Blogs from Karnataka, India, Asia

Advertisement

Asia » India » Karnataka » Hassan October 27th 2022

Hi friends .. its travel time again after a long gap due to Covid restrictions. After Vizag this one is a long trip. It was with my child hood friend Baskar. We set off on a Friday early morning from Bangalore the capital city of the state Karnataka to avoid the traffic We drove down the full distance and it was indeed a lovely trip. It was a bright morning and lovely weather for a long drive, Its a distance of 220 kms from Bangalore. It was breakfast time and there are number of restaurants on the way. We chose the Pakhshala, a pure vegetarian joint. Idli, Vada and coffee was really tasty an we did relish the hot breakfast and resumed our journey. Its a best breakfast combination light and satisfying.Do try this when you ... read more
Belur outer view
Mesmerising sculptures
Marvel in stone

Asia » India » Karnataka » Udupi December 22nd 2021

According to mythology, when Lord Krishna’s wife Rukmini requested her husband for the idol of Balkrishna, the child form of the Lord, Shri Krishna entrusted Vishwakarma with the task of designing the idol. Vishwakarma made a beautiful idol of Balkrishna with the holy saligrama stone and gave it to Rukmini for worship. The idol, in the course of being worshipped by hundreds of devotees at Dwaraka with the application of sandalwood paste, got completely covered with the sandalwood paste. It is believed that this same idol is now placed at the temple. As a consequence of the great flood that occurred at the end of the era of Lord Krishna, Dwaraka was completely engulfed by the sea. And the sandalwood covered idol of Lord Krishna also got washed away. Saint Madhvacharya and the Idol Decades passed. ... read more

Asia » India » Karnataka » Bangalore » Koramangala August 21st 2021

"If there is a Heaven on Earth, it is in Kashmir." I realised the age-old proverb after completing the Kashmir Great Lakes Trek. When I was young, my dream was to be a wanderlust and travelling to Himalayas. Like many Bengalis I was influenced by the epic travelogue written by Parimal Dey and Umaprasad, the legendary travel-writers of Bengal. But now I am 60 plus and around six months back, when our family friend Mr Basu offered for participation in the Himalayan Trek of “Kashmir Great Lakes”, I did not take it seriously, at least initially. He was a seasoned trekker and participated in many trekking tours at different parts of Himalayas. Age creates physical disabilities. We became slow, our muscle and limbs do not function as it should be. My fear was I should not ... read more
Melting ice ridge nourishing the mountain river
Approaching the Pine Forest far away
Picturesque trek route following the mountain stream

Asia » India » Karnataka » Bangalore » Koramangala October 2nd 2020

This trip was planned to go back and stay with my dad and grandmother in Delhi.So I planned it for Gandhi Jayanti long weekend.It was raining for past few weeks and there was a doubt that it can play spoilsport for our plan since we were on a tight schedule. The first hurdle came when our luggage to be mounted on the carrier exceeded its capacity and we had to cover it with car body cover (bad decision!).Now the 2nd problem was that we have packet additional items which did not fit in our boot space.We had to discard a few bags at the very last moment before starting from home. As we sat in the car it started raining, but it was short lived and after a 5 min scare it subsided and we were ... read more
20201002_095033
20201004_111622
20201002_191710

Asia » India » Karnataka » Kolara August 3rd 2020

Markandeshwara hill temple, Vakkaleri village, Kolar, Karnataka This temple is dedicated to Lord Shiva and was built in Chola period. The temple links with the pre-historic Markanda purana. Markandeya is an ancient sage born in the clan of Bhrigu rishi. Mrikandu rishi and his wife Marudmati did not have any child for a long time. They worshipped Lord Shiva and sought from him the boon of begetting a son. Shiva was pleased with their penance and gave them the choice of either an exemplary gifted child who lives only for 16 years or a child of low intelligence who would live for 100 years. Marikandu rishi chose the former, and was blessed with Markandeya, an exemplary son, destined to die at the age of 16. Markandeya spent his childhood in the ... read more
IMG_20200614_121555
IMG_20200614_122135
IMG_20200614_122830

Asia » India » Karnataka » Coorg March 2nd 2020

River Cauvery – the Goddess who wished to provide her services to mankind forever! River Cauvery (or Kaveri) originates in the Brahmagiri hills near Bhagamandala in the Coorg district. A small pond where she first bubbles up is worshiped and devotees can take a dip at the source pond there. The idol of sage Agastya is also present in the temple, along with Lord Ganesha. What is the story behind Goddess Cauvery and Agastya muni? Here is the history… There was once a King called Kavera who prayed to Lord Brahma for a child. Brahma was pleased with his prayers and a daughter Lopamudra was born to Kavera. Lopamudra always craved to serve the humanity since a child. After a few years, sage Agastya saw Lopamudra and asked her if she could marry him. She agreed ... read more
IMG_20191226_144654

Asia » India » Karnataka » Bangalore March 2nd 2020

Bull Temple, BasavangudiHundred of years ago, Sunkenahalli (as Basavangudi was known then) was a fertile farmland dedicated to the cultivation of groundnut crops. But a wild bull began to devour and destroy the crops. This infuriated the farmers and in an attempt to drive away the bull, one of the farmers hit it with a club. The bull sat down, became motionless and turned to stone. The stone then began to grow in size and the worried farmers turned to Lord Shiva for help. A trident (which you can see in the picture) was placed on the bull's forehead to prevent it from growing further and a small temple was built around it. Later, Kempa Gowda, the founder of Bangalore, constructed a much bigger temple in Dravidian style ... read more
img-3676_orig

Asia » India » Karnataka » Hampi February 18th 2020

Note: If reading the blog on your desktop, this website would give a better view/fonts https://nishayogitraveller.weebly.com/heritage-travel-blogs/category/hampi ............................... All I knew for several years about my country’s history was Mughals and British, as that is what our education system wanted to teach us. But after I started reading about the true history of our country to explain to my kids, I started realizing that our country has SO much to be proud of! We have stories of 10,000+ years being said in our Puranas but – and these are not just mere stories, but actual events that happened in this very country! I have been traveling the last 3 years to just heritage sites and can feel the aura of these places – one such gorgeous place is the pride of a... read more

Asia » India » Karnataka » Bangalore January 24th 2020

This amazingly beautiful 9th century Shiva temple located at the foothills of Nandi hills, 60km from Bangalore city, Karnataka. This incredible Dravidian style temple was built by the Nolanda dynasty and later taken over by the Ganga, Chola, Hoysala, Vijayanagar, Mysore dynasties and finally by the British. The temple now comes under the management of the Archaeological Survey of India and is open for all. The temple has two main shrines for the Arunachaleswara and Bhoga Nandeeshwara. There is another small shrine dedicated to Uma-Maheshwara. Each of the pillars and walls of the templ... read more
The temple tank
1565853913317
1565853999949

Asia » India » Karnataka » Bangalore January 4th 2020

The last trip of 2019 was to Chikmagalur, also known as the ‘Coffee Land’ of Karnataka. Though travelling to Chikmagalur was not by choice but by chance. While planning for Gokarna and then Varkala, finally ended up with Chikmagalur as because train tickets were not available for those places. More over it was a peak time for Bangalore folks. Bus tickets to Chikmangalur were available at a very reasonable price ?. However, since it is only 243.2km from Bangalore, one can easily drive to this place. (Direction: https://goo.gl/maps/CH1YTj2Cbr1PsY6i7). Accordingly, on 26th Dec 2019, we a group of 7 members boarded bus to Chikmaglur from Mesjestic at around 10:45pm. Tickets approx.. 500 INR per person on a Sleeper coach. We reached Chikmagalur at around 4am. We booked a homestay named ‘Chikmane Homestay’ about 3km away from th ... read more




Tot: 0.196s; Tpl: 0.006s; cc: 12; qc: 82; dbt: 0.0778s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.4mb