Blogs from Bijapur, Karnataka, India, Asia

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Asia » India » Karnataka » Bijapur February 22nd 2016

The best place to start this post is the bus journey to Bijapur. We'd booked the bus to leave from Mapusa (the closest town to Anjuna) at 9PM and were due to arrive around 7AM. It is officially a sleeper bus, so you do get a bed, but sleeping on these buses isn't possible! Take into account the natural swaying of the bus, gently rocking you side to side as you go to sleep. That sounds quite attractive to me, slowly drift off to sleep like the baby Jesus, rocking in his manger. In reality, once you factor In the atrocious Indian roads you're spending 10+ hours getting thrown around a mattress (which is actually quite soft, the bed alone is better than most of the beds we've slept in so far), that's barely long enough ... read more

Asia » India » Karnataka » Bijapur December 29th 2015

We had chosen to come to the region of Badami after our time in Hampi because we thought that on this off the beaten track destination we will not have to struggle with accomodation. How wrong we were. It took us ages to find accomodation here. Badami was fully booked. Both, Aihole and Pattadakal are little villages that do not offer accomodation. Finally we found a place in Bagalkot which is another hour away from Badami (even Bagalkot was nearly fully booked). OK, we were right: it is off the beaten track hence we did not meet westerners. But for indians, it seemed like all inhabitants from Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai, Chennai and Mysore together were on the move in this region including hordes of school classes. The trip from Hampi to Bagalkot was pretty easy. We ... read more
on a horse-drawn carriage
Nina among school girls
Durga Temple Aihole

Asia » India » Karnataka » Bijapur February 19th 2013

Bijapur est une ville plus grande, approx. 200 000 habitants, en majorité musulmans. On a eu une belle surprise en découvrant une ville assez calme (sauf la Station Road évidement), avec des habitants très accueillants, ouverts, sociables et souriants. On est arrives dimanche alors on s'est précipites aller voir le marche. Quelle fête! Des femmes d'une ethnie très spéciale, qui habitent un village a 15 km de Bijapur, viennent vendre leur produits au marche. On n'osait pas les prendre en photos mais elles sont très gentilles et se laissent prendre en photo sans problème. D'ailleurs la majorité des gens au marche nous demandaient de prendre des photos d'eux. La joie quoi! On a profite au max et on se sentait comme des enfants fou. On a fait plein de photos. Les autres jours nous avons visite ... read more
Marche - sucreries
Marche - etal
Marche

Asia » India » Karnataka » Bijapur February 27th 2012

I was roused from sleep by the call to prayer this morning there are few things more exotic in my opinion or annoying if you are trying to sleep in. The shower doesn’t work so a wet one bath was all I could tolerate, we left Badami after another crap breakfast of tiny pieces of toast and tea and headed further north to the predominantly Islamic city of Bijapur the former seat of the Adil Shahi kings (1489 - 1682). This crazy Indian practice of laying speed humps across the highways every bloody kilometre turned a reasonably short drive into a much longer one, but we arrived around 11.30am and stopped on the edge of the city to admire the Malik-E-Maidan or in English the Monarch of the Plain an extremely large 55 tonne canon left ... read more
Malik-E-Maidan or The Monarch of the Plains
Ibrahim Roza
Ibrahim Roza

Asia » India » Karnataka » Bijapur January 30th 2011

Last night, Monday, we returned to Bangalore. Immediately, on arrival, we changed clothes and and attended a joyful birthday party held for a friend of ours. He is an accomplished musician, and many of the guests shared this attribute. Our friend sang, and many of his friends also did so. Some played the guitar and others the mouth organ. Even though the party finished late and we had been travelling for more than 8 hours, we did not feel tired! A week earlier, on Monday the 13th July, we set out from Bangalore in our hired car, heading up into northern Karnataka. A remarkably good motorway (autoroute/Autobahn) took us in the direction of Pune and Bombay. After 2 or three hours, we stopped at the village of Sira to take a quick look at the remains ... read more
Fortress at Sira
Sculptor at Hospet
Pilgrims at the Sangam

Asia » India » Karnataka » Bijapur February 18th 2009

This was our last port of call in the state of Karnataka and after six hours on local bus, we pulled into a dusty, dilapidated market town. After trudging around a few dingy hotels, we finally got a clean but very basic room. Finding somewhere decent for a meal, however, proved to be an even tougher challenge. At the start of our trip in India, we would have eaten in hotel restaurants exclusively but over the last few weeks we had discovered really clean cafés where the food was amazing value, a south Indian breakfast of puri and coffee cost about 50 cent each. But cleanliness didn't appear high on the agenda in Bijapur, something that would come back to haunt us with a vengeance in the days ahead!! Whilst in Bijapur we first headed to ... read more
Golgumbaz

Asia » India » Karnataka » Bijapur June 12th 2008

From Panchgani, we came to Kolhapur by bus. My mp3 player has a pleasingly bizarre mixture of Roy Orbison, Frank Sinatra and Bollywood soundtracks, and nothing beats watching Indian life racing by with the sound of 'Chicago is My Kinda Town' in your ears. It's greatly weird. Kolhapur was a typically busy Indian town, with a nice Mahalaxmi temple (she's the Goddess of wealth) which had a pretty black, carved base (10th century) and a modern, painted roof and spire. (As eclectic as my music taste, really.) Lots of the locals wanted to shake hands and talk, and there was a great atmosphere plus the best damn mango lassi i have ever tasted. It rained hard and we managed to find the city's wrestling pit and watch young trainees grapple in the mud. Personally, i have ... read more
Movie Poster on Bus to Bijapur
Ibrahim Rouza, Bijapur
Jod Gumbad, Bijapur

Asia » India » Karnataka » Bijapur March 14th 2005

We were heading north but did not want to go via Goa and Mumbai (former Bombay), so we had to find our way inland. A direct bus to Bijapur would have left one hour later, so we decide to go there by changing bus. The first part was perfectly ok, a local bus as usual, but in the meantime we had got used to this means of transport. Then we made the mistake (afterwards you always know better) to take an express bus. It looked good to us, with far more comfortable seats and more leg freedom. We took seats in one of the front rows, but were immediately ushered to the back because the other seats were reserved. We thought this a sham because this had never happened to us so far, until we found ... read more
Jama Masjid
Mihrab
Ibrahim Rauza overview




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