Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Belur- Chikmagalur- Charmadi ghat

Date Of Travel : Sep 03 2011
Mode: Car
Stay : The hidden valley chickmaglur

We love the greenery and when ever we plan a trip, we end up going to some green ghats..Belur & Chickmaglur have been there in our 'to go' list for a long time for so thats where we went this time. :)
Blame hubby's work load, the planning and booking were done in the last minute , read Friday 8-9pm!! I normally want everything to be planned and packed well beforehand and this was something totally new to me .. but it worked out fine and turned out to be one of our best trips..
The alarm was set for 5am but woke up at 6am :) . Total chaos !! we left our house by 6.50am.
The route:
Hassan- belur- Hidden valley.
We had trouble finding NH4 and crossing the city itself took 1 hr.
We reached Belur by 12.30pm. I know i am not the first or last to say this.. but belur temple is beautiful. It was breathtaking..slight drizzle,cold pleasant weather. We just sat in the mandapa and enjoyed the calm serene atmosphere. To be frank i have never enjoyed being in a temple so well before.. may be it was due to the weather or lack of crowd or simply the beauty of the place.
Now for few snaps.





By 1.30pm we left belur had lunch from Vishnu regency.. hardly 1km from temple. Ask anyone, they will guide you. The road from belur to Handi is narrow and a bit bad.We reached Hidden valley by 3pm. It is not a fancy place, just a small house with few rooms. We took a room with the pond view as we were the only guests then. The location and surroundings is again great.. We had a great time there walking around the plantation, boating and simply relaxing. They had caroms and kido enjoyed learning it. The food was delicious simple home cooked meal..and the coffee was to die for .. did i say that we had cup after cup of the same!! Suraj Appaji, the manager was very helpful. Since it was raining we were not able to go for trek in the jeep, so just to make our kido happy he took us on a small drive sans any charge. Kido's allergy didnt give us much trouble this time.. so had peaceful night.
I had seen the snaps of Charmadi ghat road and wanted to go there. Suraj suggested that we go after breakfast,drive few kilometers through the ghat section come back , have lunch and then visit halebidu..It turned out to be a great plan.
Charmadi ghat lived up to our expectations and was even better than the photos. We drove few kilometers on the charmadi ghat road and here are the few snaps.



On the way to Charmadi ghat.





There were many such waterfalls on the way.





Came back had lunch and left for halebidu.Reached there by 3pm. The place was well maintained with lawns around. The carvings were exquisite and much more than Belur temple but the charm was missing.. I liked Belur a lot better than Halebidu, may because it has a natural old world beauty to it ..
Thats all for now , back to home ...

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

New findings..

Its been a while since my last post and this is for the fellow craft enthusiasts..
I just found a new place to get good materials, cotton and other stuff in commercial street. Its very difficult to go all the way to chickpet for the same,so the new findings.
Pooja collections.
No:8, D.R.Towers, 126/127,Dispensary road,near commercial street.
Very well organised and wide range of materials at by far the cheapest rates in commercial street.
There is Khadi bhandar few feet from Pooja collections on dispensary rd. The prices are higher than pooja collections and is cramped with clothes ,with very little space to walk around . Obviously they have a huge collection, if you have time and patience i recommend a visit. Make sure you check the clothes for holes courtesy godown ambiance and the cockroaches i guess..
I recommend good cotton silks from Pooja collections, a visit to Punjab tailors and get great embroidery at say 150 Rs for works on neck and sleeves.
Punjab tailors
#3,Lakshmana mudaliar street(commercial street cross).
Stitch it and voila, u have a beautiful kurta.. I am very happy with mine...

Next up is a craft shop,nothing fancy about this one.. just good-old,hole in the wall type.
Devi and company
130/131,Ethiraj Complex
Ibrahim sahib street,near commercial street.
Ph:09845066498
They have wooden block prints,screen printing stuff, soap making stuff,fabric paint etc etc..I got my wooden block prints from here, they have a huge collection. The prices are almost same Rs. 35,40,60, as the one in Jayanagar 4th block( The craft store inside 4th blck complex,ground floor near the area where u get all the pooja and birthday stuff)
Thats all for today.