I planned two short trips and a long trip in this year, and I am in search for next destination that would complete over weekend. After extensive search and recommendations decided to go Hampi and the lads acknowledged the destination and they started digging about the place. With immense history, and the ruined village divulges the India's love for arts and depicts the culture. The more we read about the place and the more we get high and pumped.
We suppose to start the trip on Friday afternoon but we can't wait to be on the road again, so packed our bags and tied them up to bike and buckled up the safety gear. Memorizing safety instructions is an honoring responsibility before the start of any trip, spent sometime about it at first gas station. We talked about the necessity of controlling speed, safety ,measures, consistency and important signals during the travel. We started off in early hours from Hyderabad after crossing the city, faced our first hassle; One of the biker had a trouble with a bike. We managed to proceed further with little trick, luckily it doesn't troubled us in the whole journey.
Multiple ways to reach the destination but opted to NH43 - Bengaluru highway. Our initial stop was Kurnool and last stop is Gooty in NH43 and decided to have a halt at Ballari. It was a smooth ride till NH43 but roads construction from Gooty - Ballari made us crestfallen, felt so bad for our bikes. Long halt is mandate because we seen the hell in form of roads. We took long break for several hours and freshen-up in friend's house in Ballari and decided to reach Tungabhadra dam.
Bellary Thermal Power Plant
JSW Steel Ltd, Main Entrance
Karnataka Veg Thali - Kannadiga Oota
Tungabhadra Memorandum
Tungabhadra reservoir water is shared among Karnataka, Andhra and Telangana states of India. There's always been dispute for irrigation water between these states as it flows through them. The dam has constructed between the two mountains and spectacle view of large bio-diversity and beautiful botanical garden, constructed them to increase attraction for tourism. Visitors can also checkout the trekking to top right mountain to get the panoramic view of the whole place. We spent valid amount of time to explore the place on foot.
Tungabhadra Dam Canal
Side view of Tungabhadra Dam opened Canal
Tungabhadra Canal Gardens
Tungabhadra Dam Operations Area
Tungabhadra Dam's Cheif Engineer - SHRI M.S. THIRUMALAE AYYANGAR
Mountain viewpoint underneth dam
Panoramic View of Tungabhadra Dam
HAMPI Memorandum - Part I
CHANDRASEKHARA, SARASWATHI TEMPLES & OCTAGONAL BATH
Now we are down to 20 kms from Tungabhadra dam to Hampi. The feeling to reach the destination always inexpressible, we reached the place during sundown. We are awestruck by the first glimpses of "The Lost and Found, Fallen Kingdom". The sign boards from tourism departments help us to know that we have visited the CHANDRASEKHARA & SARASWATHI Temples - (construction dated back to 16th century) and the famous OCTAGONAL BATH - (An Octagonal shape like pool meant for royal family before they visit the surrounding temples). We drove our vehicles inside and scouted the entire area, hanged around for a while till it becomes dark.
Octagonal Bath
We pre-booked the hotel and stayed close to Virupaksha temple. Parked our vehicles before we have dinner, last visiting plan to the Hampi flea market on the same day - It's a small group of shops with hand made idols, rock pendents, hats and cultural garments. Better to have less expectations before you visit this place. We biked again to Kamalapur from our hotel because tourism department want Hampi to be more holistic, only vegetarian food is available. So for obvious reasons we gone to Kamalpur and had some pleasant meal and returned to our hotel. Everyone slept like a baby as we drove long and roamed around for 18 hours.
VIRUPAKSHA TEMPLE VISIT
With good sleep, felt refreshed, predetermined ourselves to have whole day for sightseeing and stay peace and keen to learn more about the history. Our first stop is Virupaksha temple, in river bank of Tungabadhra which is main pilgrim place in Hampi. As we enter inside by the awe of such a huge Gopuram and again surprised to see temple elephant(Lakshmi) roaming around and quickly vanished to her water bath. Temple was dated back to 7th century way before Hampi is capital to Vijayanagara. The famous king Sri Krishnadevaraya was the main patron of this temple and made it huge with impossible designs and sculptures with the mathematics. On the left to temple there is a huge royal and public bath, all the water support comes from the river next to it.
HEMAKOOTA/HEMAKUTA GROUP OF TEMPLES
Hemakuta is one of the hill in Hampi which is fortified with group of temples. Astonishing views on hill ties everyone to spent more time and you'll be shattered by the devastating destruction to each construction made on top of the group of temples. To reach Hemakuta hill either you can hop from inside of Virupaksha temple, from outside of temple and from Sasivekula Ganesha temple. This is also sunset and sunrise point although we can see more panoramic view of sunrise and sunset from Matanga hill - The more adventurous way to reach to top and we have been there and done checking out the sunset.
MONOLITHIC BULL
Legend says Yeduru Basavanna/ Monolithic Bull sculpture is protector and guardian of Hampi and age of 500 years. Constructed on opposite to Virupaksha temple and Bull/Nandi is considered as gate keeper of Lord Shiva. The whole statue is made out of single huge boulder hence the reason it is said to be the Monolithic bull, even it has fair share in destruction but it is semi-destructed.
SASIVEKULA GANESHA
It is one of the finest specimens of Indian sculptures which is 8 feet and constructed with a single rock. According to Hindu mythology, Lord Ganesh is a son of Lord Shiva, who loves food and can't hold of taking it in. Huge intake caused a marge of bursting the stomach. So he took a snake and tied it around to prevent the stomach from bursting. The specimen clearly explains the mentioned story with snake tied around the monument and in memory of re-creating the scenario the monument is built at the excel times of Vijayanagar kingdom.
SRI KRISHNA TEMPLE
This is constructed for Lord Balakrishna as a symbol of victory against the Udayagiri kingdom which is currently known as Orissa by the famous King Sri Krishnadevaraya during the 1513 AD. The war-cry for many soliders are craved in the form of sculptures. Sri krishnadevaraya is famous for being the lover of art and architectures. This fallen but re-innovating temple explains the story.
I cannot explain the UNESCO recognized, knocked down sculptures and monuments yet they tried it's best to live longer than expected. If this inhuman acts doesn't razed to grounds of the city. It would have been more than seven wonders of world. Posting the whole journey experience in single post doesn't seem right. I am just half-way down to our journey and experience on remaining places will be posted in Part - II
