[airguitar]

That's one fabulous trip! Took me down the memory lane.

I hope the temples are well maintained now ? Years back, most temples were completely bat-infested and they smelt horrible. The Narasimha statue was surrounded by shrubs and weeds but come late evening and night thousands of fireflies light up the place..

Did you think of covering Daroji bear sanctuary ?

[AvonA7]

Originally Posted by airguitar

That's one fabulous trip! Took me down the memory lane.

I hope the temples are well maintained now ? Years back, most temples were completely bat-infested and they smelt horrible. The Narasimha statue was surrounded by shrubs and weeds but come late evening and night thousands of fireflies light up the place.

Thanks @airguitar.

Yes the temples are well maintained now, just to share few -

a. Zenana Enclosure - very well maintained, the entire garden is maintained and clean, visitors are not allowed to enter inside the Lotus Mahal

b. Mint area - fenced

c. Hazararama temple - very clean inside and outside

d. Vitthala temple - same here too, inside the temple complex some restoration work is in progress in the building with those musical pillars, so here too visitors are not allowed inside

e. same with Mahanavami dibba/Stepped tank and other areas.

f. Narasimha temple - is also clean but here the approach road might be difficult to walk during rains

g. Sisters Stone - fenced now, as a portion of it had broken down early this year

h. Underground Shiva temple - the entire garden is beautifully maintained

In fact most of the temples had ladies (from tourist dept.?) inside monitoring visitor activities.

Originally Posted by airguitar

Did you think of covering Daroji bear sanctuary ?

I couldn't as I had only 01 day to explore the place, but yes may be next time including Aihole/Pattadakal and Badami.

[gajadonga]

Good travelogue and good pictures with history of that place.
Good to hear that the road from Koppal to Hubli is good.
Hope the truck traffic was not that heavy when you travelled.
After the Hampi Utsav things are better I suppose around the monuments.

[AvonA7]

Originally Posted by gajadonga

Good travelogue and good pictures with history of that place.
Good to hear that the road from Koppal to Hubli is good.
Hope the truck traffic was not that heavy when you travelled.
After the Hampi Utsav things are better I suppose around the monuments.

Glad you like it, thanks @gajadonga.

Yes, NH63 roads are very good and without any toll. Actually its 10-15kms before Koppal to Hubli, rest is under construction but I believe once the work is completed it`ll be very good as it seems a section of the work in progress road would be 04 lane.

Truck traffic was heavy in the evening, but disciplined traffic so at least vehicles were moving even though slowly.

[AvonA7]

Just to clarify -

Got few queries on the road condition for the last few KMs towards Hospet -

- roads are bad, drivable but slowly

- I am not a night driver in H/Ws, but with diversion, current road condition and construction work in progress and heavy truck traffic better to complete this stretch before sunset

Hope this helps.

[Prawaal]

We too went to Hampi and Badami in the month of October 2011. I would suggest if you drive to Hampi, it is better you also drive to Badami, Aihole, and Pattadakal. If you have minute interest in history/architecture you will love these places. We took 4 days for this trip but this was too short. Wish i took 1 week off.

Once you reach Hampi there is an equally good landscape on the other side of river Tungabhadra, which is again worth spending one day.

May i remind you the road from Hampi to Badami is not too great. Giving some glimpse of the road condition. I might have not taken the best road, but then it was mapmyindia which was giving me directions.

Some pics from my trip. I could not stop myself posting them.
#1, 2, 3 (Road from Hampi to Badami)




#4 (Badami Caves)


#5 (Pattadakal - Templates)


#6 (Aihole - Temples)

[amitwlele]

Nice TL Avon. Thanks for sharing.

I believe winter season would be the best time to visit the place. Summers would be very hot.

[AvonA7]

Originally Posted by Prawaal

We too went to Hampi and Badami in the month of October 2011. I would suggest if you drive to Hampi, it is better you also drive to Badami, Aihole, and Pattadakal...

May i remind you the road from Hampi to Badami is not too great. Giving some glimpse of the road condition. I might have not taken the best road, but then it was mapmyindia which was giving me directions.

Yes, probably next time for Badami, Aihole and Pattadakal. Roads look interesting, I am not sure if I can travel in a hatchback though

Can you share the details of your trip to these places. You stayed at any of these places or covered in a day from Hampi ? What is the drive time.

Originally Posted by Prawaal

Some pics from my trip. I could not stop myself posting them.

Thanks @Prawaal for sharing the pics, feel free to add more from your trip.

Originally Posted by amitwlele

Nice TL Avon. Thanks for sharing.

I believe winter season would be the best time to visit the place. Summers would be very hot.

Thanks Amit. You are correct, summer would be very hot and to explore Hampi one need to walk a lot, so winter is the perfect time.

[psp62in]

AvonA7,
A nice Travelogue indeed!

In April2010 I and my family had travelled to Hampi from Mumbai, in ANHC, on the same route.

At that time, the Hubli to Hospet road was in a terrible condition, particularly the stretch after Gadag. I was told that this was due to the extremely heavy traffic of the trucks carrying iron ore from Bellary to Karnataka ports (Mangalore).. at those times the Reddy brothers were still operating in full swing. In fact it took us nearly 10 hours to reach Hospet from Belgaum, and in the evening we were seeing a huge unending caravan of ore trucks travelling from the other side, pouring dust, making driving tough. The entire road was covered by a thick maroon colour dust, which spread up to a significant distance into the adjoining fields. Apparently, the situation has improved now - following the mining ban, going by your experience.

Hampi is beautiful, and a must visit destination. There are few locations on the banks of the Tungabhadra River which are extremely picturesque, even in summer.

As you have said, summer, is not the time to visit Hampi. Our hours to go out were severely restricted from 6 am to 10 am in morning and then 4 pm onwards in the evening. Even then, it was extremely hot, and the heat reflecting from the rocky surroundings makes it worse. BTW, the KSTDC facility at Hampi is one good place to stay.

BTW, did you notice the steep difference in the prices between Karnataka and Maharashtra? A petrol pump owner on highway near Belgaum told me that their busines is extremely poor - limited mostly to the local small vehicals, and majority vehicals coming from Maharashtra come with their tanks full at the state border.

[Prawaal]

Some slightly more elaboration and pictures from my trip.

October 27th - Pune to Hampi.
We started from Pune on October 27th early moring 5:30 AM approx, and reached Hampi around 4 PM. We were driving at ease and stopping over for pictures etc wherever we found scenic.

Evening 4 PM to 9 PM we saw few temples at Hampi. Late night we had dinner at Mango Tree hotel, on the bank of river Tungabhadra.

October 28th - Hampi
Here we went to Matunga Hill for the sunrise and then went to the other side of the river to see few more stops. There is a very scenic lake on the other side where we can swim.



October 29th - Hampi to Badami
From morning 7 AM till 11 AM, we were at Hampi itself going across so many historical monuments the city had to offer. Around 11 AM we took a call and started to Badami with a resolution that we would come back to Hampi and do the rest of the things again.

Reached Badami around 3 PM and went to caves. We also covered the temple in the middle of the lake, along with few more temples on the mountains close by. By the time we can bac to hotel it was almost 9 PM.

October 30th - Badami, Padakalam and Aihole.
Started very early from Badami, around 5 AM and went to Padakalam. What a place. We were astonished. We were there for 1 hour and then started to Aihole. We saw selected few templates at Aihole and spent another 1 hour there.

From here we started for Pune, around 11 AM at this time. Reached Pune evening 10 PM. Road from Khed Sivapur to Wakad too me over 3 hours.

[ac 427]

@avon ; nice sweet trip.

I and 2 of my friends did a similar trip - Mumbai - Hampi - Pondi and back. Though our car was not a street hugging polo but it was boat called Toyota qualis .

Btw hope you did visit the best open air restaurant in the world in Hampi - The Mango tree.

Also on the other side of the river there is the guest house called as Shanti-ashram. Did you stay there ?

Anyways this travelogue of your reminded me of mine sweet little trip there.

Great going.

cheers,
ac

[AvonA7]

Originally Posted by ac 427

@avon ; nice sweet trip.

I and 2 of my friends did a similar trip - Mumbai - Hampi - Pondi and back. Though our car was not a street hugging polo but it was boat called Toyota qualis .

Btw hope you did visit the best open air restaurant in the world in Hampi - The Mango tree.

Also on the other side of the river there is the guest house called as Shanti-ashram. Did you stay there ?

Anyways this travelogue of your reminded me of mine sweet little trip there.

Great going.

cheers,
ac

Thanks @ac427, we stayed at Malligi@Hospet, didn't have lunch at Mango Tree, actually had a very late lunch at Hospet.

Originally Posted by Prawaal

Some slightly more elaboration and pictures from my trip.

Thanks @Prawaal for sharing.

Originally Posted by psp62in

AvonA7,
A nice Travelogue indeed!

In April2010 I and my family had travelled to Hampi from Mumbai, in ANHC, on the same route.

At that time, the Hubli to Hospet road was in a terrible condition, particularly the stretch after Gadag. I was told that this was due to the extremely heavy traffic of the trucks carrying iron ore from Bellary to Karnataka ports (Mangalore).. at those times the Reddy brothers were still operating in full swing. In fact it took us nearly 10 hours to reach Hospet from Belgaum, and in the evening we were seeing a huge unending caravan of ore trucks travelling from the other side, pouring dust, making driving tough. The entire road was covered by a thick maroon colour dust, which spread up to a significant distance into the adjoining fields. Apparently, the situation has improved now - following the mining ban, going by your experience.

Hampi is beautiful, and a must visit destination. There are few locations on the banks of the Tungabhadra River which are extremely picturesque, even in summer.

As you have said, summer, is not the time to visit Hampi. Our hours to go out were severely restricted from 6 am to 10 am in morning and then 4 pm onwards in the evening. Even then, it was extremely hot, and the heat reflecting from the rocky surroundings makes it worse. BTW, the KSTDC facility at Hampi is one good place to stay.

@psp62in - Glad you liked it. Yes, the roads/traffic have improved and going by your experience I think roads are excellent now. I believe you are talking about KSTDC Mayura Bhuvaneshwari.

Originally Posted by psp62in

BTW, did you notice the steep difference in the prices between Karnataka and Maharashtra? A petrol pump owner on highway near Belgaum told me that their busines is extremely poor - limited mostly to the local small vehicals, and majority vehicals coming from Maharashtra come with their tanks full at the state border.

Yes, noticed both - low fuel prices in MH, high in KA, more toll in MH, less toll in KA.
I got your point, filled up twice @Belgaum, I guess fuel is costly in KA by 3-4/- per ltr compared to MH.

Bad road ends, good road starts (Hospet to Koppal)

[pjbiju]

Originally Posted by AvonA7

...
Wanted to do a long drive to Hampi for quite sometime now, but due to some reason or the other it always got postponed. Finally me and my wife did this trip on 15th - 17th Dec`11.

Named this P`logue --> you may consider it as a PHOTOlogue or POLOlogue as this is my first real long drive (>500 kms in a day) in my car.
...

AvonA7, I am really glad that you had a memorable trip to Hampi. Thank you for sharing the pictures and your experience. Loved the pictures and your narration. It is also good to hear that the road from Koppal to Hospet is good.

Shocked to see the broken sister stones. Just see how they looked like last year - here

-Biju

[AvonA7]

Originally Posted by pjbiju

Shocked to see the broken sister stones. Just see how they looked like last year - here

-Biju

Yes, I had seen these pics of sisters stone as you posted in your TL. When I saw the sisters stone, me too was a bit surprised.

At present, the area is fenced and visitors are not allowed to go near the stone.

[Boomerang]

Great Pix. We did a Bangalore to Hampi. Honestly, from Hubli to Hospet is the most dangerous. The Taxi drivers drive this stretch with a hollow skull.

Thank you for sharing the great pix...

Here are my pix...

Facebook

Add me (Stapp Flint-Sky) leave text.