Madhurai and Srivilliputhur

                        On 20th of Feb, we both started at 6 in the morning for sanctifying ourselves by the visit of the temple in Madhurai.We had a short break in the middle for breakfast and then proceeded towards our destination without any break again. We reached there by 12.30 and relaxed ourselves for some time in the hotel. Most of the temples in Tamilnadu generally have an afternoon break and will be reopened in the evening time. So at 4PM, we went to temple and it took us around 2 hours to cover the entire temple. The temple is really gigantic and one feels proud to be a part of the country that has got such great architectural skills. The idol of Goddess Meenakshi is seen in dim lighting but we felt lucky to have a peaceful darshan for a considerable time. Even the darshan of Shiva linga, God Sundareshwar, was excellent and heart-filling. The temple has got five entry gates,one in each direction and the 5th being the simhadwara on the east side. One can enter the temple from any side of the above. The beauty of the temple is far out of reach of the camera lens. One has to just drink its glory with eyes. After finishing the mandir visit, we went to the Tirumala nayak Palace. The beauty of the palace can be seen only in the sound and light show organized every evening there in the palace. In that show, the complete story of the king Tirumala nayak is described in a film without picture(only sound and lights). We returned to our hotel with great glimpses to be remembered for ever

                                                                             
                                               The next day too, we started at 6 in the morning to give a visit to the temple in Srivilliputhur. The temple complex here is again very big where one has to get the darshan of Vatapatra sayi and Andal Amman. Here we had the darshan of Lord Vishnu in the middle of the sudardshan Chakra and Lord Yoga Narasimha one on each side of the same idol. The Kova here is very famous so we purchased  that and headed towards Bangalore with a lunch break at Adayar Anand Bhavan on the way. We were back at home by 4.30 in the evening with a long day remaining to relax ourselves after a long drive to a great place.
                               Over all, the roads to reach these places were simply superb and an average driver can go ahead at a constant speed of 120 on the entire stretch.

Great destinations in Bangalore

                 Last week end(12th and 13th Feb), we had visited some interesting places within Bangalore. Our first destination was Dodda Ganapthi followed by Dodda Basavanna. After having great lunch served at MTR,Lalbaugh, we relaxed for some time in the Lal Baugh garden. Then we proceeded to the samadhi of Sri Narayan Maharaj(Who is believed to be the incarnation of Lord Dattatreya) located at about a KM distance from the bull temple. Exactly opposite to that is located the Architectural miracle-Gavi Gangadhreswara temple.

                                             

This temple seems like a cave and the specialty of the temple is that the rays of the sun directly touch the idol of Shiva only on the day of Makara Sankranti passing amidst the Nandi's horns. One has to pass through a cave like part to get the complete darshan of the idols in the temple.

                                          
Our next stop of the day was at Ramakrishna Mutt where we had purchased many valuable books. 

                    Our next day trip was to the Kotilingeswara temple near Bangarpet. Here is the huge Shiva linga and many lingas(don't know whether the count reaches to 1 crore or not) and the temples of many gods and goddesses in the same complex.

                                               
From here the Golden Venkateswara temple was around 6 KM which was worth visiting. Here one has to have the darshan of the lord through a window of 6 passages believed to be the Arishdvargas. Here the temple is on a small hill and even the temple of Padmavathi Ammavaru is also on a hill opposite to this. The view from top the hillock was too good.
                 Thus we had a weekend in the city waiting for the next to be out of city.

A day out on a hillock-Melkote

                                        Yesterday(26th Jan 2011), we both started at 7 in the morning with the guidance obtained from team BHP and other sites to visit the place Melkote on Mysore route. Being highway, the route was great till Mandya and from there the route passed through many villages where one can enjoy the scenic beauty of sugarcane farms and bullock carts. We had our breakfast in Adigas restaurant near Maddur and were in Melkote by 11.30. First we proceeded towards the top of the hill and had the darshan of Lord Yoga Narasimha which was believed to be a swayambhu. The steps to go up are not very steep all the way but at some points they were. Having a own vehicle, one can go a bit more up to avoid some steps. The view from top of the hill and the atmosphere were simply superb. 

                                                   

                                             After having a satisfactory time spent on the top, we came down and went to Sri Cheluva Narayana temple which was again a master piece.It is believed that Lord Vishnu is fond of Alankara so the decoration in the temple was a proof to this belief. Then we instantly decided to pay a visit to Srirangapatnam which was 30KM from Melkote. This route again passes through some villages till some point and then meets the Bangalore-Mysore high way. The temple in Srirangapatnam opens at 4 in the evening. So we had to wait till that time to grab god's blessings. The idol in this temple was the sleeping pose of Lord Vishnu on the serpent king with Goddess Laxmi at his feet. That was a huge idol. 

                               The holiday being properly utilized, we then moved back to our abode, filled with ever fresh and refreshing thoughts.  

                                                                      

The place where a creature blesses us-Kanchi

                    After a lot of discussion and research about the route and distances, at last we started on our trip to Kanchi with our in-laws on 22nd of Dec 2010. Our only concern was about the road condition since it was our first drive out of the city. But the Chennai highway to reach Kanchi was extraordinary, I must say. We 4 enjoyed a lot with the songs and chatting we had through out the journey. We started at around 7 in the morning and we reached Kanchi by evening with a bit of relaxation in the middle. A person followed our car as soon as we entered the town and I was a bit doubtful about him. But he took us to a good hotel and said that he would come again after an hour to take us to all the temples in that place. We were surprised when he even rejected to accept the tip offered by my husband.
                            At sharp 6PM that person turned out again and took us to the very big Ekambareshwar temple first. Wow! What a temple! Being a winter night, we couldn't capture its complete beauty in that electric lighting. We thought, we must come again in day time to that temple. The temple area was very big and looked like the temple that was shot in many pictures.
                       Then we were directed to the Varada Raja swami temple where the golden and silver lizards are present along with lord Moon and Sun. We first went to touch those idols and by the time we came out, the Varada Raja swami Garbha gudi was closed. But we were not worried since we could visit it the next day again. Then we went to the main temple of Kanchi that is Kamakshi Godess. The temple seemed to be very old construction but the beauty of the Godess's idol was stunning. We stood lot of time paying pranams to that mother. We then finished our lunch in Saravana Bhavan, the most popular one in south and went back to hotel located just adjacent to that. The person who accompanied us took us to a saree shop in which he was a worker and we were supposed to have a look at the very popular silk sarees first in that shop. But the collection there seemed us good and me and my mother-in-law both theft 10000/- from my husband's pocket for our sarees. The next morning we visited the temple of Godess and Varada Raja Swami and even visited the Vamana Murthy temple. Then we headed towards Arunachalam, the refugee for many spiritual aspirants.
                               The road to reach there was not so comfortable. That nigh we took sufficient rest and next morning, we started on the Girivalam in our car which took around 1 hour to get finished. On the way of Girivalam we spent a considerable time at Ramanashram and even purchased some very valuable books to be treasured in our spiritual library. The darshan we had of the Arunachaleshwarar was like nija rupa darshanam since that time there was no Alankara except Vibhuthi. Even the darshan of godess Apithakuchamba was awesome and we were still happy that being a Friday. Then we had our lunch and finished other formalities at the hotel to check out and moved towards the garden city. This route was even worse and the road till we reached the chennai highway was a nightmare. Once we touched the high way we felt like we were in a jet and were playing a video game of cars. That was a feast to eyes to watch the cars just staying behind us and we moving ahead as if we were the boss of all.
                                   Reached home with pack of great memories and thanked god for such a great blessing. Really an unforgettable tour with more of feelings and less of expressions.

Half day trip to Puttaparthi

                    Last Saturday(22-01-2011) we suddenly decided to drive to Puttaparthi and encouraged my cousin and family to accompany us to that holy place. I prepared Pulohora for lunch and we 5 started at around 1 PM at home. The road was too good that we felt no specific strain at all through out the journey.
                  On the way there were Kamat restaurants but we had with us the express item I prepared so we went ahead on the race-looking road. We applied breaks in a tree shade beside a lake which was fantastic place to feel like a garden party. After half an hour break we again used the accelerator to reach our destination.
                     We reached Puttaparthi by 4.45PM and tried our options to find out a hotel. But since the time for darshan of Swami was any time between 5.30-7.00, we parked our vehicle on the road side and went inside to sit in the Prashanti Nilayam. By that time there were lot of people waiting there for Baba's darshan. Within 10 minutes after we sat there, Swami came out of his Mandir in the wheel chair and we had got an eye-filling darshan since he stayed there till the end of the bhajan (7PM).
                   After having a fabulous darshan of the moving God, we were in a confusion for some while and finally decided to leave for Bangalore since it was not so late in the night and even the route was excellent. We had in our batch my brother, the night driving expert, so left at around 8.45PM from Puttaparthy. With no considerable traffic on the way, we comfortably reached Bangalore by 11PM.
 We finished our dinner in Nagarjuna and proceeded to take rest for the rest of the day.

To the abode of Sarada Mata-Sringeri

                                  We both started on a trip to Dakshin kannada district to cover the major places in 3 days of Makara Sankranthi festival i.e;14th to 16th of Jan 2011. We first started towards Dharmasthala, in fact with no exact plan of tour, but on the way we came across the direction board showing Sravana Belagola. So we continued in that direction to get the tour go ahead with the blessings of Gomateshwara there. The huge statue of the Jain Tirthankara really stunned us and we could even find the idols of the 24 Tirthankaras of the Jain tradition in that temple. The temple was atop a hill with around 800 steps, with no roofing. we had an excellent view from the top of the hill but were unable to capture its complete beauty in the camera.

                                                The story behind this is like this: The elder brother Bahubali defeats his brother in a war and becomes the king as per their condition of the war. But then he realizes how fatal are the worldly riches so sacrifices the kingdom to his brother and starts his penance in a standing pose which continues for a year. In memory of that Tirthankara the statue was made.

                                           

                                         Then we went to Halebeedu to visit a very old temple rich in its architechture. The temple built by the king for Lord Shiva is Hoysaleshwara temple and the one built by the queen is Shantaleshwara temple. There are statues of beautifully decorated nandis which is the unique feature of the temple. We were assisted by a guide to know the amazing history of the temple.

                                       From here our next destination was Belur which is a temple similar to this but of lord Vishnu-Chennakesava swami temple.

                                       Our next stop was at Dharmasthala for a night stay. The temple of Sri Manjunatheshwara here is again a master piece. We were lucky to enter the temple at the time of some seva going on(may be on the eve of Makara sankranthi) so thart we could see the idol of the god for a long time with no obstructions. The seva was quite different from that which we'd seen earlier. A Pujari was wearing many ornaments and a traditional dress and he carried the Utsava vigraha on his head to do circumambulations to the temple with an elephant for some time and later the idol was placed in a palanquin along with lights and bands.
                                     The accomodation of the devasthan was simply superb in the Rajatadri Guest house. We even had our dinner in the annadana which was in typical Karnataka style.
             The next morning we went to get blessings of Subrahmanya Swami of Kukke which was around 60 KM from Dharmasthala. The beauty of the idol of the god here is simply beyond expressions.

                          The drive all through the way was felt like we were going deep into the forests which was fantastic. The scenic beauty really made us enjoy the long drives.We even crossed some ghat roads which we felt thrilling and challenging
                                              Our next halt was at Sringeri-The true land of Sarada mata and the land blessed by Sri Adi Shankaracharya. Here also we opted for temple accomodation which was again a nice choice.We were even blessed to get a chance to attend the Chandramouleeswara aaradhana performed by the peethadhipathi Sri Bharathi Teertha Swami. The darshan in these temples is not like that of  famous temples in Andhra. We can stand before the main idol of the god for a considerable time to have a satisfactory darshan to be kept as a memory in our database. The beauty of the golden Sarada mata idol just left me spellbound. The definition of beauty is before our eyes when we stand there.Awesome.......
                            On day 3 morning we started back to pavillion and the high way route was really enjoyable. Just had a break for lunch and reached the garden city by the time of sun set.
       Altogether, we had gathered great memories to be treasured and shared.

                                        

                                      

                                        
                                       
                                 

First long drive on our new car-Ghati

We had our very exciting first long drive in our new car on 12th December to the famous Subrahmanyeswara temple in Ghati. The temple and decoration were awesome and we felt very happy to begin our new series with a great place.

    

                              
                

       

          From there we proceeded to Nandi Hills which is 25 KM from Ghati. This was the most memorable part of the drive since my husband was going up a hill for the first time, that too in a new vehicle with no prior planning or preperation. At the end when we reached the top of the hill, we were as if we reached the top of Everest peak. The ghat to reach the top leaves us with good scenic beauty. We can feel so pleasant the atmosphere on the top. May be the time reached there also was great part of day to be there(Evening time).                       

                                         There were some temples on the top and down the hill there was a temple 1200 years old which was the highlight of the day's tour. The very old type of construction, the spacious surroundings, the calmness that brings peace of mind ....... left us all with feelings far out of reach of description.

                               
                                             By the time we reached down the hill, the Sun god was on the way back to his adobe to take rest for the rest of the day. We were told that there was a statue of big Nandi near by in that village so we proceeded to that spot. This was a place something like a horror film scene with no light at all in the visibility except our car lights. Even the room where the Nandi is present is also disappeared spot with no shade of clues at all to be recognized. But we were lucky to try our luck with cell phone lights an camera flash that presented us the darshan of the gigantic Nandi. So thus the ending was great to a great starting.