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Old 10th December 2013, 11:43   #1
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Trip to Halebedu, Belur & Jog Falls

It was Dad n Mom's 40th Anniversary, so my sister decided to have a family trip to shimoga and surrounding places. The plan was to drive down to shimoga, and then visit Jog, agumbe and other places. It was decided to take brother-in-law's (BIL) duster and my palio SDX, as there were a total of 8 people including my 5 year old nephew prithvi.

We started at around 7 AM on 29th Morning from Bangalore, as I had to drop a relative of mine, I got delayed and BIL went ahead in his duster. So it was up to me to make up the lost time and catch up with them. Initial plan was to reach shimoga, check in to royal orchid and then do some local sightseeing, but we decided that after the drive and lunch no one would be interested in getting out of the room, decided to visit belur, halebedu, chikmagalur, sringeri and agumbe and reach shimoga by night.

The Bangalore - Mangalore is excellent and with almost nil traffic so was able to maintain a good speed of 100+. Close to yediyur, i was doing 120+ on my palio and observed a engine check light coming on. In the past I have had issue with car engine switching off when doing such high speeds due to pressure sensor problem. So not to take any chances, I stopped the car by the side, switched off the engine and took a bio break. When i started the car the engine check light was gone. But to ensure it does not repeat and no further problems are caused i maintained speed till 100.

Our first stop was at cafe coffee day/ kamat at chennarayapatna. After the break we headed towards Hasan and from there we took the route to halebedu. This route was just about OK. The sun was beating down and when we reached the temple, the stones in the temple were literally burning. We quickly went to the temple, which surprisingly was cool inside. spent some 30 mins took pictures. After some juice/cucumber we started towards belur and this road was worse! Especially there is a tank bund road which was having moon craters!

Here are some photos from halebedu:
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At belur we hired a guide and it proved to be a good decision as he was able to not only explain the history of the temple and the carvings but he also showed us the finer details and explained about the different sculptures on the temple walls. Like a lady with dog, lady coming back from hunting with the kill, lady with “shorts”, vishakanya with a scorpion. Over all it felt good to hear and see the details as compared to halebedu where we just walked around clicking pictures without even waiting for a few minutes.


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Observe the kill in the hand of helper lady.



By the time we finished the temple visit at belur it was around 1 PM and the sun was beating down hard. The initial plan was to go to sringeri from there via chikamagalur and then proceed towards agumbe for sunset. But considering the time and the distance (sringeri was around 100+ KM from belur). This schedule would have required us to drive another 220+ kms, so we decided drop that plan and instead head towards chikmagalur and also grab lunch on the way. Chikamagalur is some 60 odd kms from belur and we reached there by 3 PM. While looking for some good restaurant which we couldn’t locate we took the route which goes to kadur. On the way we saw a hording about the gateway hotel. We decided to visit the place for lunch.
Gateway by Taj is a nice place on the hills of chikamagalur with an amazing view. Being a taj venture you can expect the ambience, cleanliness and service to be good and it indeed was. The highlight of the lunch was the Rasam. Made from the peppers grown in their own farm, it was simple HOT! Just one sip of Rasam and the next thing you know is you are coughing coz the pepper has hit the back of your throat!





A quick check of the google maps revealed that there was a shorter router directly to terikere and shimoga. Instead of taking the kadur-terikere-shimoga route we decided to the other route to terikere. This proved to be a good decision as this route passed thru the hills and coffee estates on both sides of the road. The road condition was superb and the traffic almost nil! We stopped en route at a coffee bar at one of the estates and boy the cold coffee was to die for! We spent almost an hour there at the café admiring the beauty of the place as well as the weather!


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From there we proceeded towards terikere and on toward shimoga. Finding the maddening traffic on the terikere main road was like driving in Bangalore. Finally we reached Royal Orchid at around 8 PM. One incident that happened during our checkin at the hotel is worth mentioning: While waiting at the reception for the checkin, one of the hotel staff was handing the wet towels. My lil nephew prithvi went to hand over the used towel to the staff and the staff said: Thank you sir! To this prithvi loudly says: “Why are you telling me sir? I am only a small boy!” That reply from prithvi made me think how innocent the kids are and how they change as they grow up and learn new aspects of life! I wonder why did we change why can’t we see everyone the same way the kids do! Well that’s a topic for another day and discussion.


After freshening up we have dinner at “tiger trail” one of the restaurants at royal orchid. The food was nothing to write home about, but there was a performer singing songs as per the customers’ requests. I wonder how is he able to sing when people are just diving in to their food :-? Due to the journey everyone was tired and hot the sack soon after.



That ended our day 1 of the trip.

Last edited by Rehaan : 12th December 2013 at 15:07. Reason: Removing some "FONT" tags.
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Old 10th December 2013, 12:17   #2
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re: Trip to Halebedu, Belur & Jog Falls

Day 2

The next day was my dad n mom’s 40th anniversary! So we had ordered the cake from the hotel which we cut during the breakfast. After loading over selves to the hilt at the breakfast table, we moved towards taverekoppa for the Lion safari. Even though it was Saturday there was hardly any crowd and we had to wait for some 10 minutes for our safari in the noisy canter vehicle. If anyone of you have been to Bannerghatta national park in Bangalore, its similar experience here. We are taking to different areas where they have kept the lion and tiger apart from the usual spotted deer and sambhar.



Trip to Halebedu, Belur & Jog Falls-31.jpg


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There are only 3 lions: male, female and their cub. Since they are few in number they are not let out of their enclosure. The guide informed us that next month they are expecting some 4 more lion’s to come from Gir, Gujarat. I wonder how correct the information is considering the fact that Gujarat wants that exclusivity of being the only state with wild Asiatic lions and they don’t want to part with their lions even to neighboring Madhya Pradesh which is incidentally rules by the same party. Coming back to the lion’s since they are in the enclosure the guide does some trick with the male lion to incite and it starts jumping around. He even takes few photos if you hand your camera.

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There are quite a few tigers in this park and at any point they will have 3 tigers roaming in their area which is around 15 acre. We were able to spot only 1 tiger - Bharat in the open, which was resting near a water hole to cool itself. The other 2 were not to be found in spite of going around the area couple of times. In the enclosure there were some 4 tiger 2 of them were ready to pose for the camera: Vijaya and dashami.

Trip to Halebedu, Belur & Jog Falls-33.jpg
Dashami with vijaya in the background

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Dashami trying to show who is the boss!

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Vijaya says i am the boss!

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Bored Bharat

Trip to Halebedu, Belur & Jog Falls-40.jpg
Bharat poses for the photo

[FONT=&quot]After the safari we went to see the zoo in the other corner of this park. There is a famed black leopard which was sleeping on a tree and there were few more leopards in the enclosure sleeping or playing. My wife wanted to stand beside the enclosure for a photo with a sleeping leopard. A guard comes out and says there are few more inside which we can see. As the enclosures were being painted we saw around 9 leopards in 1, 2 small cubs in other and 3 more in one more enclosure. The guard informed that some of them were man eaters! I presume what he meant was they had attacked humans and were captured and brought there. Among the 2 cubs (which were found in jungle when they had not even opened their eyes) one was very comfortable with the guard and wanted to just play with him!

Trip to Halebedu, Belur & Jog Falls-41.jpg
The Black leopard.

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I want to come up!

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Finally succeed in getting up.

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9 of them in a single enclosure coz of painting work.

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Ok lemme smile for the photo

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[/FONT]If he can then i can smile too!

After the park visit, we drove towards jog. The roads were good for most part with quite a few tank bund roads with lotus were visible on the way. At jog a guide offered us to take us around and show the spots where mungaru male movie was shot. It was again a good decision as he took us to 3 different locations from where we can view jog at different angles. Since the monsoon season has already passed, the water in the fall was very low and my wife commented: It’s not jog falls but Joke falls!


Trip to Halebedu, Belur & Jog Falls-47.jpg


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The guide took us to the backwaters of the Talakalale Balancing Reservoir which was devoid of any human presence what so ever and we were able to enjoy the beauty of this place. We even went on a boat ride in the back waters and saw couple of islands in the middle of the backwater.After returning to the main viewing point of jog and having some quick snack we started back to shimoga and reach the hotel around 9. We have nice dinner at the other restaurant in the hotel which had more food options.



Trip to Halebedu, Belur & Jog Falls-53.jpg

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BIL trying to take a photo on his SIII


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A Parting shot of Jog fall



The next day we got up late had a lazy breakfast and started towards Bangalore around 12.30 PM. We crossed terikere and my BIL was getting impatient with the single carriageway. So at arsikere we took right and joined the road to chennarayapatna. This is still a single carriageway road but in super condition, minimal traffic and the drive was very pleasant. At chennarayapatna we joined the mangalore-bangalore highway and zipped back to Bangalore with in no time with a small stop at mayura for some snacks and coffee.

Over all it was a nice trip with the family and the places visited were worth it. When we reached home our beloved puppy pari was so happy to see all of us. So for the time she spent away from all of us she deserves a photo of her in this travelogue.

Trip to Halebedu, Belur & Jog Falls-56.jpg

Last edited by Rehaan : 12th December 2013 at 15:08. Reason: Removing font tags.
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Old 10th December 2013, 13:42   #3
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re: Trip to Halebedu, Belur & Jog Falls

Nice photos of Halebedu, Belur and Jog falls, lots of water and nice angles too. I think some formatting of text may be needed, tags are visible.

We did the same trip by staying at Hassan and covered Sravanabelegola too. Then drove to Jog, from there to Siddhapur to Hubli was a horror, roads were gutted at that time.

--Ramky
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Old 10th December 2013, 14:46   #4
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re: Trip to Halebedu, Belur & Jog Falls

Hi Ramky,

thanks for appriciatinng the photos. Regarding the tags being visible, i am wondering how did that happen! trying to find my way to fix it
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Old 10th December 2013, 17:08   #5
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re: Trip to Halebedu, Belur & Jog Falls

Quote:
Originally Posted by ant_vas View Post
Hi Ramky,

thanks for appriciatinng the photos. Regarding the tags being visible, i am wondering how did that happen! trying to find my way to fix it
If you write the story in word with pictures and copy past it here, the tags gets pasted too, so best would be to write on note pad, copy paste story here and upload pictures individually, quite a lot of work, but best.

Alternatively, load small chunks from word with the tags, save it, quickly hit edit and then remove tags one by one manually and save again. You need to do this, I think now within 30 minutes, after which you cannot edit it.

--Ramky
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Old 10th December 2013, 17:27   #6
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re: Trip to Halebedu, Belur & Jog Falls

Yes Ramky,

i searched around the forum and found that i can't edit my posts after 30 mins of posting and you guess it right, i typed it in word before copy pasting it here.

Will keep this learning experience in mind for future posts.

Cheers
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Old 16th January 2014, 10:55   #7
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Re: Trip to Halebedu, Belur & Jog Falls

Planning to do Belur/ Halebid on coming Saturday. Can you recommend
- Diesel option on the way (preferably COCO)
- Food options for breakfast and lunch.
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