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Old 8th March 2010, 02:00   #151
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Originally Posted by sbraj View Post
This painting looks remarkably similar to the Mural paintings at Guruvayoor temple. Is this done on the wall or a ceiling?
Its has to be.Vinod , the man who has been renovating those murals is from Guruvayoor only. I guess there is an institute of mural painting in Guruvayoor, I could be wrong though, and only a handful of people are competent in this nearly-extinct art.

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Old 8th March 2010, 15:30   #152
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I guess there is an institute of mural painting in Guruvayoor, I could be wrong though, and only a handful of people are competent in this nearly-extinct art.
You are right (see here).

There is a shop which sells replica. Near East Nada, on the ground floor of the building which has Mangalya Auditorium.

I have a 'Radhamadhavam' replica in my home. All guests start conversation by asking about the painting.
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A trip close to heart - Pune to Tirunelveli-krishna_gopikas1.jpg  

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Old 15th March 2010, 12:35   #153
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Great narration and pictures. Thanks to you for letting me have a virtual trip of all these unknown places.
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Old 15th March 2010, 12:39   #154
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MX, Story stalled again.
The river has traveled from hills and is now in plains.
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Old 15th March 2010, 12:39   #155
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@MX6

We are still awaiting reports on Chennai Sangamam and your return trip to Pune!
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Old 15th March 2010, 13:39   #156
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Yes sires. Will post. it's towards the end anyway! I was so exited following Ashish's KL - S'pore travelogue, then the t-bhp pune meet and then my new Garmin! Hence the delay.
I shall finish the travelogue by tonight. One post of the return journey.
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Old 15th March 2010, 14:28   #157
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Yes sires. Will post. it's towards the end anyway! I was so exited following Ashish's KL - S'pore travelogue, then the t-bhp pune meet and then my new Garmin! Hence the delay.
I shall finish the travelogue by tonight. One post of the return journey.
So which Garmin did you get?
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Old 15th March 2010, 14:45   #158
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Tonight???? It's already 16 buddy; you've come to Chennai, saw Crazy Mohan's stage drama, after that what happens? Man, you've started giving a feeling that Ramanand Sagar was better
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Old 15th March 2010, 15:30   #159
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Wonderful travelogue and a wonderful trip too, not many with a small kid will be willing to take such a long trip. This has given me a lot of confidence with travel with kids

Would like to do one like this very shortly, planning is happening
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Old 15th March 2010, 15:48   #160
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And how much did the Garmin cost?

Nowadays, you can integrate the GPS into the dashboard - costs Rs. 30k or 40k I think. It also doubles up as a touchscreen music system & DVD player.
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Old 25th March 2010, 05:30   #161
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MX6 View Post
Yes sires. Will post. it's towards the end anyway! I was so exited following Ashish's KL - S'pore travelogue, then the t-bhp pune meet and then my new Garmin! Hence the delay.
I shall finish the travelogue by tonight. One post of the return journey.
Many a night have turned into mornings not yet adorned by the experiences of the return journey.

I hope you will make up for the delay with a lot of photographs.
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Old 29th March 2010, 18:41   #162
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Seems like I'm returning after a long hiatus. I've driven almost 2500 kms between the last post of mine and now. That includes another trip from Pune to Sringeri, Udupi and back!
My sincere apologies to each of you who have been patrons of this travelogue, for keeping you waiting. Here's the concluding bit of the epic travel.
We left Chennai to hosur on the 15th Jan. The plan was to stay at Hosur or cross Bangalore and stay at tumkur based on how it pans out.
We left home at 5 pm. I missed a signal near CMBT. A big paunched tamil Mama (read as police) came running in suspended animation to point out I jumped a signal. It was my second offence out of oversight (the first being the entry in to a no -entry at chikkamagaluru). I apologised to him as I was flying at 75 kmph on the 100 ft road and didn't bother to stop.
In 15 mins we hit the poonamallee highroad. NH4 beckoned me with absolutely no traffic.
I was averaging 100 - 110 mostly and we had a pitstop at vellore. I moved in towards vellore and saw a saravana bhavan and decided to have an early dinner there. It was the most shocking experience.
I had idlies (4 of them the size of my daughter's bangle) for 60 rs. They served us warm badam milk in cups used for tequila shots and charged a ransom for it. Food was very tasty, but it's all so very less in quantity that one needs to eat 10 plates of idlies to fill stomachs. We moved out of vellore and were soon on NH4 again. By the time we reached electronic city, it was around 9:30 pm. We drove 314 kms in under 3.5 hours of driving time. I refuelled at a BP pump and found that my car gave the best mileage in that stretch of NH4. 20.3 kmpl. Magical. That was the only time I got above 20 kmpl in a petrol ford ikon flair which normally gives me 18 - 18.5 kmpl on the GQ. I wish I had my garmin with me then to analyse my trip.
We settled for the night in some hotel (I don't recollect the name now). The hotel people were kind enough to give me a 25% discount for corporate people. Got a suite room for around 1500 bucks. After a late dinner, and the same routine of sterilising my babies feeding bottles, utensils, etc. I moved to slumber. I had knocked off 314 of 1200 kms and had around 900 kms left to make. To add to it, the horror called Bangalore still to cross.
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Old 29th March 2010, 19:15   #163
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Food was very tasty, but it's all so very less in quantity that one needs to eat 10 plates of idlies to fill stomachs.
Right. I have felt many times that these highway eateries are fleecing customers. At Balaji Bhavan, Gundlupet, a tea is priced at INR10. Quantity is very less.

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To add to it, the horror called Bangalore still to cross.
That too, during day time? Nightmare!!!
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Old 29th March 2010, 19:47   #164
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Right. I have felt many times that these highway eateries are fleecing customers. At Balaji Bhavan, Gundlupet, a tea is priced at INR10. Quantity is very less.


That too, during day time? Nightmare!!!
NICE road solves that problem to quite an extent if there are no human (read political, or read he who should not be NAMED) road blocks.
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Old 29th March 2010, 20:46   #165
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@sbraj. The saravana bhavan is not on highway. It's 4 - 5 kms off the highway towards vellore. We avoid highway eateries as we perceive many of them to be unhygenic. If it doesn't look clean, we go inside the town.
So this one was too costly.

The next morning we woke up leisurely. The previous night I was rather irritated with the hotel staff asking me to park my vehicle to specifications listed by them as though it's an army tank laden with shells. Finally I got damn pissed off and drove it over some empty tubes they'd put there on the basement car park and stormed off the car to my room.
We had a nice little brunch and left the hotel and got confused on the bypass. Signages were poor. To make matters worse, the flyover above (now opened) was not functional. So we had vehicles going from everywhere to everywhere on a saturday.
Going up and down on that road thrice we finally followed another vehicle and drove the wrong way. The gut feeling was that some one catches, he gets caught first. Some one bangs, he gets banged first which will alert me.
We finally found the way to the bypass and got on to the great horror called nice road (guess that was it).

This was the route I planned to take.
A trip close to heart - Pune to Tirunelveli-hosur-bangalore.jpg

However, a stretch of Nice road was WIP. may be some irate villagers dug it up. So they split the toll to two.
Hosur road - 15 rs.
Bannerghatta - 63 rs.
There was a deviation in to some strange looking place in Bangalore after Hosur road toll where I had to ask atleast 7 persons and take U turns thrice to get back on to the road that takes me to the second leg of Nice road.
Sir, Nice roadige hege hoguvadhu?
Elli hog beku nimage?
Nanige Tumkur hoguva beku sir.
Seedha hogi. Mundhe signal alli right alli thirugisi. Mathe leftu.

Don't bother looking for translation. I followed the directions to a T. But still got lost.

@ampere. That's the parody of Nice.

We finally got on to the Nice road again at the other side. Paid up 63 bucks and kept on the road. It took me a good 2 hours to circumnavigate Bengaluru and reach Nelamangala from electronic city road.
I had to reach some good place for late lunch.

The tumkur stretch was horror. Every speedbreaker looked like cleaving my car in two. With a fully loaded car with so much in boot and full occupancy, I was damn scared. Can anyone in Karnataka public works department tell me why such hillocks are there in the form of speed breakers? With the amount of tar on those speed breakers in Karnataka, they can put roads for the whole of Bijapur I guess.
I finally managed to find Srikrishna veg hotel near Chitradurga. That looked decent. But the real reason I stopped there was that my baby was hungry and ready for it's next feeding session, while I enjoyed the views of the windmills.
But I was so disgusted with this stretch of NH4 that I didn't bother to even check whether my camera is in the car or not. No photos there.

After a brief stop over, we proceeded. the harihar ranebennur stretch was horror too. I pity the villagers. Every damn vehicle on NH4 has to pass through every door step of poor ranebennur. To make matters worse, there were two huge trucks (monstrosities on road) ferrying across railway locomotives.
That pretty much made up most of my day. On a single lane, trying to over take two such monsters who are one behind the other.

After overtaking and inside ranebennur, we couldn't avoid stopping for tender coconut. After sitting in the car for nonstop 7 hours, we needed to cool down. As we sipped the wonderful tender coconut, I saw the two monsters passing by. I cursed myself, for I didn't know when we'd get chance to overtake them again.
Soon we were delighted to see that the single lane paved way to 4 laned highway. It was almost sunset time.
With a wonderful highway opening up, I stopped briefly for a quick photoshoot.
My daughter loved the red sun that was setting quickly. Guess there was cotton fields nearby.
Sunset near ranebennur
A trip close to heart - Pune to Tirunelveli-sunset-near-ranebennur-1.jpg
My Josh machine with the setting sun
A trip close to heart - Pune to Tirunelveli-sunset-near-ranebennur-2.jpg

Now the next big question on my wife's mind. Where do we call it a day. It was already painful starting on a long stretch from hosur and reaching ranebennur by nightfall. Hubli was what I'd planned earlier. But driving on a sunday from hubli to pune was not in my mind. I wanted to reach home earlier so that I can relax and unwind for more gruelling office the next day.
How about Belgaum? It's just another 3.5 hours from here I told her.
2.5 hours is what I do max with my baby at any stretch. We need to give her a break and plan for her next food session every 2.5 hours.
No boiled milk left. She's just had her orange juice after the sunset pitstop. Max she can be kept waiting for 3 hours. Is it possible?

I told my wife, let me hit the roads. We'll stop when our daughter starts getting cranky. We move to the nearest restaurant and boil milk there for her.
I moved to overdrive and was soon doing 120 kmph.
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