But, this time I thought to give humans a chance to prove their artistic hands, minds to prove that even they are able to pull the audiences.
Trip details:
Place - Hampi, Northern Karnataka
Distance - Around 350 Kms from Bangalore
Mode of Journey - Car
Number of people - 7!
People - Alok, Baba, Gaurav, Gyanendu, Jeevan, Utkalika and Rupali
Date: 30th Nov 2010 @ 4 AM!
Day 1: STARTING DAY---
Packed and waiting for Cab at 4 AM. Yes, you read it right.. at 4 AM! As usual cab came late at 4:15 and we headed towards Ut's house to pick her up. Next destination was Koramangala, to pick Alok and her friend, Rupali. Now all the passengers were full and ready to hit the road with a pen drive of music, lots of snacks and of course, lots of BAKAR too!!
As soon the journey starts, everyone start pulling legs of each other as thats the only way to cut your time in that boring and SLOWWWW journey. Thanks to the old age driver who has taken an OATH for not to hit the speedometer bar over 70 KMPH even on a empty 4 lane highway! By the way, his habit, gives us lot of time to fight over various things.
At around 11, we reached Chitradurgaa fort. The place chitradurgaa is still standing high with his high tombs, made by ancient kings. The archeological department has taken care of the main fort but situation of outside walls and the welcome gate is pathetic! We entered in the fort with our cameras and start clicking the pics. pillars, flowers, Entrance of carious gates in fort, Big gigantic rocks, small temples..... these are just some things whose images, we stored in our cams to retain our memories of this FORT.
Dialogues of SHOLEY( A Hindi movie) and our pranks are always there to let the people of Chitradurgaa know that some MUSKETEERS were here!
We spent around 2 hours in exloring the fort and moved toward our next destination Hampi. We got information that the distance is just 150 KM so we thought that by 2 or 3PM, we will be at Hotel BUTTTTT here comes the real excitement. State highway 12 from Chitradurgaa to Hampi is one of the worst roads i have ever seen in my life. Road was such a BIG mess that once we allowed our driver to go faster . BUT, after geting 2-3 head bumps (FOR EACH ONE), we ask him to slow down. Result- We were at Hampi @ 5-6 PM, 3 hours late than our expectations!!
Since we have no time to explore Hampi on that day so we decided to see TUNGBHADRAA dam's evening show in evening. We left our hotel at 6. Sun was going down and that lovely RED light on sky was indicating that within few minutes, street light will lead us to our destination!
We visited a mini aquarium, A musical fountain and Tungbhadraa dam that night. It was a nice experience to see water in two different forms. At fountain, we saw some water streams, dancing on the beats of music and lights While at DAM, we saw the VAST amount of water to make the noise and generating electricity. IRONICAL!
The day was OVER with a late night dinner and then resting on our BED. Plan was to get up at 6 and be ready by 7 to see HAMPI.
DAY 2:
------
Got up by 7 AM while the plan to start was 6AM, thanks to individual's (I mean EVERY one's) laziness. finally we came out of our rooms, had a HEAVY breakfast as lodge owner told us that HAMPI is very dry place and we won't get much to eat on our way. After that we sat in Car and reached to Hampi in 30 minutes. Driver left us at a temple which was of 1300 AD era. We went in for darshan and came out with Tilak on everyone's forehead. After ward we had few drinks(SOFT-drinks) as it was very hot and Hampi is all rocky place which enhances the effects of solar heat. We took 2 Litre water bottle for each one and started with our HIGH ENERGY! We hired bicycle for the day and started the local sight seeing. Roads were going up and down testing our stamina and desire to roam around the city. Hampi is the place of temple and got destroyed by Adil Shah. But still One can see the master peice of old times in the ruines of the temples.
There were temples of almost every single God which includes, Vishnu, Lakshmi, Pandavas, Kuber and many others. Main highlight of all temples was the carvings on the stone over such a long areas. It might have taken years to build each temple. Each single temple has a story related to it. We went in so many temples and found a different style in every temple. Out of dis-figuring of these temple, one can still see the amount of labour and art of the artists of that era. It was enormously brilliant work - A MASTER PEICE!!
Riding to these places on our cycles was a fun. We keep shouting on the Ones who was going ahead to pull them with us while we are shouting to cheer/motivate to the guys who were behind to stay as group. We were making funs on ones who were loaded with extra KGS under their bellies. It was a trip in which everyone has a reason for smile. As people with extra fat are down because of their extra MASS while lean body people have to carry extra baggages on their cycle to make the balance! With people finishing their quota of water and eying on other's bottles. Sometimes they requested, sometime snatched to get away with their thirst. but the conversation in between was a great fun. Finally we came back, handed those bicycles to the owner had some COLD-drinks and sat in AC of car to take the LEISURE of advance technology.
Our next destination was a RAM MANDIR. It was on the hill top. With the help of Car's engine and under AC's cold air, it took few minutes and no efforts for us to reach there. There was a marriage happening in this temple. Elders were busy in their rituals while kids were running here and there, as usual. While other choose to rest in temple campus. We, Gyan and me, roam around to check the surrounding. We went to the backside of the temple and got flattened by the aerial view of HAMPI. this temple was at a height and from there we can see the other end of HAMPI. After reaching this place, that how much we traveled by cycle and why we are feeling that much exhausted!! After this view, we realized that how big this archaeological place was. As per our observation, it was more than 20 SQUARE KM out of which we covered around 20-25 KMs on cycle in those 4-4.5 hours(under scorching SUN). I called others to saw that view but none was ready to see that. They were happy in watching rituals of marriage and were busy in playing with local kids. We spent around one hour there and then moved back to our hotel.
By the time we came back to our hotel, we were all tired. We took some rest and then went out for dinner. We planned that we will start at 8 next day and will go from Bellary route to avoid the patchy state highway of Chitradurga. With this decision, everyone came back to their sleep and had SOUND SLEEP after the day's hard works!! ;)
It was a loooooooong journey than our expectation as this Bellary route was 100KMS addition + the speed with which our driver was driving was making us feel like we are travelling in a bullock cart!! We reached Bellary post afternoon and were pretty relaxed as we know that by this speed we won't reach bangalore prior to 7-8PM. we checked GOOGLE to see if we can visit any other place in our way. Luckily, Baba explaimed the name - Halebidu! It was a place in our way and is known for another archeological aspects, known for it's old Heritage temples. we made a small stop at Halibedu. While Baba finished his prayers in the local temple we click some photos of the place to keep the memories of those sculptures in our memory forever.
After that, we were headed to our HOME, Bangalore and everyone had a small nap meanwhile. we reached Bangalore by 8-8:30 PM and after dropping everyone, we were in our beds by 9:30. It was a LOOOONG journey with a slow but attentive driver, Full of MASTI and smiles in our group, A great display of ancient rock art and many more things. Carving on those stones or temples proves the fact that with his ART and INTELLIGENCE, human race can turn a STONE into a GOD!
