In Search Of Old Bangalore

Bangalore, a city which every non-kannadiga  proudly claims to be his own. A city where you can hear vehicle honks more than Kannada language, where PG's are found more than trees. While these are the few facts among the healthy discussion we usually have at workplace, a Rajasthani based colleague-cum-friend of mine always wanted to know how the Bangalore was before the IT Boom. He was a Bangalorean for 3 long years but never got a chance to see the "Old Bangalore". I had promised him to show the Old culture and environment which still exists in Bangalore.
Last month, suddenly he disclosed he is leaving Bangalore and moving to Pune, so the time had come to keep up my promise made couple of years back.
It was 1st of November,the state formation day and his last weekend in Bangalore. So the time was like "Now or Never".
Previous night, I jotted down a few places and came up with a plan for the next day. Since he was very devotional first preference was given to please him ;)
As per plan we (6 of us) met near Udupi Garden in BTM and started our journey in search of Old Bangalore.

Gavigangadhareshwara Temple

Gavigangadhareshwara Temple

To begin the day, we started with a historical temple, we reached this place at around 15 minutes past 10 in the morning.
As we entered the temple, he and others in the group started shooting questions at me and me on the other end dodging all the questions and feeling myself as an un-official guide for the day.
We had a walk through in and around the temple and even witnessed a secret route to Kashi (which is blocked now), we finished the formalities and sat on the floor discussing about the famous myth's about the temple.Right then, a guy who was meditating nearby jumped into our conversation and started taking my place(Un-Official guide). Since whatever he said sounded like a reverse Knowledge Transfer of my words, I was mumbling "Ab toh pakka maan jaayenge".

The conversation was interrupted by echoing noise of bell which reminded us something ringing in our belly too.
So we left the place and headed to fill our hungry belly.

Brahmins Coffee Bar

Brahmin's Coffe Bar

This is a place where I used to spend time with my school friends for a cup of coffee. This restaurant still firmly hangs on to the taste of Old Bangalore. I noticed even the name board of the restaurant also holds the beauty of Old Bangalore sprinkled on it. Standing in the queue for sometime, we finally had famous Idly-Vada and utilized the unlimited Chutney option. Since there was a need to join the queue again to taste coffee, we decided to have it in other restaurant.


SLV Corner

SLV Corner

This place is 10 minutes away from Brahmins Coffee Bar, as we entered the restaurant, my eyes fell over menu and we ordered Maddur Vada, Mangalore Buns and Coffee for all. So after long years, we all felt we should eat breakfast regularly :D While we were sipping our cup of coffee. I took the opportunity to start describing about our next place, no price for guessing it, it was obviously(given the location) Dodda Ganapathi Temple.

Dodda Ganapathi Temple

Dodda Ganapathi Temple | imsharath.blogspot.in

Each one of us was very excited to see the growing god and it really was a visual festival. Right when we entered, the "Maha - Archana" was started and I closed my eyes and started feeling myself as a Pure devotional-"Tax Free" Saint. We followed other visitors to complete a full circle of  sanctum and sat in a corner. By now,one of us was ready with a single bullet of question to shoot at me while others where still loading their guns :P So I was back as a guide again.
Since we had already planned to visit Bull Temple as well,everyone wanted to make a move and witness another miraculous temple

Bull Temple

Bull Temple Entrance

We walked bare footed from Dodda Ganapathi to Bull Temple and the sight we had was overwhelming.

The legend behind Basavanagudi is an interesting one. Hundreds of years ago, Sunkenahalli, as Basavanagudi was known then, was fertile farmland dedicated to the cultivation of groundnut crops. But there was a problem. A wild bull began to devour and destroy the groundnut crops. This infuriated the farmers and one of them, in an attempt to drive away the animal, hit it with a club. Legend has it that the bull sat down, became motionless and turned into stone much to the amazement of the farmers.

Big Bull Temple

The story, however, didn't end there. The stone bull began to grow in size and the worried farmers turned to Lord Shiva for help. A trident, retrieved from where it was planted near the bull's feet, was placed on the bull's forehead to prevent it from growing further. To appease the bull, a small temple was built on the spot. Later, Kempe Gowda, the founder of Bangalore, constructed a much bigger temple in typical Dravidian style at the same place.

To Know more click here

We clicked few pictures and soon walked out of temple to sit under the shade of Peepul tree.

Peepul Tree

The moment we sat under peepul tree I heard a voice from a person of our group saying "Is this Bangalore for real? I feel like I am on a devotional trip" and trust me that guy has spent 10 long years in Bangalore.(Thats right TEN!!)

The place was very cool and peaceful, we spent more than an hour chit-chatting

One of us picked Peepul tree as a topic to start with and the discussion went on from Bats on the trees to work-related to current affairs to personal experiences to British time to Indian politics.
When the topic reached Indian Politics, it just meant it was time to make a move.


BugleRock Park

BugleRock Park

We took a walk from Peepul tree and entered park,enjoying serene beauty and sat on beautifully looking customized rock seats, I took them back to 1990's and explained about the changes and development. We clicked few pictures again and suddenly remembered we had to go long way back to get our sandals (which we left outside Dodda Ganapthi Temple)

Seats at BugleRock Park

When we went back to the place where we left our sandals, an angry young man was waiting with his red eyes to pounce on us. He shouted on us saying he was late for lunch ONLY because of us.

Only thing we could do is apologize to him and move-on.






Kamat Buglerock

When I started making strategic plan about outing,this place was added by default as a lunch-time restaurant.
This place is just 5 minutes away from Bull Temple and we opted to taste the special lunch of the day "Joladha Rotti Lunch" - Dharwad style. Since the place was overcrowded, we gave our name in waiting list and were redirected to a live SurSatarang performance.

We stood there for sometime and soon got a seat to sit and enjoy the music. It really was a great time killer for those who were on waiting list, we enjoyed music for quarter an hour until a guy started shouting the name given by us in waiting list. He took us to a wide table not so far from music and we spent the next 30 minutes in heaven.

Jowar Roti Meals @ Kamat Buglerock

Since we realized our shirt buttons are bloated, we silently opted to take stairs down. Even the weather outside was mindblowing, it was all cloudly with no signs of raining soon and we enjoyed our bike ride to our next place.












Deer Park

This is one of those places very close to my heart, since I used to spend most of my Saturdays after school here.
There were real deers back then and me with my school friends used to trespass this place to reach a dried up lake nearby to play cricket there.
Now they have re-energized the beauty of the park and yeah deers are found even now. We saw deers,ostriches,crows,birds and dinos out of which only crows were inhaling :D
The park displays three different cultures - Indian, Roman and Egyptian,The Egyptian Sphinx greet visitors at the entrance. All around the park there are massive Roman pillars.We enjoyed the sight of Egyptian Sphinx and followed a track which went overhead to find where it is coming from.
We found a toy train between some bushes somewhere at the other end of the park and the train looked untouched from a long time.Beside the train track we see busts of prominent activists, who have contributed to the culture of Karnataka. We somehow managed to reached the train and got into it. While we were wondering why this was of no use, a group of kids started shouting from far asking whether the train starts. I told them it does, and the cost is Rs.20 for all of them altogether. They all were really happy to know that the train even works and they  came up to train.Just then an angry old man came up running from nowhere with a stick with a mouthful of great slogans for us.

We got out of it(train) and took a few pictures with the old man just to make him smile ;)

To know more about this park, read this Blog where Chethana has described it as beautifully as it is.

We spent some more time in the park and decided to end the Old Bangalore Trip. But one of us (who is my lead at workplace) invited us to visit his flat.

Flat somewhere near BTM 
(Sorry..name not found in my memory)
So the Old Bangalore trip was already ended by the time we reached here. We spent sometime at his place and before reaching back home we were forced to "Play" in his apartment's elevator.Maybe the elevator was also part of Old Bangalore(lol :D)

Apart from these there are many other places which still holds the richness and beauty of Old Bangalore, finding  my next victim for those places ;)

If you want to plan a day out in these places, click on Location Titles (In Red) for more information.

This Route Map also may help you.

Pay a visit, its worth it.

Make "Way" for Wayanad : Day -2

Day-2
After letting our soul fly from dawn to dusk,our excitement was still at peak.We started our second day by eating "Puttu" for breakfast and freshly started our journey for the first spot of the second day.

EDAKKAL CAVES
They lie 1,200 metres above sea level on Ambukutty Mala, beside an ancient trade route connecting the high mountains of Mysore to the ports of the Malabar coast.

View from Edakkal Caves

By the time we reached the spot,the sun was right above our head and we started taking the steep route upwards to reach the cave. Given the time of the day,we made several pitstops to refuel our arid throats and keep going.

After a hour long walk we found ourselves in the main crowd attraction spot in the whole location, only then we realized we wasted all our energy and time to just to see a dark spot with rocks all around.

Edakkal Caves

We swiftly started coming back since we were already let down by the spot and we were hungry as well.

Having a quick-lunch we hurried up to the next spot to cheerup ourselves, but unfortunately we had to bare arrogant and rather too aggressive driver all through the way.






BANASURA SAGAR DAM

So the next location in the list was modified and we opted to spend sometime enjoying the view of the dam.
We had to travel for an hour to reach there and the dam seemed to spread its arms widely and waiting there to embrace its visitors.

Banasura Dam

In the dam's reservoir there was a set of islands, we were told that those islands were formed when the reservoir submerged the surrounding areas.More interestingly, Google-Bhai told me "It is the largest earth dam in India and the second largest of its kind in Asia" [Ab Google-bhai ne kaha he toh maan na hi padega ;)]

We spent a couple of hours in the dam and it was completely filled with cheerful moments. We ran,we jumped, we played,we rolled over and enjoyed a spectacular view of the sunset. All the visitors were lost looking at our "Madness" and few of them were very happy and nostalgic that they actually forgot that the spot is famous for the dam..Damn!! :D


We were totally energized on our way back to room-stay and it overshadowed our disappointment earlier in the morning.

CELEBRATION TIME

We always have that one friend among us who says - "This is my last trip with y'all,Im getting married :'(". Well, we too had one of them in our group,so we thought to surprise her with a cake-cut and more importantly it was also the birth-day of one of our friend's Mom.
We picked up two cakes from a bakery on the way and hid it under the seat until it was actually supposed to be revealed.[This Part was Challenging :D]

So we celebrated the cake-cutting ceremony and ended it by giving facial to each other.
It was already late at night but "Pitcchurr abhi bhaaki thi yaar ;)"

CAMP FIRE
Here we are,spending the most awaited time in the trip and we have always loved camp-fire in the trip.It reveals the hidden talents of all.

Campfire in Wayanad Homestay

The camp fire was started and we formally started it by forming a circle around it and briskly walking in a circle, it reminded me of my "ring-a-roses" game :D
The fire was increasing with our enthu and we all were dancing like a group of wild penguins.It was then, We(Boys) came up with an idea of giving a performance to entertain(Challenge) girls in the group.
The stage was all set, we all had a strategic discussion for couple of minutes and everyone started running inside.
"Lungi Dance" started to play slowly in the speakers and girls were all amused and probably mumbled "Are they doing a rehersal inside?"
In no time, we all flew in with our planned outfit to the stage. We carried curtains,towels,bedspreads or anything which resembles "Lungi".

Lungi Dance : Yo Yo Wayanad

The dance came out in such a way that few of us even went to an extent of considering the participation in "Dancing-Reality Shows" lol :D
So it was payback time. Now, we compelled girls to perform for us and prove us they too have some talents to showcase.
We planned it so well, and started shuffling between the item numbers :D

After all the fun-time, we had a great time chit-chatting over tasty dinner around the campfire.
Finally,when the fire went down, we realized it was time to sleep.

So we carried happy-fun filled moments to sleep on second day with a hope of adding a few more moments the next day before coming back to Bangalore

Make "Way" for Wayanad : Day 1

Every IT slave admits with the quote "The first five days after weekend are very hard"
We wanted a change, wanted to spread out our arms and shout "Life is Beautiful" and we decided to go on a 3-day trip.

After surfing through the places that fall under our desired schedule and budget, we found out "God's Own Place" would be the best option, in no time we zeroed in on Wayanad  and started our journey to the Land of Paddy Fields on 16th Jan 2014.

Since we work as a group and reside scatteredly we had multiple pickup points, after passing it all we finally left Bangalore late in the midnight. Call it "Over Excitement" or "Deep Curiosity" most of us had sleepless overnight to read the navigation from Bangalore to Wayanad.

As a matter of fact, we were aware that Mysore comes on our way, we did not miss the opportunity to spend sometime outside The Mysore Palace. We got down, had couple of shots(camera :P) and got in quicker than "Quikr" :D

Cafe Coffee Day, Gundlupet

At 4am,our Tempo Traveller halted near a CCD(Cafe Coffee Day) somewhere in the forest. My GPS told me it's 2kms away from Gundlupet and 20min away from Kerala Check-point.Since those check-points open sharply at 6(atleast few Govt. employees work) we had to spend couple of hours in that CCD.But a few of us spent sometime there and opted to take a walk upto Gundlupet, because we never wanted to sit in a CCD and kill flies when on trip.There was a light drizzle on the way and we enjoyed our 45min walk to Gundlupet.

It was 5.45am when our tempo reached the check-point (after picking us from Gundlupet),spending sometime with those Govt officials, our sim cards received a "Welcome To Kerala" message, which indeed was taunting "You are on Roaming,You Moron".

We checked-in into a beautiful homestay at half an hour past 8 in the morning and the homestay manager greeted us with a ear to ear smile on his face.

Homestay in Wayanad, where we spent 3 days

Day-1

We were given "Pooris" for breakfast and the whole load vanished within minutes.As per the initial plan,our first place in Wayanad was Chembra Peak. We sticked on to the plan and headed straight to Chembra Peak right after breakfast.On our way, we crossed many Coffee estates and it was a very beautiful sight, we stopped in few places to increase the snap counts and we reached our destination.

Beauty of Wayand - Coffee Estates

CHEMBRA PEAK

Chembra Peak,it's a trekking spot which has a "Heart-shaped"(not for medical students) lake atop hill.
We began our trek and when we reached mid-way we started wishing "Kaash!! ek lift hota". It was a herculean-task for all the lazy-pot bellies like us and lifetime achievement for few malnutritioned.We trekked for 90mins and reached the lake, the water was so cold that it was so tempting to jump into it and spend the rest of the day there,but since it was "too" tidy, we ended up just washing our faces.

Heart shaped lake atop Chembra Peak

After spending sometime atop the hill and spontaneously increasing snap count, we realized some drums rolling in our belly indicating it's time to trek back.For people, who beleive trekking down would be easier than trekking up Chembra Peak would break your belief. It becomes almost impossible to trek down with steep land and shivery body(HUNGER).

Bamboo Hotel

Pot-bellies(We) lost the battle by sweating profusely while trekking up and malnutritioned group lost the battle on the way back,their team members were levelling the ground at regular intervals.

Best Place to Relax and Meditate,
you can find this on the way to Chembra Peak

After a heavy workout(Trekking), we were too hungry to travel so we decided to eat in a hotel nearby.The hotel/mess/whatever was very different from normal ones,the seats,the tables,counter everything was built using bamboo woods.The ambience was so mesmerising that we were lost in our thoughts,only when our tastebuds were shouting for help we came out of our day dream.
If you recharge a machine,it starts working better but it is the other way with us(humans).




We all were fully recharged and started feeling very sleepy,but our driver had other things in mind.His way of driving not only deprived us from our sleep but also made us nauseated.It was an hour long journey from there to the next spot.

SOOCHIPURA FALLS

Soochipra Falls,Wayanad

Since we had a tireful day, we were really excited on reaching the falls. Packing the spare clothes,we started walking towards the falls from entrance.It was a mini-trek to reach the falls and our already punctured body started aching badly,finally we were at the falls.Jumping into the falls and soaking our bodies in the cold water was refreshing.We tried to headstop the falls and had a very good natural massage.

Coming out of falls,we had a hot tea in the shop
nearby and headed straight back to our homestay.


Trekking-Heavy Meals-Fall Bath-Hot Tea,
ended our first day happily with a perfect combination.

More to come in following days. Stay Tuned ;)