Shutdown was planned @ my office & I had a good 10 days at my disposal, however the case was different with my wife’s office. We were completely confused and in two minds about planning a trip during these 10 days. Finally we decided to visit Badami & Hampi during these holidays. We started to looks out for accommodations in these places and that’s when we realized that it was too late for a plan. We were not able to get any rooms in these places in the last week of DEC.
Finally after trying in vain to get hotels in Badami & Hampi,we started searching for accommodation in near by places which worked in our favor and finally the trip was planned.
The plan was to do the following route.
Day 1:25th DEC
Kengiri-Hubbali
We started from Kengiri around 8:00 am. It seemed like entire Bangalore city was out on the Bangalore-Mysore road on that. It was good 60 minutes before we got to at the Tumkur expressway toll gate which was again facing heavy vacation rush. Finally we made it out of Bangalore city by 9:30 AM and was on the Bangalore-Pune highway. We reached @ Hubbali at around 2:00 PM and checked into our stay @ Akshaya Park. The hotel is nothing to write home about. Given a chance we would not have stayed there. Two things that really matters to me during any outside stay is decent parking place & decent bathrooms, both of which was missing in this place. The parking place reminded me of some old Bollywood movie go-down setup. However the food was surprisingly good & was cheap as well.
We had some time in the evening and wanted to explore Hubbali but could not venture out since our little one was not in a very good mood and we just didn’t want to strain him since we had another 5 more days to go. We retired by 8:30 PM on that day since our plan was to hit the road by 6:00 AM the next day.
Day 2:-
Hubli-Badami-Aihole-Pattadakallu
The original plan for today was to visit Badami-Aihole & Pattadakallu and return back to Hubbali since we weren’t able to get accommodation in Badami initially. However some last minute desperate phone calls to a friend and a little bit of luck we managed to get a room in one of the lodges in Badami. The place is called Royal Deluxe Lodge and is right next to Badami Bus stand. This place is a small time lodge and doesn’t have any bells & whistles of the modern Hotels. However it was functional & minimal.However we were just thankful that we got some were to stay in Badami itself.
We took the below route to reach Badami
We started from Hubli @ 6:00 AM and took the Gulbarga-Bijapur-Hubli Highway . The road was just two lanes all the way however it was very good roads with very minimal traffic till the right turn to Badami at somewhere near Khanapur. After this roads became bad to worse. We reached Badami by 8:45 AM and checked into the lodge. After a quick break fast we started off to Badami Cave temples. I will not be able to do justice to this place in writing. Its only next to the Ajantha & Ellora caves that i had been to in comparison of awesomeness. Let the pics do the talking.
Badami cave temples were build by the Architects in Chalukya kingdom
There are mainly three temples here. Shiva , Vishnu & Jain temples.
The Scruptures here were so awesome that i was spell bound.
We hired a guide to explain us about these sculptures and it was worthwhile.
This one particular sculpture of Vishnu God was outstanding out of all
It seemed like i was in a royal court room standing there
Another interesting sculpture was of the Prassana Narasimha. The half human half lion god. It was interesting because I guess this is the only sculpture that i have seen of this god in a smiling pose.
However the insides of the temple gave a haunted experience. It just made me wonder what would have been like in those days when these temples were work shipped with people fol king in from every were.
It was thrilling to see Vishnu ,Shiva & Jain temple in the same complex as it gave examples of religious tolerances that prevailed in that era.
All of these temples were having excellent works on there roofs as well. One of them was a infinity swastika.
The views outside from these cave temples were as exotic as the interior views.
After spending almost 3 hours @ Badami we proceeded to our next destination for the day Aihole. Since we were advised that there won’t be any good place to take lunch en route we took our food in Badami itself before proceeding to Aihole.
The route we took was
Pattadakallu was was en route however we decided to cover it while coming back from Aihole.
Enroute to Aihole we saw some sign boards directing to Nagnath temple again an protected monument but devoid of tourists.
Splendid architecture was at display in Aihole.
We left towards Pattadakallu after spending around an hour in Aihole. While driving back we saw more Protected Monuments in Aihole.
Jyothirlinga Complex
Malikarjuna temple complex complex
We reached Pattadakallu after spending some time at Aihole.
Pattadakallu again was epitome of 8th Century architecture.
After Pattadakallu we visited Mahakutta again another protected temple complex but unlike others in this region this is an active temple.
The road from Pattadakallu to Mahakutta gave us nice photographic opportunities.
We reached back Badami at around 5:30 PM and we proceeded towards Badami Museum. The route this was through narrow lanes and busy market place however by the time we reached the spot the Museum was closed however Agastya lake & its surrounding gave us some splendid photographic opportunities.
After a hectic day we retired around 8:00 in the night. The next day destination was Hampi.
Day 3:
We had decided to stay at Gangavathy which is around 45 kms away from Hampi since all the hotels in Hampi & Hospet which is nearer to Hampi were sold out. We booked our room in hotel SSLR in Gangavathy with a fear that this too may turn out to be a average hotel which to our surprise turned out to be a vary good one. The rooms were very good & modern the hotel had a vast parking area & very good restrooms. This hotel checked all the right boxes on our list. The only problem with this one was the distance from Hampi.
We started our day early and headed towards Gangavathi. The route we took was
Before going to hotel we decided to check out the TB dam ( Tunga bhadra dam).
After spending some time at the dam site we reached the hotel in Gangavathi by the time of lunch.
In the evening we proceeded to Sanapura reservoir 19 kms away from Gangavathy & watched over the sunset @ the serene lake.
The route taken was
We reached back Hotel at around 8:00 PM and had our dinner & retired for the day.
Day 4:
We started early morning towards Hampi. We hired a guide form the hotel itself & asked him to take us to the main attractions.
The first place we visited was Vittala temple the epitome of Hampi & its architecture glory.
Afterwards we proceeded to Virupaksha Temple
After Virupaksha temple we proceeded to a near by hotel to take food & then visited Narasimha statue
We started back to Hotel by 4:00 in the evening since we weren’t able to handle the heat & the. kid was getting really irritated. Hampi deserves a week or more of time each stone here has a story to tell, we surely were not able to do justice to this place with such short visit.
While coming back we quickly visited the pond which has been covered in a lot of movies. This is the Stepped Pond which was used by the Royals of Hampi in the past.
Day 5:
Gangavathi to Bangalore
We started of at around 9:00 in the morning and reached back Bangalore at around 3:30 pm.
The return journey was event less and thus we winded up an amazing trip to a bygone era.