The trip was planned over night, the trippers just me and her.
We took a bus to Majestic at 6:45 AM and reached in half an hour. We took a state transport bus towards Hassan. Plan was to use Hassan as the base and travel out of there to these places. Hassan was about four and half hour of uneventful journey. We checked out a couple of places for accomodation, but they were not suitable for a family. We tried the posh hotel Southern star Hassan and it turned out to be 4000 bucks a night for a double room, my foot. Finally checked into a Hotel Sri Krishna which was a budget but decent hotel for 800 bucks a night.
The road to Belur from Hassan is an excellant one maintained by the ASI I guess and it took an hour to get there. We went directly to the Chennikeshava temple and it took us just 2 hours to roam the temple complex. The complex has numerous temples each in a style of its own. The commonality was the temple exterior and interior was full of carvings and reliefs and each design was very intricate.
From Belur we took a short (half hour) bus ride to Halebeed. I like this temple complex better than Belur because it was chic and more scenic with surrounded gardens a nearby lake and very picturesque. We finished with Halebeed in another one and half hours and returned to Hassan. The journey back to Hassan was the one I liked the most, it went past numerous villages with nice scenery of sunflower blooms and shades of green of different vegetation. Was very refreshing to the eyes and a very pleasant evening.
For dinner we headed back to Hotel Southern Star, assuming that a expensive star hotel must be having a good restaurant. The lunch we had at Sri Krishna was pathetic so we wanted good food. Our efforts did not go waste. Southern star offered a good menu and excellant taste and value for money. So I recommend staying at Sri Krishna and dining at Southern Star. Whats more they are 2 mins walk apart.
The next morning we checked out at 10 and proceeded to Sravanabelagola. Again taking public transport to Channarayapatna and onward to Sravanabelagola which took us one and half hours to get there. The sun was up and bright and sunny but not very hot. But it did take some more time and us some effort to get ourselves on top of the hill and winding stairways to reach the tallest monolith of Gomateshwara. The monolith is surrounded by shrines dedicated to the tirthakars of Jaina religion.
After the descent we had lunch at a joint in Sravanabelagola before proceeding to Hirisave, a half hour bus journey. At Hirisave we boarded the bus to Bangalore at about 3:30 and reached Majestic about 7:45. When we reached home at 8:30 we were dusty, tired and beaten down but satisfied of visiting three places most noted for sculptures and temple architecture.
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1 comment:
Nice to read and gives a feeling of being there though 4800km away.
sathy.
Nairobi- Kenya
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