Team-BHP - Exploring Karnataka Place after Place

Our Ambition was to make sure every member in the team will enjoy the day.

We had no choice because our crew had covered all places more than once so far.

So we picked up with left out small places which most of us havent visited yet.

Places visited:

Bangalore Vijaynagar -> Mysore road -> Kaadu Mane for breakfast -> Kootagal -> Janapada Loka -> Sri Pandit RaviShankar Ashram -> BMIC Freedom Park -> Back Home.

Details of it below:

Looking for a trip around Bangalore which should include trekking (to give refresh to my office young guns), old monuments (few family members), fun time for Kids.

After much research I short listed few palces and booked 20 seator brand new TATA mini bus (its 407 i guess).

Friday we finalyzed the route for this Saturday trip.

Organizing the trip will be easy but its difficult to be punctual and making sure every member attend without fail because crew varying from youngsters to old people. 70% of the crew attended the trip.

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Started with drizzling in the morning. We were bit disappointed because our first agenda was trekking near Ramanagarum.

Bus driver is from nearby area so he promised me even if its bad road he will drive till last
mile. We reached Kootagal at 10:20AM. Fun started immediately after seeing huge rocks and hills.

It stopped raining as well by now so all of us got down the bus and started walking to wards rocks. Crew trekked for 1km and then kids/family members decided to stay back. We guys proceeded towards huge rocks/hills It was easy trekking not like other amazing trekking places (kemmangundi, coorg etc.)we experienced.

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Kootagal view

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We all could reach the top and took some photos. Detailed Story behind the 2 big rocks in Kootagal : [img="http://www.deccanherald.com/archives/dec25/metro9.asp"]A romantic tale of two rocks - Deccan Herald[/url]

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Confident crew

Visited nearby temple and proceeded to Janapada Loka. Walked through Janapada Loka and everyone liked our old culture and spent more than 2 hours by seeing Museum. Prototype of our old people and their daily living style.

Few things we saw there reminded our childhood especially when we visited village for holiday. Janapada Loka is one place which is mirror of entire Karnataka's great history. Many of our old culture does not exist now but Janapada Loka we can feel it by seeing it.

Tried paddle boat as well there and then head to Kamat which is next to Janapada Loka for Unlimited lunch at 1pm.

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With my 2.5 yrs old daughter.

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Kids busy in R and D on Cannon the Firrangi

As usual Ladies shopped in small shops there and few bachelors baught ladies bags etc. as well when checked they said thats for their Mother/aunt in their house although few guys suspected on them.

Then started head back to bangalore and in Bidadi took right turn towards kanakapura road which will go via coca cola, toyota factory and reach harohalli (I think its harohalli) and proceeded to Sri. Pandit Ravi shankar Ashram and trekked all around there following the site map posted there. Marbel floor was skiddy and security was advising everyone to be walk slow and carefull. We were keeping eye on kids because they got excited by seeing huge building with snake/lotus type shapes and lawns.

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Ashram's huge building forgot the name

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kids playing at Ashram

Then had ice cream/tea there and proceeded towards Bangalore and took Left turn to BMIC expressway from kanakapura road and reached its park. Its still being constructed may be in 1 year it will be fully ready.

Kids excitment reached sky limit although they were sleepy. Spent 1 hour there and decided
not to wait for fire works at 7 pm then headed back to bangalore. It was nice day out for all sorts of people.

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Kids had 30 minutes fun time in BMIC park

Total distance covered 190km. Morning 8am to 6PM.

Thats it about it.

Regards,

Ravi.

PS I am sorry about small images I noticed now I pasted url of small images insetad of actual size.

Content is ready very fast! Here it goes:

Our recent trip to Melukote:

____________________________

Bangalore - Mandya - Melukote and Back to Bangalore in Same Route

-> Visitors: My Family and My Uncle's Family (6 people + Driver onboard in Innova)
-> Author: My Wife (Smita Bhat)

* Every weekend we plan to goto some good places to forget the strain of the whole week,
due to hard work we do. This time we decided to move to Mandya where we found an excellent place
ie MELUKOTE, no matter it is a holy place and even worth for the people who are seeking
for weekend trips and long drives.

My husband planned us to take us there to worship the great god of Melukote ie Cheluvanarayana
swami, even we had decided to take our relatives as we wanted to add more colour to our trip. On the ocassion
of sankranti ie on tuesday morning we started our journey, first of all my husband loaded the car
and filled Premium petrol @Shell (Bunk is at 8 km from Home so it would cost him 108.50/- to fill the fuel and come back)
to make a move towards the long drive.
We ate breakfast in our home itself and planned to have our lunch in kamat hotel while coming back,
as we are veg and we love rice, dal, chappati so its ideal place accord to our taste.
As we made a move my daughter started chatting with my uncle and aunt, even their son had come On the way
my daughter demanded for chocolate, biscuits etc... and she enjoyed the Bangalore - Mysore 4 lanes smooth highway in our family car!

We rode for nearly 150 minutes and the temple is about 140 kms from bangalore. The road was excellent
and we were involved in talking and joking so much that we didnot realise how fast we had approached
the place...
As we approached MeluKote first we headed towards hill where there is yogaNarasimha Swami Temple:
We got out of the car and looked at the beautiful surroundings, as we moved forward we
found many steps to climb, nearly 100 steps to apprach the temple inside, many foreigners had also
come to visit the place in indian dresses, however we managed to climb the steps, in the entrance
our eyes first caught the marvellous sculpture of Yoga narsimha swami carved on the walls, there we
bowed down and got ourselves to the pooja room where many people had gathered to make different
kind of poojas, even we had taken the pooja items and the priest performed the pooja, we took rounds
of the temple and after that we climbed upon a huge rock and we were overwhelmed to see the whole
sight below from the above rock, it was filled with huge rock, trees,lakes and what not! really a
pleasure to see it....We could see different kind of arts, sculpture on the walls, various kinds of
designs and stone works which drawed our attention towards the walls, now it was the time to leave
the place and move to the temple located in opposite direction, there was the god called by the
name cheluvanarayana.

Link to see few photos:

Netlog

Cheluvanarayan Swami Temple in Melukote Village after coming down from hill:
It was now 12:00pm and we stepped in to another temple after parking our car there, there we could
see different kinds of arts on the top and surroundings of the temple, even there were huge pillars
carved with different kind of stone works and designs, one pillar was different from that of the
other, we were relly impressed to see such sight, the artists of the olden age are really appreciable
We took round and we saw a statue of horse and God made out of bronze.

My daughter thought of taking ride on the horse there, she thought that it could move
after she puts 5 rs. coin, in the similar way we do in Big Bazaar / Shops / Few parks.

After all fun and excitement we moved from the place at 12:20pm, we were now hungry and decided to move fast
towards the hotel, as we reached the hotel we ate lunch at 2pm and made move towards our home...

So wasn't it a trip filled with joy and glamour! Alas we came home and unloaded the things
and hence we had an impressive trip....

Distance Travelled: 280km
Innova Petrol FE: 11.74kmpl with 10% Ac on
Average Speed: 80kmph, Top speed: 125kmph
Road Condition: Excellant with hardly couple of bad 50ft stretch.

PS: Soon to come more Story of our recent trips (Sirsi, Saatodi Falls, Yaana, Ankola, Coastal Karnataka and much more) so watch this thread for details in couple of weeks

Here is short update of revistiing Yaana during dec. 2007 holidays.

Yaana can be approached from 3 places:

1. From Sirsi its via kumta road and then turn right in Hegdekatta cross which goes to Yaana, distance is around 50km and road condition is quiet ok with lot of curves.

2. From Kumta: Take Sirsi road and after Kathagal before one small bridge you can find sign board towards left which goes to yaana, road is quiet ok typical village forest road, distance is 40km from Kumta.

3. From Ankola/Gokarna: Take left while coming from Ankola in NH17 near MadanaGeri village and road which leads to yaana and this is one worst road. Distance from NH17 is aprox. 40km.

Among these roads i prefer road from Sirsi via Hegde Katta.

We started at 2 pm from Sirsi side and reached Yaana around 4pm. and walked for 3 km to see big roacks and roamed the palce for 1 hour and headed back to home. This is ideal one day adventurous picnic spot. Now road repair is being done and its expected to become very good next year.

Best season to visit after rainy season before summer to avoid tiredness. So its between November and February.

Food: Carry your food, some occassions you might find small stalls. I have telephone of the local perosn who can arrange food if we call him in advance (if his phone is in good condition).

Please search web for more details on Yaana.

Few pictures below:

Main BIG Rock: there is Temple inside.

More view of different Rocks:

Regards,

Ravi.

Now about Saatodi Falls which we covered during last week of December 2007.

Morning we started at 8:30AM from Sirsi area in my friend's hired Trax Jeep and proceeded towards Yellapur with lot of bad roads to travel.

After Yellapur take Hubli road within 2 km one needs to turn left and from there its around 30 odd kilimeters. There is lot of left and right turn to take so one needs to ask for directions for sure. When Water Falls is 5 km away we get a glance of back water of river Kaali of Kodasalli Dam. Road goes along with river its very nice scene.

Kaali Back Water:

Reached Saatodi by 11AM, Distance is around 90km from Sirsi. then we need to walk in forest for around 1km to reach the spot. Water falls from just 100 odd feet but 40 feet wide which make it look exciting and we can reach very near to spot after rainy season, its small river which joins the River Kaali nearby.

Ladies in our team had tough time climbing rocks but every one managed took sometime for sure.

View of Water Falls:

There is small Hotel we can have food, we need to order the food in advance before we go there. Next time we can try food there.

Since its already 1pm we decided to head back to Yellapur to have lunch. Road is not good typical forest road, But road work is going on so expect next year there will be some road. Suprisingly cars visited include Alto from Hubli to Innova MH registration and Saafri/Scorpio/Jeep/Sumo are common ones.

Satodi falls has only one route by road:

One has to go to Yellapur and proceed from there.

Food: Hotel WoodLand.

Fuel: Make sure you fuel your car in Yellapur itself.

Season to visit: Strictly after rainy season like Yaana else one has to get ready to leeches everywhere. best time is November-January.

Regards,

Ravi.

I had been to my parents place who work and stay in Ankola, ladies made me take them to Karwar for time pass trip.

Frist we decided to visit SadashivGada which has good view point of river Kaali and Arrabbi Sea. Its hardly 40km from Ankola and I wanted to test my newly appointed driver.

We reached the spot by 11:30AM and its really nice place even if its multiple visit for any person. Sadashivagada has decent resort with small garden.

View:

NH17 After crossing Kaali River:

View of river joining sea:

My kid wanted to see fish so I took her to small Aquarium there which is next to NH17 in Karwar town and also just few minute walk in beech.

Then its shopping time for ladies and then lunch back to Ankola.

To reach Sadashivgada after corssing Kaali River in NH17 towards Goa within a kilometer take right and travel 300 meters to take another right, within 500 meters take one more right which go to top fo the hill/resort.

Regards,

Ravi.