Short trip to yelagiri

Well, this trip was planned in a jiffy and what a trip it was. I was reading about yelagiri for quite sometime and had even printed route map sometime ago and as it clicked, we just decided to hit it on a very short notice. The plan just came along and we were on our way early morning on the weekend.

Destination: Yelagiri, Tamil Nadu

Distance: 180 Kms approx from CV Raman Nagar

Route: Continue from Hosur road upto Krishnagiri. From krishnagiri, as you approach the second flyover, go below it and take the road which goes towards Vellore and further continues to Chennai.

Taking break: Through out the route, lot of outlets but if you plan to take early break, then Kamat yatri nivas and Anand Adiyar bhawarn are just at the outskirts of hosur and provide you ample space and locale to have a good time.

We started by 7 am in the morning and soon we were gliding our way over the express way towards electronic city and made our way out of Bangalore. Through the route to Yelagiri, there are three tolls hence keep some change aside for these breaks. if i remember correctly, the three tolls we paid were 25,30 and 20 Rs respectively, with we buying one way tickets only.

As per our plan, we broke for breakfast at Kamat upchaar which came a little too early. A beautifully maintained place with great parking, and lot of open space all around. you could just come in with loads of people and still have something for everyone. The food is steller here and everything you order, comes simmering hot to you. The weather was little cold hence hot Dosas, Vadas, Kesari baths and tea were just too good to resist. The place is neatly maintained and has lot of greenery around.

Reliance petrol pump dawns a huge presence with this kamat stopover and acts as a great refueling place.

Finally it was time to get going towards yelagiri. My 9 months daughter loved the food here and she enjoyed the greenary all around and lesser building. The cold wind was making her feel very happy about this, but as soon as we got started, to got back to business of sleeping.

The journey was nice and nothing new to detail here. Great highways with roads little busy from Krishnagiri with lot of truckers all around but still driving in way not to hamper anyone's way and we cruised through the road. The stretch has good roads and as Wifey and Daughter took a quick nap, time passed by fast.

Finally, as everyone got back, i had taken a right turn. Just a recap, while you take left turn from Krishnagiri to follow Vellore road, you dont have to take any diversions. cross through tirpattur town and soon you would come across a crossing where its clearly mentioned "yelagiri Hills" which is around 25 Kms from there. you wont be able to miss out on this crossing but in case you do, the locals are pretty helpful in finding you your way back. 

As we took that right turn, just before the ascent, we stopped for couple of minutes. My Daughter was awake and was jolly and she needed a change. we were now approx 25 Kms away from yelagiri Hills. The drive to yelagiri, especially the ascent has some 14 Hairpin bends which are known to be quite scenic. we were just gearing for the same.

 I have to accept that the hairping bends didnt excit me much, neither the height gained since this was sort of a regular ascent as you see enroute to Nandi hills though the apparent difference was the crowd. During the ascent we just met  couple of people only and the roads were just squeaky clean. the air was much cooler and cleaner and the stretches were extremely green and this was so relaxing.

The labeling of roads throughout was great and the hairpin bends looked quite nice. Learnt that tamil nadu govt has been pushing yelagiri for sometime now as a tourist destination and hence has maintained the access roads very well.

Came across a beautiful crop of flowers as soon as we entered yelagiri. I had made booking at the "Zeenath Taj Garden Resort" and we had to spend sometime searching for it. We almost reached the other extreme end searching for the same and later realized that this place was just in the very begining of Yelgairi. The town is extremely small but surprisingly has huge number of lodges all around. I was surprised seeing this since there are no major attractions here but for weather.
Finally looking for our resort, with help of locals we located the place and made way towards it. The initial impression was great. It appeared like an enligsh bunglow, as you see in Simla. This private property has a gate welcoming you and then road made of Stones taking you to it deep pathway to reception. The greenary has been made the DNA of this place and extreme variety of vegetation has  been used everywhere. you would be stunned to see such  a property here.

inside the property, there are cottages placed at little distance from each other and the landscaping around them has been done very tastefully. There are ducks which run around the resort and add natural beauty to it. My Daughter was just ecstatic seeing these ducks around.

We finally we got our cottage and voila! it looked beautiful. we got three options and finally i made a choice of this one where i could park my car just next to it. Where do you get to a place where you could get your vehicle just next to your room. At the back of the cottage was a huge stretch of jungle type area. The weather was beautiful and it was drizzling by now.

After we put our stuff in the cottage, it was time to plan for lunch and we were told by "setu" the care taker of the property that the food should be served by 1:30 which was a good hour away. We took walk through the resort and enjoyed the beauty meanwhile.

The Landscaping and the maintenance of this whole resort did put me into surprised state since after looking through the small town of yelagiri, this was definitely much more than one can expect.

The food was ready exactly at 1:30 and this was the next element of surprise. The food was just sumptuous and quite a variety. we took a walk after lunch and explored the place.

Since my daughter was sleepy, we decided to stay back and let her complete her sleep. meanwhile we enjoyed the greenery around.

 

In the evening, while my daughter got up, we went to the city and had a good time at the lake. we had to give the silk raring centre a miss since it closed by 5 pm. later in the evening we went to the nature park, which was nice but nothing special. after moving around we can back to the resort ay 8pm. 

The dinner was served at 8:30 with again a huge variety being served absolutely piping hot.By now, we were too impressed and planned that we would visit this place again. the hospitality of the staff was great. The plan was to start early morning next day so that the important stuff doesnt get hampered next day, but we were too tempted to make changes in the plan.

 With the promise to return back soon, we started back next day morning at 6:30 am and reached back Blr by 10:30 am.

Russell market, a photo story

Russell Market, an aged but still going strong vegetable market, is located near the prominent and much talked about Commercial Street of Bangalore. An early morning visit to this market, unraveled the chaos or the business as usual routines, showing different colors of life. The sheer way people manage to live through ages at these places and with such efficiency these humungous logistics move, is a beauty in itself.

Bhoganandishwara Temple, Nandi Hills, Bangalore

This Saturday morning, we packed up some stuff and headed out for Bhoganandishwara temple. The temple is located in the foothills of a famous tourist destination "Nandi Hills" at the outskirts of bangalore City. As you passover the bangalore international airport and stretch over devanhalli, this temple lies in the serene and calm surrounding of Nandi village.

 Starting early was a good option and also exciting was the fact that our 3.5 months old daughter was to make her first outing with us this day. Hence we were stacked with anxiety and also thrilled about the same. We could only start by  7:30 am, due to all household chores and managed to reached the temple by 9 am. From the main road, once you take left for Nandi hills, you need to continue on the same road, till you reach a T-junction where lot of small hotels and shops are located. It should not be a problem identifying this T-junction since thats the only one in the whole area. If you take left from here, you would head towards Nandi Hills but for the bhoganandishwara temple you have to take right. The temple is approx 5-6 kms from here.The roads are great and luckily the weather was great on this day as well. It had been raining and have been overcast in bangalore for almost 2 weeks now, and i was almost sure of getting some washed out photos, but the sunny morning gave great hopes.

(Name etched in stone at the entrance)

(lush Lawn outside)

  The temple entrance is a huge gate which gave us initial glimpse of the huge lawn area to both the side. The walls corroded, with lush grass on one side with beautifully maintained ferns at the corners. This looks like an ideal setting for shooting a documentary. Lot of maintenance work seems to be happening here, which is encouraging enough. We move in taking shots around and reading about the place. At the entrance of the temple, there was a beautiful set of huge circular stone wheels on one side and a cart of wood being prepared on the others. There are ample trees though the campus and the wind was blowing past the leaves making beautiful sound. We could hear the birds chirping and amazingly, your hearing abilities start to catch these sweet sounds, whenever you break your city life routine and come out to a countryside like this. We were already feeling very relaxed and the environment was adding to it.

 (Serene Place)

 Though the time was not very early for a saturday morning, there were no visitors here. We were the first ones to enter the temple. A security gaurd greeted us on the main gate and asked us to do the darshanas. Buying the tickets, we took some photos and then finished darshans of lord shiva and other deities of the temple.

(Beautiful carvings on the wall)

      The first impression was of a very beautiful, extremely clean temple which is a marvel in the history books. Bhoginandishwara temple stands tall for more than 1000 years now and has amazingly rich cultural connect. You can read lot more stuff about this temple online or the priests should be able to give you insight. We thoroughly enjoyed small conversations with them. Built in dravidian style, it has a set of mantapas, with each having history tied to them. The most famous being the "Vasantha Mantapa", which if is to be believed, is where Shiva and parvathi got married.

(Main Mantap in the inner sanctum)

The sanctum of the temple which is exactly in the middle, comes from the chola dynasty and is more than 1000 years old. The gopuras, as you would notice were built by the vijayanagara empire. The most interesting part was the maintenance of the place, the silence around and the carvings in the stones. The combination of these three factors was just intoxicating. We moved around and then came across an opening through which we entered into the pond area. this is a huge pond with three entrances and chautaris on all its side. The view was beautiful here and we spent sometime here.

(Gopuram)

(The famous pond)

 Finally, we came out, spent some moments in the outside lawn and then started back to bangalore. Here are some facts/details about this trip and leaving you with some photos. Do share your experiences if you have been here or do write to me if you need more details on visiting this place. An exciting day all in all.
Distance: From Tippasandra, bangalore to Temple-Up & Down:125 Kms
Road Condition: great Roads through out the journey.
Direction: Catch the nandi hills route, from the T-junction take right and 5-6 kms thereafter is the temple.

1. No videography or stand photography(using tripods/monopads) is allowed.
2. If starting early you should club visit to this temple with nandi hills trip.
3. In case you stop in the village, the kids/some people are in habit of chasing you and asking for some money. I personally don't think they should be entertained since this just sets a very wrong trend for others as well.

Pottery Town revisited

This Saturday was the day when i had to go out. Few of my friends, and especially om had dropped by couple of times in less than a months time to check if i had stopped writing for any reasons. Essentially, i was busy in hand-over from my old job to new one and a little tight schedule spending time with my daughter, hence i was not shooting much or traveling.

 Cutting the chase, had been wanting to visit Pottery town for sometime now. The beauty of this place is the chance to experiment and amazing number of combinations of those clay figures, let you never run of of options.  You can keep coming back to this place and find nothing but the same old earthen clay pots, cups and various other items and yet go back with different perspectives in your shots, everytime.

 

I just wanted to get some time off my routine life and spend on some creative stuff, and this was it. the weather was cloudy and typical June morning with drizzling cloudy cold environment, which makes driving down to any part a heavenly experience. we cruised through to Pottery town, which is just near the Cox town and spent sometime clicking through. we also went to the house of a potter and spent some quality clicks capturing the majestic phenomenon of making clay items on their electric wheel. Leaving you with some shots from the morning. 

Do share your experiences, if you ahve been there!! it might be that you plan to visit it or you have been an avid visitor and a fan of this place, do share how have you felt about it.

Brick Kiln-'Bhattha'-a round up of where bricks are made

This trip how was special. I became a father and oodles of work at home kept me all occupied. On one side, when it was joy of welcoming our daughter in our family, a long list of relatives and family friends coming over kept us all busy. On the last day of my stay at home, i could not resist going out for a while to unwind and probably take some photos. Dad and myself buckled up and moved towards a clicking destination. People who are from Nabha or near by, would Know a village called "Thuhi" and we took the Thuhi Road. The road was beautiful lit with the trees covering all parts of it and even during the afternoon, it looked like early morning.

Soon, we sighted a "Bhattha", nothing but a Brick kiln on the sidelines of the road. A quick glimpse confirmed that dad & i were in agreement to shoot at this place. We pulled over to this place. The place looked absolutely deserted rite now with not much activity. Miles and miles of land all around with yellow Sarson sowed and coming out. In the middle, this brick kiln, standing tall with no populace.

The first glimpses made me feel as if the place has been rendered useless, though it took just a min for "Ramesh", a skinny lad to appear out of his cemented room built on one corner. He was partially surprised and partially confused for what were we doing there. As we made our intentions clear, photographing this area didn't excite him further and he wanted to speak to the owner and also wanted us to get permission before we clicked there. In another ten mins we were on our way, taking a guided tour from Ramesh of how this process of making bricks works and how this huge place is managed.

This place was looking like so, since it was still few months away from when the huge dianasour-like monument breathes fire. Ramesh told that this place is just in process of getting ready and in another 4 months, it would be ready to setup all bricks and start to bake them. All the mud and the open area would be actually well padded with soft clay and then bricks would be layered down there. the walls which are visible are actually going to act as an insulator and stages of keeping the temperature maintained.

To actually understand how this works, the analogy i can think off is of a grid or a matrix. all the rows and columns of the matrix are actually created first. they all are padded with soft clay and this takes few months to complete. This process starts from the middle and then carries on towards outside. the insulated walls are then closed and clay bricks are started to put on. The labor then closes them with sand on the top as a layer.

As this process finishes in 6 months time, the fire is lit in. There are few, around 6 small gates towards the outer ends, which help in suck little air and the chimney, is which actually builds the temperature. the insulators(outer walls), not only help in maintaining the temperature but also doesn't let the fire to spread outside and hence equal temperature makes those red bricks.

It was great talking to labor there who work on daily wages. One set of labors tend to keep spreading the sand layer on the top whereas, i saw one team was working on the outer insulator wall. The first layer around the chimney was in place and the team of jhujar singh was laying sand on those. if you notice the patterns in the bricks here, the set of three bricks each tells you that there is a opening there. after the sand is all layered, the top brick is lifted up which gives you opening to the matrix below and they fill up coal in these openings and maintain temperature through out the bhatti.