I have been staying in Bangalore for quite some time but the Hampi trip was always on lower priority. So pretty much decided to make a spur of the moment plan to visit Hampi on the last weekend of the school summer vacation.
30-May-20147:00 AM Left out home, decided to take the NICE road to Tumkur road.
8:10 AM Exited NICE road, joined Tumkur road.
9:20 AM Reached Kamar Upachar at Dobaspete.
9:50 AM Crossed Tumkur town
10:15 AM Byepassed Sira town
10:40 AM Byepassed Hiriyur town
11:01 AM Got into Chitradurga and took the Mangalore to Solapur road that takes directly up to Hospet. The road up to Chitradurga is fantastic four lane road. From Chitradurga onwards, the road is just two lane road without divider with heavy truck traffic. The road surface is good after Chitradurga with occasional pothole but you can't make same speed that you were making before.
12:30 PM Crossed Kudiligi
2:00 PM Reached Royal Orchid hotel in Hospet. Here is my review of the hotel. We take an hours rest, do lunch and then decide to go visit Hampi. It is a very large site and since we had less time, we decided to hire the services of a guide. The guide was Mounesh (Mobile: +919449573416). He was very good and had good knowledge of the area. We were happy with his services.
3:50 PM We leave for Hampi, reach Hampi at 4:10 PM. The first place to visit is the Virupaksha Temple Complex. Here is the photosphere of the Virupaksha Temple.
Here are some more pictures of the temple.
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| Main gate of the temple |
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| Carvings |
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| Carvings |
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| Carvings on the roof |
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| Another view to the temple |
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| View to the River |
Here is a stone bridge that got washed away due to floods. I think it can give Stonehenge a run for the money. The problem is that these sites are not property advertised.
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| Remains of stone bridge |
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| Stone Bridge |
From the river, one can see the view to the Hanuman temple and many other temples. Here is another carving within the rock of many Shivlings.
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| Shivlings |
By the time we were done with the coracle ride, it was too late. Everything was closed. So we decided to head back to the hotel.
7:30 PM Left from Hampi back to hotel,
8:15 PM Reached hotel. Quick dinner.
01-June-2014
We had planned to reaching Hampi early because we wanted to see the Sunrise.
5:30 AM Got ready and left for Hampi.
6:00 AM We reached Malyavanta Raghunath Temple. This place seems to be full of Lord Ram's history. Here is an interesting map that was affixed atop a hill.
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| Map depicting places that Lord Ram visited |
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| Legend from the above map. |
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| Access to the top of the hill |
Next we started for Vitthala Temple. Just outside the Vitthala Temple there was a shack. We had our breakfast there. This temple complex is huge and they run battery powered golf cart kind of vehicles to reach the buildings. Here is a photosphere of the temple.
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| Horse traders from different countries, you can see from their attire |
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| Lonely tree in Temple Complex |
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| Miniature temple on the walls of temple |
The next stop was the Queens palace.
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| Base of the queen's palace. The palace itself was burnt down |
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| Signage saying Zanana (Ladies) Enclosure, |
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| Queen's Bath |
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| Large narsimha statue that was damaged |
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| Shivling, a portion always remains under water |
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| Ganesha from the front and parvati from the back |
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| Ganesha from the front and parvati from the back |
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| Ganesha from the front and parvati from the back |
This concluded our sightseeing in Hampi. We realized that one day is too small a time for this place and one needs to visit this place for atleast 3-5 days to do justice to this place.
We go back to hotel, have a quick lunch and depart back to Bangalore.
2:30 PM Start back for Bangalore.
3:45 PM Cross Kudiligi
5:00 PM Reach Chitradurga and join NH-4.
5:30 PM We cross Hiriyur
6:00 PM Cross Sira, just after Sira, we stop at Kamat Upachar for a quick tea and some snacks.
7:00 PM We cross Tumkur
8:00 PM We get on to NICE road.
8:35 PM We reach electronic city.
