The idea to ride to HaleBidu & Belur originated while I was going thru the Outlook traveller. It was a long weekend Ugadi being on Monday the 19th, but I had only two days in hand as I was attending Iron Maiden concert on saturday.The distance to these places made them a good choice for the ride.
Another bulleteer friend Kartik was coming along and that was the only company I had.
However, when I got back from the Iron Maiden concert Vasanth called up and told that he'll be cutting short his Wayanad plans and joining us on our ride.. Cool - still better. Who says three is a crowd ;) ?
So the ride began on sunday at 9.15 from Koramangala. The only difficult part was to reach Nelamangala junction, after which it was smooth roads with lesser traffic. We had a tea break at Prashanth's native kunigal where he joined us for tea. Meanwhile Vasanth was on his way to join us on NH48 from Mysore highway, a rather long 30 minutes tea break and we bid goodbye to Prashanth. A few minutes later Vasanth met us after Nelligere.
Lunch break at Kamat, from where the next break was only after Hassan on smooth and scenic Hassan-Belur road.
The speeds were good on the twisties. And before our appetites for more of these roads could get somewhere near to half completion we were in Belur.The first thing to do after reaching Belur was to get some accomodation, so we chose KSTDC run Mayura for the stay. It is a good value for money option. Good accomodation, cheap bar/restaurant - wat else wud u want ;)
In the evening time we visited the Chenna Kesava temple in Belur. The temples in Belur and Halebidu are from 12th/13h century and have very detailed carvings depicting Gods, Mythology, wars and KamaSutra on them.It was mostly a photography affair. Coming from the depictions there on the walls we guessed people at that time must have had only these things on mind - religion, wars and sex at that point of time!
We called it a day as the sun set, after which we had couple of drinks followed by dinner in Hotel Mayura. Went to sleep early as had to get up early in the morning.
At 6 AM in the morning we were ready to start for Hale Bidu - And here we missed the turn to Halebidu and instead went on to Chikamangalur!
Boy, it was cold! Never expected it to be that cold in the morning. Owing to the eclipse the light was dim and to add to that it was foggy all over after that. Another couple of kilometres towards Chikamangalur and we realized that we were on the wrong way!
Around 25 kms extra in this excursion, and finally came back to take the right turn.It was Ugadi and morning time - so no crowd at the temple! We had a peaceful time in and around the temple. Plenty of clickings there and after some time I got bored and packed my camera. Vasanth had a real camera this time and his appetite for photography never seemed to end! I had to pull him out of the temple, literally!
On our way back to Bangalore by 11:30. Mostly the roads were empty and all of us rode fast! We stopped at Kamat for lunch break. After this I was going 100+ consistantly and did some 85 kms to Kunigal like that! Full blast on those empty roads - Happy Ugadi! A long tea break at Kunigal and Prashanth also joined us.
I was home by 4.30. Almost all the roads were free of traffic and I enjoyed riding in those roads. End of ride and time for the 4th servicing of my ThunderBird. By the time I go to Leh, I'd have crossed 15K kms I guess!
Pictures: http://picasaweb.
Ride stats:
Route: Bangalore - Nelamangala - Kunigal - Channarayapatna - Hassan - Belur - Halebidu
Hoyasaleshwara temple in Hale bidu and Chenna kesava temple in Hale bidu covered.
Distance to Belur: Around 222 Kms, Halebidu is another 15 kms from Belur
Overall ride: 512.47 kms
Stop overs: Kamat on NH 48 for lunch and Kunigal for tea break
Riders:
Vasanth on H.H. Karizma
Kartik on R.E. ThunderBird
Kam on R.E. ThunderBird
3 comments:
Nice Blog kam, looks like Leh ride plan, doesn't stop you from doing rides, nice going man keep it up.
Read ur entire blog...so wonderfully written with pics n detailed descriptions. Well done, keep up the good work. Besides there is so much more here than biking.
Rgds
Captain Nandu Chitnis
BikeNomads
@ Shashi: Thanks :)
@ @Capt: Thanks a lot :), wish you a speedy recovery.
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