Raichur, Koodolasangama, Gadwal, Badami,Aihole,Pattadakallu,Mahakoota,Banashankari,Ilakal,Mantralaya....

I know its a real big list.. Though these places are not the part of my "To see places"(which is getting bigger day by day"... :D

Thursday night 8.30 was the bus.. I had board the bus from that never seen that part of the KSRTC bus stand.... Finally i managed to figure out where is Platform No.28 with help of lot of by passers and conductors... As usual one of my dear friend had to come rushing to the bus to catch the bus... :P We started the journey... chai and achala had packed the dinner... So happily ate it and tried to sleep.... 6 AM we reached Raichur... and went and checked into a hotel Nrupatunga.... My legs were swollen bcoz of the travel.... So we all rested for sometime and we had to go for bfast at achala's.. We went to her place where delicious food was waiting for us.... We hogged and thought we will go to Gadwal first... Since we had one bride(Rajashri) with us we all went shopping... Gadwal is a very small town where in there is nothing else than saree shops..

On our way we were did see one herd of sheep... I was asking achala how much might one sheep cost.. she said it might cost till 25K.. :D So i happily told her never in lief i would hve seen crores of rupees walking on road so safe... :P

Went to a place called sridevi saree shop, aunty(achal's mom) new the place... We were there looking at all range of sarees.... Such beautiful ones.. we all went crazy looking at all of it.. Finally did manege to choose a lot of them.. I alone bought 8 sarees.. :P I know... but real beautiful ones.. We did go and visited a place where they weave the sarees(Magga)....
On our way back and forth we did get to see a lot of rice mills.. Aunty told us there are more than 300 rice mills in that place and people are rich bcoz of mills.. ;)

Came back to raichur after all the shopping.....That day was nothing much came back and slept... Since we knew next day would take our breath out.. Our day was suppose to start at 4AM... :P

Next day woke up early and got ready, waiting for achala to come along with the cab.. But some problem with the cab she came by 5 AM finally.. We all had got ready and had already a nap and woke up... ;) We finally started.. today the driver we had to travel with was Mr.Siddu.... I have loads to write on this guy too.. :P will write when and where required.. :P

It was 7.30 and we were hungry stopped over for a bfast in a small town.. We went to a hotel which looked a little ok... we had nice bfast... infact chowchowbath was excellent... :)
We started our plan was to cover bijapur too.. Since we were running short of time, we had to cut short out plan but we thought we can include Alamatti dam along too.... We started out journey first was koodalasangama... Thats a divine place for me... Place was awesome, the temple is built inside water.. We need to walk on small bridge and that would head us to one set of stairs some 50 steps down and there is the temple of shiva... Very beautiful place... and another set of stairs to climb up.. Architechture of it is soo beautifully done, it is surrounded by stairs and it has 2 stairs for entry and exit, but when u look down you feel its the same set of stairs... :)

We were done with that and started from there towards badami,.... On our way.. we went to Alamatti dam and backwaters of krishna river .. Dam is not open for public to see.. so we went to the backwaters.. it was beautiful sight.. water was cold and we spent sometime enjoying the scenic beauty and water ofcourse...

Then our route was towards Pattadakallu..Pattadakallu is a place ruled by Chalukya with a complex of temples built in Dravidian and Nagara styles and even mixture of two.... Then we headed to Mahakoota...It is one more dravidian style of temples where a natural mountain spring flows within the temple complex and feeds fresh water into a large tank called the Vishnu Pushkarni which is called paapavinasha Thirtha.... There was one big pool inside.... Next was Aihole...


Aihole is There are more than 100 of temples scattered in the village. All have exquisite, intricate carvings. Aihole stands on the banks of the river Malaprabha..... One set of temples there too... more number of ruins.. remebered all the ruins we saw in hampi....We headed towards Banashankari temple... Devi there is really beautiful there... And headed towards Badami.....

After seeing the Elephanta Caves seeing badami was one dream too.... On our way Mr.Siddu the driver started Overspeeding and he did lose one of the mirrors on the side... we just missed one accident(thank god)... then we asked him to slow down and no hurry......

On our way everywhere we saw loads and loads of ganapathi's.. People singing, dancing, playing holi and spilling the color all over, bursting crackers taking the ganapathi's for visarjan.... We saw one and someone told, u should atleast see three... Trust me i think we saw more than 30 the same day... :)

Reaching Badami, i got down from the cab and wooooooow... It was all big rocky mountains, just rocks and RED in colour... Beautiful it was... We bought in the tickets and couldn't wait to see each one of it... Inspite of all big boulders and rocks.. the place is well maintained and beautiful..... There were 5 caves there.. Enetered the first cave looked more or less the same kind of carvings as seen in elephanta...But here work was more intricate than elephanta... Beautiful carvings... and pleasent to see it... each cave lie few more steps above the present one.... We enjoyed seeing all the 5 caves and we were tired infact by the time we were done...

There was one awesome view from the top most cave which had one lake on the other end of lake was one beautiful temple... We wanted to go there too.. We rushed there... We had to walk a little while to reach it.. Past us was one nice river bank... Loads of dhobhi's and ofcourse lush of green as well as nice red rocks on the other end... It was simply superb...

That temple was quite isolated.. not many people were around.. But beautiful one.. The river bank looked lovely from the other side... here near the temple it was a stinker... :P the green which pleased us from the other end was just molasses.. :P But still the river looked calm and nice... We did a few photo sessions there..... and left from there..

Now we were around 300 kms away from raichur.. The challenge was to reach there before midnight.. On our way lyed Ilakal.. It would have been a crime if we let go this oppurtunity.....:D We went there and didnt waste much time and we started towards Raichur..

On our way, it was around 8.30 one of the tyre was flat... In a real hurry, all of us helped siddhu to change the tyres and now tension was built bcoz it was late and all girls troop.. :P
Now is the turn to explain Mr. Siddhu, who almost killed us a couple of times by his overspeeding and his dumb attitude... Had never seen anyone who would drive like mad ever... :P He speeded a lot and suddenly started riding the cab on the right side of the road.. Probably he wanted us to get scared and all that... Alas.. He never knew he was with US.... Somehow we managed the situation and we reached Raichur finally at 12... :)

Next day we didnt even wanted to get out of the bed.. with lot of difficulty we crawled out of bed and got ready... We went to Aunty's school.. We did see the school and saw the ganesha there... :) We did see Raichur in day light.... And again loads of ganesha's on the way...We did see a lot of temples, The Tank bund.. It was superb...

It was 2 and we were suppose to leave to mantralaya... We went there by train.. reached there took a hotel room and dumped all our luggages and headed towards the temple... We were just lucky to get there in time, not many people that day.. Temple was quite empty when compared of anyother day of the year... After darshan we went near the river bank... Sat there for sometime, seeing few people doing the ganesha visarjan in the middle of the river using Choracles...Then we did see few girls who were applying mehendi... I did get one nice idea.. why don't we get tattooed that way.. :) All of us got one stamp each on our arms.. and was real fun.... It was real fun day.. we head back and started to Bangalore...
Journey back wasnt fun at all.. One very young couple got into the bus with their 9th month old kid, which was severly ill... They said there is no primary healthcare avaiable in a place like matralaya.. they were rushing towards the next town which was 45 away... We all prayed that the kid survives..... We slept with the same thought on mind....
Reached bangalore at 4.30 AM and a big jam in the bus stop.. we walked back to the BMTC and there the buses were yet to start but the bus stop was more crowded than the peak hour... :)
Finally came home with lots of memories ... :) This is one tiring but real nice trip...