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Having missed a planned trip to Hampi last year, I was keen to get there this winter.
I wanted to explore, laze, chill, just stay by the river, get up the boulders, just watch the world pass by and mutely watch the sun rising up the hills majestically and then make his way down the opposing hills in the late hours of the day. No tours, no sightseeing, no hopping from place to place, but just be.
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I jumped in, when opportunity came by to do just that. And while I was there, made a plan to stretch a little further to Badami, Aihole and Pattadakal. And then while I was at these three places, managed to spend a quality half day at charming and calming Mahakoota – a quiet temple village.
River, boulders, evening sun, remains of the past and an idyllic today
We started on a Friday night on a ksrtc bus. Time and again I have said in this blog that journeys are something I enjoy the least about travel. Add to it the fact that I don’t manage to get much sleep in a moving vehicle, be it a bus, train or even airplane, doesn’t help much. We talked for a while and then made an attempt to sleep. The ‘attempt to sleep’ continued till early hours in the morning, until we were pretty close to Hospet. And then we suddenly found ourselves stuck in a traffic jam along with a huge pile of mining trucks. Early hours is when I somehow managed a bit of slumber, and besides that, all that traffic jam must have made me feel at home – just like Bangalore, it was! And just when I fell asleep, we were at Hospet and it was time to get down. If only the jam had lasted longer! Add to the sleepless night, my friend insisted that I slept well through the night, despite my saying otherwise. So lucky that I am, I have with me people who can do everything for me, and even decide for me if I have managed to catch shut-eye! That relieves from pondering the entire next day if I had managed to sleep well at all! And just in case someone I meet in the morning asks customarily if I had slept well the previous night, I can just point them to check with my friend – another job escaped from!
But this journey was much better than the one I made previously, on my way to Thadiyandamol. We had two front seats for this journey, just behind the roaring engine, and across the aisle to us sat the bus conductor. This conductor guy would interrupt our chatter once in a while asking us to be quiet, starting politely when he said that the first time, and his face making expressions of otherwise inexpressible pain during further interruptions, supported by a tone that kept getting more impolite each time. He had a point indeed about incessant chatter in the middle of the night, but what puzzled me is how he zeroed in on our 10 decibel blabber while being blissfully unaware of the 100dB holler from the ancient engine. My guess – his ears would have developed sophisticated filters over years of bus journeys, while at the same time developing extreme sensitivity to the slightest sound in 5 mile radius around him. I did hope that Philips or Sony get to hear about these ultra-advanced noise filters he has, and buy his ears for a big price for further research. The good thing – if they convinced him to sell of his ears – is that it would then help people in 5 mile radius around him to have their conversation undisturbed. Even better, he can give up his job with his new fortune and start travelling in the passenger seats, without feeling duty bound to bother anyone any more!
Digressions apart, we reached Hampi around 7.30am and checked into an exorbitantly priced guesthouse. Exorbitantly priced guesthouse because every place that did not charge exhorbitantly was already taken up by people who came before us. May be next time when I am here, I should consider arriving before the people who came before us. Then on, with all the logistics problems addressed, it was four pleasant and unhurried days spent in Hampi, oblivious to rest of the world, and oblivious to the dates, days and hours.
Continued at The Days in Hampi
It was an unplanned trip. We decided on a Friday evening about it over a short phone call, and early next morning we were on our way. That simple.
Wild grass in morning sun
We started before dawn and hit NH7 out of Bangalore. After a brief photo-stop just out of Bangalore, we were cruising through the open roads for next two hours. It was a pleasant drive all the way(bad roads, I will not talk about!) and we kept driving without realizing that we missed the left turn from the highway to Lepakshi. All for good it must be, as we ended up driving through many pretty waterbodies and stopped at a place or two to make pictures. A few photo-stops and another breakfast stop later, we were at Lepakshi as late as 11am. Or may be much later.
We lost our way, and stopped at some pretty lakes..
Sun was high up and showing off himself a lot when we reached Lepakshi. Instead of getting into the temple, we decided to rest for a while and drove on until we found a nice shaded place – a tamarind grove. We whiled away some time there, and returned at lunchtime for some food. With little else to do after food, we entered the temple and immediately signed up with Virupanna, a guide. He said – ‘give me whatever money you please’ – a business deal I hate immensely. He did not budge when we asked for a quote and eventually hired him anyway.
Outer wall of the temple
temple entrance
It turned out Virupanna was good. He had a good voice, a confident and pleasant way of narrating things, and he knew the place well.
A few minutes of wandering around the temple, and I fell in love with the place. The temple has a nonchalant air to it. It doesn’t go by the rigid rules with which temples are often constructed, but more like – its architects decided to do a fair deal of experimenting and redesigned things on the go. Unusual as it seems, the moment you enter from the main door, you hit a wall, and need to take a right turn to enter another door to get to the temple interior. Our guide said that some of the sculptures were carved by the workers with the only purpose of whiling away time. Thats very likely, as a few structures looked very out-of-place from rest of the temple complex. There are some boulders within the temple complex that are left as is, and part of the floor of the temple complex is left unleveled. These out-of-place structures and natural elements immensely add to the charm of the place. What I loved the most is an incomplete Shiva-Parvati Kalyana Mantapa that stood out beautifully with its pillars standing out to the sky with no roof on their top.
Our guide Virupanna explaining us..
This, Virupanna says, was built as the sculptors were waiting for their lunch to be served!
There was much more. I was gawking at the frescoes(something that I am fond of) at the outer wall, and Virupanna said – “come inside, I will show you more of them”. The inside roof of the temple had many well-preserved frescoes on the roof, and Virupanna had a story to tell about each of them. Much can be said about the carvings on the wall, frescoes and other elements that make up the temple, but they would sound no more than boring descriptions until one sees the place. I will leave it at it.
Frescoes on the inner roof
The temple was built during the reign of Vijayanagar kings by a local chieftain named Virupanna. Not surprisingly, part of the structure looks so much similar to Hampi. The outer walls, pillars and the Mantapas seem to have drawn influence from Hampi’s Vithala temple.
After the guided tour, we settled down in a corner of the temple till evening, made another trip around the temple in the evening hours, and headed back to the town around 5.30pm. Lepakshi is yet another place where I would like to return again some day to spend more time.
Information
Lepakshi is around 140km from Bangalore. Take Bangalore – Hyderabad highway and drive till Andhra border. Just at the border, you need to turn left at a village called Kondikonda and drive for another 14kms. The left turn is easy to miss, so look for it carefully.
There is no accommodation available at Lepakshi, so it is best done as a day-trip from Bangalore. There isn’t much option for food too, and you will have to settle for a couple of small restaurants.
Besides the temple, there is a monolith Nandi statue just outside the village, which is said to be largest Nandi statue in the country.
Wishing a very happy new year for all the readers of India Travel Blog.
Calendar for January – one for the new year – is wild grass soaked in a new dawn.
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