woke up with a fresh mood and energy to set our experience memorable for day 2. We were ready by 6 am in the morning. Breakfast was not ready yet. Our agenda for the day was Himavad Gopalaswamy Betta, Nanjangud, KRS and back to hotel.

Himavad Gopalaswamy Betta is 75 km from Mysore on the Mysore Ooty road -10 km away from Gundlupete which is 60 km away from Mysore. This is the nearest town to the place. The road gets worst from here and after almost 15 min drive in this road you need to take right for the hill.  There is a motor able road all the way to the top of the hill. Entry fee is collected at the forest department check post at foot of the hill. Its a 7 km ghat section with awesome scenic view points. The check post does not open until 7am and closes after 5pm. So, make it a point to reach at the foot of the hill at exactly 7am for the best experience. Google maps has very good direction. 

Most of the travellers(including my travel mates) doesn't include this in their Mysore trip, so this was a first visit for all of us. Believe me.. this is a must go place in Karnataka. From the top of hill you can have a beautiful view of Bandipur Forest.

There is a temple of Venugopala Swamy on top of hill where  water/Ice always keeps dropping on the head of the Lord 24×7, 365 days. The idol is very beautifully craved. There are many ponds around the temple and beautiful view where you can sit and relax.Dense fog predominates and covers the hills round the year. Play with the clouds and enjoy your moments at the place.

To have all these experience you make sure you reach foot of the hill at sharp 7 am and watch out for any elephants or other animals on your way up to the hill.

Just after the check post



View from temple around 12pm




temple


We spent time there till 12 pm and made our way down the hill. There we got a thought of visiting Bandipur Forest , just a casual drive which we enjoyed. We could spot only Bison, Deer and Monkeys.

It was already 2pm when we decided to drive back from Bandipur. We couldn't find many food option on our way back. We had dosa in one of the small food joint near the village on foot of hill.

Then we made our way to Nanjangud. It is famous for Lord Shiva temple as has been called as "Dakshina Kashi". We spent around half an hour in the temple and drove back to Mysore.

Generally people miss to visit KRS dam  and visit only Brindavan Garden. This was also a first visit for my travel mates. This is on the backside of garden and can be easily reached through Google Maps. It was a beautiful evening with back water and a small garden to spend time with pals.

You won't be allowed to walk on the bridge, you can enjoy the view from one end.

After spending time here we headed back to hotel and got ready for our Dinner destination. It was Jungle Resturant from Pai Vista. It is a Jungle theme restaurant and food was awesome.

With this the day 2 had come to an end. Not to forget, none of us had battery left in our phone and did not know the way back to our Hotel. Mysore people are very generous and guided us when ever we wanted.

Wait for the day 3 in my next blog.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy tripping :)

p.s. : again I don;t have much pictures to show, hope the itinerary helps you in planning your trip.

Itinerary for Day1 is here
Itinerary for day 3 is here

Trip to Cultural Capital of Karnataka - Mysore - Day 1

Good Day Reader :)

After a long time we decided to go for some trip and it happened to be Mysore and it gave me a chance to put some things in my Travel blog. The place was decided after I insist so many times as I had not been there though I am staying in Bangalore from past 8.5 years.

In this trip our itinerary was below - Friday to Sunday

Bangalore -Sriranga Pattana- Mysore (Edmuri and Balmuri - Mysore Palace - Brindavan Gardens) - Himavad Gopalswami Betta - Nanjangud -Talakad - Bangalore.

As usual we were late as comp red to our decided time on Friday morning due to various reasons, we started around 09:30 am. As we had covered most part of Sriranga Pattana in our last trip to Coorg, we did not miss much things by starting late. You can start early in the morning and cover Sriranga Pattana on your first day morning.

We had a stop over for quick bite after crossing Maddur. Then made our way to Balmuri and Edmuri falls. It is a nice place to relax your self (though it was a hot sunny afternoon when we reached there). There is a temple nearby the water body which you can visit.

We spent around two hours of time here and Google maps were of great help reaching the destination.

We headed towards our Hotel - Mango Suites(Jayalakshmipuram), which we had booked previous night of our stay. It is a quite good option for economy hotel. I would recommend this for travellers. They have well maintained room with all basic amenities, very good options for breakfast and less options for lunch/dinner.

We did check in and got ourselves fresh, in the mean time had ordered our lunch for room service. When we finished our food at was 03:30 pm and then we decided to go to world famous Mysore Palace.

As all of us knew Mysore History we opted to go without guide and explore everything by ourselves so that we can finish early. It took only two hours for us to finish interiors of the Palace :-P (All of my travel mates had been to palace many times before and were not interested in spending much time. As I told initially this was only planned because of me). We came outside and clicked few pictures of ours as memory and saw few camels and elephants outside palace. It was 06:30 pm by the time we came to parking lot.

Then we went to Brindavan Gardens and took entry tickets for the park. It was close to sunset time and lights were getting switched on slowly. We took few pictures before it gets completely dark. Then we went to the musical fountain there. Show was already started by the time we reach the place. We saw a bit of it for 10 mins and then decided to go back to hotel as all of us were tired. It was about to rain and a very nice whether, we enjoyed the hot hot Bajjies served by vendors in the garden.

We returned back to Hotel and had our dinner and we were done for for the day one.

I hope the itinerary from day 1  of my trip helped you in planning yours. I will post my next days activity in future post.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Tripping :)

p.s. : I don't have blog kind of pictures from this trip. Sorry about that. If you are visiting balmuri temple please make sure you wear Indian Dress and tie your hair, put bindi and bangles. Priest over here is strict about this. I saw he was scolding a girl over there when I visited the temple.

Itinerary for Day 2 is here
Itinerary for Day 3 is here

Visit to Somanathapura

Good day Reader,

While searching for the better options for our  Coorg Trip  we had found about Somanathapura , so we had decided we should visit here. But I had never thought it would come so early.. It was just after two weeks of our Coorg Trip. 

It was a one day trip.. no I would call it  as a 3/4th of a day. We did not have any plan of going out anywhere that weekend and we were lazily chilling at home ;). Suddenly we decided "let's go somewhere" and it was turned out as a Visit to Somanathapura.

We started around 10:30 a.m. in the morning and reached to
Somanathapura via Kanakpura Road from Bangalore.It was around 140 KM drive and we reached Somanathapura at 01:30 p.m. As we had late breakfast that day  none of us are hungry for having lunch. 

We entered the premises and welcomed by a fine garden. It has some 2 to 3 sculptures.

 There was an entrance fee, I don't remember how much it was but it was less. 

When we entered the temple we were speechless by the beauty of exquisitely carved, star-shaped temple with triple towers. This was the perfect example of Hoysala Architecture as read in our internet findings.

We need minimum of 2 to 3 hours for this place to see all the carvings.There is no worship happening in this temple.There are 3 gods inside and because of the poor light we could not see much. We could see the dome shaped and carved with mufti-petaled lotus and many other things. Because of poor light I don't have better photographs.

Outside of the temple is mesmerizing and takes more time of your visit. Basement of temple is start shaped and there are carved elephants in the every corner of the star. Basement has a multiple layer and each layer is a symbol of one or the other thing of Hoysala Emperor. This has flowers, birds, many gods mainly Lord Vishnu and his Avatars. It has carved trees, flowers, birds, and many of the ladies in dancing postures. The necklace, anklets, nails everything is finely carved and you can see each and every detail of it. 

We spent some time in the outside garden after our visit to temple. Then we all started feeling hungry. Unfortunately we did not find any restaurants near Somanathapura. So we decided to drive back to Bangalore and  have something on the way. So please plan ahead about your food. 

Temple is worth visiting and I hope the details provided here helped you in planning your own trip.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy tripping :)
 

3 days in the natural lap of Coorg - Day 2 & 3

Day 2:

When we woke up in the morning hot puri's and hot coffee was waiting for us from  Capitol Village Resort's 's kitchen. Believe me breakfast was really yummy and we enjoyed it with the nature in our private balcony of the room. 

Our today's plan was to visit Bhagamandla, Talakaveri, and Raja Seat.

We drove to Bhagamandla and the greenery on the both sides of this zigzag road is really nice. We visited to Bhagandeshwara temple and felt it is very peaceful. Interiors of the temple  looks like  Kerala style temple. There is Triveni Sangama at a short distance from the temple where the river
Kaveri is joined by two tributaries, the river  Kannike and the Sujyoti river. It is a crystal clean water and I just step down into the water and did not feel like coming out of it at all. There are pay&use toilets available here which are neatly maintained. We spent around 1 hour 30 minutes here.

Bhagandeshwara Temple Inside view

Triveni Sangama

Next we were supposed to visit Talakaveri. As one of our own friend was driving our car and he was pretty new. As you all know the roads were zigzag and the way to Talakaveri was a bit steep high and narrow. We did not want to take risk so we enquired with few localities over there. They guided us very well and one among them agreed to come with us driving our car.

We reached Talakaveri Temple. Beauty of the view from up hill and temple if indescribable with words. There is also a water tank where you can make a wish and throw a coin. People say coin has to land in the centre of tank where there is a Shiva linga shaped sculpture then your wish will come true.

Wish Tank

Benches to rest near Talakaveri

 

The person who had come along with us driving our car had to leave early so we did not get a chance to go up to the hill. We spent around 30 mins here in Talakaveri.

Then we drove back to Madikeri from Bhagamandla ourselves enjoying lush greenery of the roads. We had our lunch at Athithi. It is quite average food both taste wise and quantity wise. Even the ambiance is not so good.

After lunch  we went to Raja Seat, nice beautiful flower garden with a view point where you can see the  zig zag road which you just drove before your lunch. Amazing. 

There is a small children train in which you can take a ride. This gives you a feeling of you going back to your child hood days. You must try it. We spent another 1 hour 30 mins at raja seat clicking pictures and then went back to resort.

 

Toy Train at Raja's Seat

After reaching resort we relaxed for a while and then went to roam around resort. There is a small lake and there is kids play area as well. We clicked few pictures there. We spent some time sitting some time in our balcony and enjoy the chirping of insects while sun was setting down.

Lake in the resort

The dinner for that evening was buffet arranged by Capitol Village Resort in the kitchen area which was quite good. After having our dinner we spent some time near reception area as they have WIFI there, then came back to our rooms and went to bed. 

Our next day's plan was visiting Dubbare forest and driving back home.

Day 3:

We woke up and got ready. The day's breakfast was arranged in the kitchen area. That was a buffet which included Dosa, Eggs and many more. After having breakfast we did checkout from resort. A very pleasant stay. The resort is economically best and is neatly maintained. 


We were set ti visit Dubare Forest. This is an elephant camp on the banks of the river Kaveri. I love elephants and this was my most favorite place in our Coorg trip. Here you can take an elephant ride, you can feed them and you can see elephant bathing. There is an option for still water rafting or you can take a boat ride (you will have to share the motor boat with other tourists) to cross the river to reach the camp.

All the activities will get over by 10:30 in the morning here, so you make sure you reach the place between 09:00 - 09:30 in the morning. We got to see elephant bathing, and there was a small cute elephant which was 2 years old. There are around 20 elephants.


The road to the Dubare forest is narrow and single lane. Google maps were very helpful in reaching all the destinations at Coorg.

After Dubare we set off to come back to Bangalore, we took Hasan Road (which is terrifically wrong option) from Kushal Nagar rather than taking Mysore Madikeri Road. Because of the worst Hasan road condition we lost time, otherwise we had a plan of visiting any of the places in Mysore.

As the road condition was bad, we decided back to come on Mysore road, Thanks to Google maps, we reached Mysore and had our lunch there around 03:00 p.m. Then we started to Bangalore, as it was Sunday evening Bangalore-Mysore road traffic was no lesser than Bangalore city traffic. We reached Bangalore around 06:30 p.m. in the evening with a tea break near Ramanagr which was perfect end to our 3 days trip.

I hope the itinerary   of my trip helped you in planning yours. Comments and suggestions are always welcome.
 
Thanks for stopping by and Happy Tripping :)



p.s. : I have not given all pictures, as main purpose of this blog is to show itinerary :)


 

3 days in the natural lap of Coorg - Day 1

Kodagu, popularly knows as Coorg is on Western Ghats of southwestern Karnataka. This is famous for coffee plantation and its ethnic warrior people. A perfect weekend getaway from Bangalore/Mysore/Mangalore or any near by places for all age range group.

We covered  Srirangapatna, Kushalnagar(Bylakuppe and Kaveri Nisargadhama), Bhagamandla, Talakaveri,  Dubare Forest. We stayed in Capitol Village Resort. All destinations can be easily reached with the help of Google Maps.

Day 1:

We set off to Coorg on Saturday early morning from Bangalore. We took Bangalore-Mysore highway. We started by 05:00 a.m. from Bangalore and we took around 30 min break for the breakfast at Kamat Upchar. 

On the way we stopped at Srirangapatna a very famous religious, cultural and historical place. we visited Ranganathaswamy temple, Baillie Dungeon which is very nearby to the temple. There are horse ride available which gives nice experience. Then we visited "Sangama" the amalgamation of 3 holy rivers Kaveri River, Kabini River, Hemavati River. We could cover all this in 1 hour 30 min. Not to forget there are nice locations available for the photography. We clicked very good pics here.

Dungeon - Inside

Dungeon -Top view

Horse Riding

Ranganathaswamy temple

Tippu Death Place

Then we started to Madikeri (Coorg) via Hunsur road. We did not go inside Mysore city to save our time. We stopped for a lunch break at Cafe Coorg. Believe me these guys serve a very delicious South Indian thali at very moderate cost.

Then we headed towards Kushalnagar. A very pleasant whether welcomed us. The town Bylakuppe is mainly inhabited by Tibetans and is very well knows for the Golden Temple and  Golden statues of Gautama Buddha, Padmasambhava and Amitāyus. Stepping inside the temple feels like walking into another world, and the noisy streets of South India suddenly seem to be very far away.There are options available for food and stay and one can easily opt to stay here after a very long drive. But we decided to go further as we had already booked the room at Capitol Village Resort. We spent around 1 hour here. 

Then we headed towards Kaveri Nisarga Dhama. The  hanging bridge is built over the river  and there is boating facility. There are rabbits and love birds to see but in cages. There is deer park where you can feed deers. I love doing this. Main attractions are Tree house and holy river.  Since the depth is not much, you can stand in the rocks in the water and feel the cold water. A very good place just to roam around and surrounded by trees where you can spend more than an hour.

We were tired a bit because of journey and we decided to go to Madikeri and rest for the day. We reached Madikeri after an about 45 min of driving. Roads are very good and you an see lots of greenery over here. But now we had to find our resort. It was a bit difficult to find with Google maps.
But never mind, the manager was so generous he guided us very well to reach the resort.

Resort Entrance

It is a nice beautiful resort with all basic amenities. Located in the mid of coffee plantation as soon as you enter you can here the chirping of birds and insects. Food is delicious and staff is friendly. 

We went and checked in at the resort. We had a room with private balcony to spend our rest of the evening with the delicious  hot pakodas they served. But you don't get the mobile network there for Vodafone provider. There is WiFi network available near the reception area. 

After relaxing for some time we roamed in and around our room. It was a nice pleasant late evening. We had Jeera rice and Dall along with fresh fruit juice for the dinner. We had opted for the room service that evening. Enjoyed our dinner in our private balcony. 

After dinner we discussed about next day's plan and everyone were sleepy by then and everyone went to bed.

I hope the itinerary from day 1  of my trip helped you in planning yours. Find Day 2 and Day3's itinerary here :)

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Tripping :)