VIRGINIA CAVES

Wonderful virginia Caves! They say it is the music in rocks. 

 

 

VISITING AIHOLE, PATTADAKAL AND BADAMI IN KARNATAKA INDIA

My niece and her husband visited us in our country home during recent Easter holidays. I was planning to take them for an outing in the countryside but some one suggested me to take them for sight seeing trip to visit famous Aihole, Pattdakal and Badami.

These are early fourth to seventh century temples and four magnificent stone carved caves at Badami. These are spread over an area of about 30 Km. and about 60 Km from my place in north Karnataka. The monuments are well preserved under the care of ASI and Karntaka Tourism.  

We set out early after breakfast and reached Aihle at 11 AM. 

I.AIHOLE TEMPLES:

Sun Temple( Soorya Narayana Temple)

DurgTemple (Fort Temple)

Meguti Temple

and others with funny names and no deities.

There is a museum at Aihole comlex giving a brief about the area and well preserved monuments consisting of deities mostly.

II. PATTADAKAL:

   Important temples at Pattadakal are:

  1. Kasi Viswanatha Temple

  2. Mallikarjuna Temple

  3. Galaganatha Temple

  4. Virupaksha Temple

  5. Kadasiddeswara and Jambulinga temples

  6. Papanatha temple

  

III. MAHAKOOTA

    This place is sacred to Hindu Lingayats second most sacred place after Kasi or Varanasi.

There is pond where-in water constantly springs forth mainataining the same level. They say taking a dip in the pond is as holy as taking a dip in Kasi-Ganges.

IV. BADAMI:

   There are four stone cut caves on the hill by the side Badami town. From the caves one can see Bhootanatha Temple across the lake.

SCALING LOHAGAD FORT IN SAHYADRI RANGES

There are quite a few Forts built on the Sahyadri Ranges in the Western Ghats around Pune during medievial times. These were useful during the establishment of Maratha Empire. Lohagad Fort  is one of them. It is about 50Kms from Pune. Fort is situated at a height of 3400 feet. This Fort is relatively unspoiled and very magnificent one. It is also relatively more difficult ones to climb. I had the fortune of scaling this fort some time during 2003. That is the story I am going to tell you.

We were sitting in our Boss’s cabin after lunch to assess the day’s happenings and chalk out the strategy for important work and address any emergencies. A team of young colleagues entered the cabin and requested to make a presentation. They explained with map and photos the trekking event they had planned during the coming week for our group. I expressed my sincere best wishes for the event. Boss was smiling. He told that everyone would be going including two oldest persons in the Department me and one other senior colleague. We were in our fifties, I was about 57 Yrs old being the oldest in the group. Everyone was enthusiastic. We all agreed to go for trip. We did not want to dampen the spirit of adventure by these young colleagues.

It was August 15^th our national holiday, we decided to scale the fort. We gathered in our respective vehicles at Nigdi circle in the outskirts of Pune. We were twelve members in all. Then proceeded north in Pune-Mumbai highway. There is a train station Malavali about 40 Kms from pune , we parked our vehicles in the open space in front of Village Office.

We had tea in the nearby shanty restaurant before proceeding on our trekking expedition. It was raining heavily on that day. About 2Kms from Malavali, we came near a small village known as Bhaje. We had to tread small footpath amidst lush green paddy fields. It looked like earth was covered with a velvet carpet.

At this point our boys went towards a small waterfall. They enjoined going in front of the waterfall in the rain.

Now we turned towards Fort. After trekking grueling path for about two and a half hours we came to the foothills of the Fort.(The distance is about 7.5/8Kms) There are a few thatched huts and makeshift restaurants. Our boys had planned for getting fresh food prepared in the restaurant.

Now it was climbing the stairs and winding pathways uphill. 

Rain had stopped now. The clouds were moving around us.

Oh! What a magnificent view. Totally it had taken more than three and half hours including detour and halt on the way up. It was 1PM.

We were all hungry and tired. The boys made arrangement for food. We had carried fresh water.

We rested for some time before starting the return trip at around 3PM.

By the time we reached Malavali, it was 5-30PM.