A Day trip to BAPS, Atlanta

I Visited BAPS Atlanta over the weekend. The temple is known to be the largest hindu temple outside of india. I was taken aback by the sheer scale of it, and the beautiful work of creating, and then maintaining this place.

Traveling through the busiest airport in the world- Few Tips

I moved to US, and settled in Alpharetta. Alpharetta is a city around 30-40 miles from downtown Atlanta. Thats my primary & major Place of reference, and its airport, my travel hub. I travel a lot, so obviously I have to use the airport a lot and this means going through a lot.

You may already be aware, and if not, let me tell you. Atlanta is the busiest airport in the world. 

While that is awesome to know and feel when you frequent that place, it can be a major hassle in itself. Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport has 6 concourses in itself, and requires you to take some time when catching a flight, and more some when in a hurry. Over a period of time, i have surely gotten better at using the airport for faster ingress/egress.

Photographers paradise: Belur- Temples which speak -Part 2

I am hoping if you getting directly to this page, you may want to check on the part 1 of the photo series here. 

Here are some additional photos from the trip as part two. The intricate detail work is not just on the outside walls of the temples, but it follows and gets even more detailed towards the inside. The interiors of these temples must be at least 15 degree cooler than the outside if not more.  A shot i took of the interior of the main temple at Belur.

Photographers paradise: Belur- Temples which speak -Part 1

During June this year 2014, we took a family trip to Belur and Halebedu Temples. While the Belur and halebedu temples are not too far from Bangalore, these have not been covered by us earlier. For some reason or the other they keep getting delayed.

One of the prime reason has been that i have also envisioned to take 2-3 days off, and then make a good long trip of this whole belt covering Hassan, Belur, Halebedu, Shravanbela Gola, Shringeri, hornadu and then chikmaglur and its tea estates. Somethings take time and while I have always wanted to do it, Hasnt happened yet.

This trip was unique since my mom was visiting us and this would be an opportunity to show her these places too. The travel To Belur and halebedu temples was actually quite good. the roads on Hassan side are excellent and not much of traffic as you leave bangalore. No complaints there. We had a comfortable & luxury hotel booking already done, so that part was taken care too.

Visiting temples was an experience which was surreal. I didnt give the title to this post just to say something fancy. The title shares my emotions and how i felt about these temples. 

From outside, the temples are in middle of a village and you can really fathom if such a place is going to show up. though if you are like me and a traveller to parts of india, then this wont be a surprise either. Especially down south this is very common where a temple is surrounded by a village, and small shops. in-fact in most cases, the incoming visitors and travellers start driving livelihood of lot of these villages. 

At the belur temple, we spent an easy afternoon of 3 hours and took it easy. There was so much to soak in here. 

I would strongly recommend everyone to take the guides there. The guides which i have seen there are govt. officials and they have good insight into the history and current researching and finding work being carried out by the govt. which makes it very interesting to hear from them.

Secondly, there are so many minute details, which you cant see by yourself. When they point out those to you, that is when first you are shocked & then surprised and finally can only appreciate the artists work, creative & effort.

Another very interesting aspect of the carvings in stone is the creativity & imagination part. Lots of the characters are imaginary work of art too. 

Without too much talking, i will leave you to view next 3 photos from the Temple of belur. These are really the temples which speak to you. every bit of it, tells a tale if you have time to absorb & listen.