Continued ...
This was a surprise !!! Din't expect I will write this one today. By the way, my colleague pointed out that the places we visitted were not North Karnataka but South. I would change the topic as North Canara I and II.... Sorry !! Thanks to him ..
So, after the heroics that we did on the previous day, we got a good night's sleep. We were supposed to wake up at 05:45 AM. Psyche had set an alarm. The next day when I woke up it was 06:30 AM. We realized that the mobile was in silent mode and the alarm was set. Obviously no way we could have expected it to buzz. Good strategy by Psyche !!!
All said and done, we started to the temple. Udupi Krishna was looking simply superb. Small and cute. Had a nice breakfast in Udupi. The sambar was really good. SOmehow it was Tamil style. Reached back to the hotel and packed. Bye to Udupi and started for Dharmasthala.
When we reached the bus stand we had a minor shock. There is only one bus which has to come from Pune to Dharmasthala at that time. We had to take a private bus and go one some place first (Sorry forgot the name of that intermediate transit location :)) and take another bus to Dharmasthala. That was cool though.. We reached Dharmasthala by aound 2 in the afternoon. Enquired for buses to Bangalore from there and came to know that there is a KSRTC Rajahamsa bus at 10 in the night. So we were left with 8 hrs and we had to cover two more places.
Had a major shock now. A huge crowd in the temple for Darshan and we had only 2 more hrs coz the temple will be closed for 30 minutes from 4 !!! Joined the queue. Took us around 2 hrs. Very well managed. Manjunathaswamy was really cool indeed :-). Then came the best part of the day. We had the lunch at the temple. Traditional Karnataka style of Rasam first and then Sambar. No vegetable. In spite of that relished that first coz we were starving and secondly coz that was from the temple. So 80 % of what we wanted to accomplish was done at that time.
Planned to take a taxi to Subrahmanya.The driver was a nice guy. The route between Dharmasthala and Subrahmanya was totally forest and scenic. Reached there by 6. Absolutely no crowd. Had a peaceful darshan of the main deity and Adi Subramanya too. DONE !!! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED !!!! We congatulated each other. Had a bajji there which was not all that great. On the way back the driver stopped in a pillayar temple. Bonus !!! Reached back Dharmasthala... Karnataka tiffin and bus at 10. That brings us to the end of a memorable trip that none of us will forget :-)) (senti !!)
I had a day off on monday(Mahavir Jayanthi), the day we reached Bangalore. Others had to go to office. Just slept the day off.
Hope we plan and execute many more trips like this in the future. :-)
Monday, June 20, 2005
Saturday, June 04, 2005
South Karnataka - I
Hi All
This blog is about the trip to North Karnataka that we (Balaji-also called as Psyche, Mukund- also called as Delay and karthikeyan- also called as King Kong) went for. Since you all know that we are good boys(even if you don't, know now !!!), our trip comprised of only temples. We were planning for quite sometime, but it came true only on May 20, 2005. The plan was to cover the following five places in two days (May 21 and 22) - Sringeri, Kollur, Udupi, Dharmasthala and Kukke Subramanya.
Quite a bit is there to write about the entire trip. So I am splitting the same and writing as two blogs and hence the title. This one just contains the happenings(!!!) on the first day.
I would like share one small irony. Something related to work. We at our office normally plan our release to the client on fridays. As it is obvious, I will have some plans of going places (at least to Trichy, on fridays). So normally there will be a little bit of tension in catching my bus etc. due to the release. But when it comes to going to temples like this, there used to be a some sudden last minute tension(don't know from where it evolves :-)) When we planned a trip to Tirupathi and when I was to visit our family deity etc. This time was no exception. That too, there is one specific module which creates the problem always(same one this time too!!- Probably that module was started in some kind of "Rahu Kalam" :-)). Our bus to Sringeri was at 10 PM and I had planned to leave office by the 6:15 PM shuttle. I ended up taking the 7:15 PM shuttle (at least !!) and reached Majestic by around 9:15 PM. This is some kind of indication that, He (or She !) always gives some kind of hiccup in the beginning just to test his devotees, perhaps :-)
So all set now. All four of us were in time at Majestic. We succesfully started to Sringeri at 10:15 PM. To start with, the pushback on the seat in which karthi sat broke and he crash landed his head on the girl beside him. He din't mind though :-) We reached Sringeri by 7 AM on Saturday. The road to Sringeri and Sringeri by itself was beautiful, doing justice to it's name.(By the way, Singeri = Sringa + Giri => Beautiful hill). We came to know that all the cottages were full and even if some gets vacted only families will be given preferrence against bachelors (This is something that i don't like, after all every one would have been a bachelor at some point of time, people are jealous of bachelors pro'ly :-DDD). So we had to get ready in the common bathrooms etc. No complaints. We were ready in an hour.
VOWWWWWWWW!!! Wasn't she gorgeous ??? Saradhambal, I mean - the deity at Sringeri. Such a majestic look and posture. Had a great darshan. Visited the Chandramouleeswara temple also, which is inside the same campus. The architectural beauty of the temple was also great residing at the banks of Tungabadra. We just put our legs into the Tunga as there were too may BIG fish. Then we reached the mutt. The mutt is on the other side of the temple separated by the Tunga. Waited for sometime for His Holiness to arrive. Was able to meet him and since we are from the right families (!!! :-)), we were even able introduce ourselves (as So and So's such and such relation !!) and talk with him. Felt really happy :-). Got his blessings and started from there. Since we were there in some kind of an odd time couldn't have our lunch at the mutt :-(.
Our next plan was Kollur. We did not have a clear idea as to how to reach Kollur from Sringeri. Each one we asked had his own route. So we came to a consensus that we will go to Udupi and then go to Kollur from there. We took a bus that started at 2:30 PM. The bus driver was a man of his words. He siad he will take us in 90 minutes and bang we were there at Udupi at 4 PM. The route to Udupi was also through mountains and we enjoyed that ride too. Sringeri Udupi was around 70 kms. The moment we reached Udupi we saw a bus starting to Kollur which we boarded immediately.
This strip was the most memorable one - in the other sense :-(.The bus driver had the worst habbit of stopping every 15 seconds. His timer was so accurate that he never drove continuously for more than 30 seconds at any point of time :((. Mukund was in some kind of form at that time. He almost reached salvation that he used to give the signal to stop the bus even if the conductor did not !!! At last we reached Kollur at 6:40 PM. Had a nice darshan and since Mukund knew someone there we even were able to do some special puja... :-))). Mookambiga does everything for a reason :-). Came out of the temple with a sense of accomplishment. Had the dinner there. Typical Karnataka Sambar (Ayyyyye :-((). Took a bus to Udupi. Had to stand for sometime but made friends with the driver and were able to sit near on the engine and in the steps. Had a tussle with two idiots, who wanted the engine seat (!!) and because of our influence with the driver (!!) ended up making those guys relinquish the seat. But we had to stand too... Was happy in spite of that as we had the sadistic pleasure of making them stand (ha ha ha).
Reached Udupi by 11:30 PM. Now comes the topping !!. We took a room (A/C) after rejecting two/three rooms in the same hotel. Everything was well till the power went off and we came to know that the generator that the hotel had was not working. Since it was an A/C room there was no way we could even open the windows. It was like a furnace inside. Karthi rose to the occasion. He really did !! Went straight to the reception and had some kind of quarrel and we (minus Psyche) backed him up and came to the conclusion that we are vacating the room (!!!). We got the full refund too :-)). The one thing that pissed us all off is the fact that Psyche was unaware of the entire situation and he was sleeping in the room covering himself with a blanket (!!@#$$&*^&*)& - These were the words that we used on Psyche at that time, censored for profanity :-)) )
Eventually we got a room in a nearby hotel which had a working generator and started a good night(day's !!!) sleep at 1 AM.
To be continued ...
This blog is about the trip to North Karnataka that we (Balaji-also called as Psyche, Mukund- also called as Delay and karthikeyan- also called as King Kong) went for. Since you all know that we are good boys(even if you don't, know now !!!), our trip comprised of only temples. We were planning for quite sometime, but it came true only on May 20, 2005. The plan was to cover the following five places in two days (May 21 and 22) - Sringeri, Kollur, Udupi, Dharmasthala and Kukke Subramanya.
Quite a bit is there to write about the entire trip. So I am splitting the same and writing as two blogs and hence the title. This one just contains the happenings(!!!) on the first day.
I would like share one small irony. Something related to work. We at our office normally plan our release to the client on fridays. As it is obvious, I will have some plans of going places (at least to Trichy, on fridays). So normally there will be a little bit of tension in catching my bus etc. due to the release. But when it comes to going to temples like this, there used to be a some sudden last minute tension(don't know from where it evolves :-)) When we planned a trip to Tirupathi and when I was to visit our family deity etc. This time was no exception. That too, there is one specific module which creates the problem always(same one this time too!!- Probably that module was started in some kind of "Rahu Kalam" :-)). Our bus to Sringeri was at 10 PM and I had planned to leave office by the 6:15 PM shuttle. I ended up taking the 7:15 PM shuttle (at least !!) and reached Majestic by around 9:15 PM. This is some kind of indication that, He (or She !) always gives some kind of hiccup in the beginning just to test his devotees, perhaps :-)
So all set now. All four of us were in time at Majestic. We succesfully started to Sringeri at 10:15 PM. To start with, the pushback on the seat in which karthi sat broke and he crash landed his head on the girl beside him. He din't mind though :-) We reached Sringeri by 7 AM on Saturday. The road to Sringeri and Sringeri by itself was beautiful, doing justice to it's name.(By the way, Singeri = Sringa + Giri => Beautiful hill). We came to know that all the cottages were full and even if some gets vacted only families will be given preferrence against bachelors (This is something that i don't like, after all every one would have been a bachelor at some point of time, people are jealous of bachelors pro'ly :-DDD). So we had to get ready in the common bathrooms etc. No complaints. We were ready in an hour.
VOWWWWWWWW!!! Wasn't she gorgeous ??? Saradhambal, I mean - the deity at Sringeri. Such a majestic look and posture. Had a great darshan. Visited the Chandramouleeswara temple also, which is inside the same campus. The architectural beauty of the temple was also great residing at the banks of Tungabadra. We just put our legs into the Tunga as there were too may BIG fish. Then we reached the mutt. The mutt is on the other side of the temple separated by the Tunga. Waited for sometime for His Holiness to arrive. Was able to meet him and since we are from the right families (!!! :-)), we were even able introduce ourselves (as So and So's such and such relation !!) and talk with him. Felt really happy :-). Got his blessings and started from there. Since we were there in some kind of an odd time couldn't have our lunch at the mutt :-(.
Our next plan was Kollur. We did not have a clear idea as to how to reach Kollur from Sringeri. Each one we asked had his own route. So we came to a consensus that we will go to Udupi and then go to Kollur from there. We took a bus that started at 2:30 PM. The bus driver was a man of his words. He siad he will take us in 90 minutes and bang we were there at Udupi at 4 PM. The route to Udupi was also through mountains and we enjoyed that ride too. Sringeri Udupi was around 70 kms. The moment we reached Udupi we saw a bus starting to Kollur which we boarded immediately.
This strip was the most memorable one - in the other sense :-(.The bus driver had the worst habbit of stopping every 15 seconds. His timer was so accurate that he never drove continuously for more than 30 seconds at any point of time :((. Mukund was in some kind of form at that time. He almost reached salvation that he used to give the signal to stop the bus even if the conductor did not !!! At last we reached Kollur at 6:40 PM. Had a nice darshan and since Mukund knew someone there we even were able to do some special puja... :-))). Mookambiga does everything for a reason :-). Came out of the temple with a sense of accomplishment. Had the dinner there. Typical Karnataka Sambar (Ayyyyye :-((). Took a bus to Udupi. Had to stand for sometime but made friends with the driver and were able to sit near on the engine and in the steps. Had a tussle with two idiots, who wanted the engine seat (!!) and because of our influence with the driver (!!) ended up making those guys relinquish the seat. But we had to stand too... Was happy in spite of that as we had the sadistic pleasure of making them stand (ha ha ha).
Reached Udupi by 11:30 PM. Now comes the topping !!. We took a room (A/C) after rejecting two/three rooms in the same hotel. Everything was well till the power went off and we came to know that the generator that the hotel had was not working. Since it was an A/C room there was no way we could even open the windows. It was like a furnace inside. Karthi rose to the occasion. He really did !! Went straight to the reception and had some kind of quarrel and we (minus Psyche) backed him up and came to the conclusion that we are vacating the room (!!!). We got the full refund too :-)). The one thing that pissed us all off is the fact that Psyche was unaware of the entire situation and he was sleeping in the room covering himself with a blanket (!!@#$$&*^&*)& - These were the words that we used on Psyche at that time, censored for profanity :-)) )
Eventually we got a room in a nearby hotel which had a working generator and started a good night(day's !!!) sleep at 1 AM.
To be continued ...
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