Solo ride to Mangalore and Udupi

Solo ride to Namma Kudla (Mangalore) and Udupi

I don't want to start with About section in this blog, as this trip was totally about visiting the temples :) 

So will be explaining about the temples with the blog content itself. 

Well to start with, I always had a dream of travelling to my hometown managlore by bike, but due to many circumstances I was not able give a hit. Finally its a day when I watched the Movie Highway, it inspired me a lot to go on a trip to Managlore,I know there is no proper connection with the movie :P but still it made a difference.

How it Went : 

It was 28th Feb of 2014, I woke up by 4:30 AM did some pushups to attain the fitness for the long drive and then prepared a cup of maggi as the startup breakfast. By 5:30AM I was all set for my long drive, kept my engine for idealing for a couple of minutes and started via outer ringroad, by 6am I was near Gurguntepalya signal, in another 25min I had crossed the nelmaangala junction towards NH75. The visibility was too poor so I couldnt take my bike above 70kmph till 6.45 or so.

@ nelmangala

The National Highway 75(48) is upto the standard and there are absolutely no bumpers or pothhles in this route, you will not find any hotel owners till 7.30am on this highways, I came across many hotel, but I preferred Mayura Hotel which is near to bellur cross, they are quite high on the price list but should try there dosa and

@ Mayura Hotel

crispy vada, meanwhile my bike was taking breath while I was having my breakfast, by 7.45am I was done with breakfast, and sticked with my timesheet to reach the next stop, it was Hassan which was supposed to be the next stop, but I continued my journey around 20km away from Hassan and stopped for a tea break and then I had called up my mother to inform about the current location, she was shocked when I told I am near sakleshpur, and I had a nice lecture since I covered almost 200+ km within 3.5hr, I took a long rest at this place and fueled up the vehicle too. 

This is the place where the actual beauty of western ghats will be reviled, I had predecided that I wont make any urgency for the rest of my drive and wanted to enjoy each bit of beauty of the nature.

near Sakleshpur

Its quite easy to maintain around 60-70kph through this section, but I was riding at 50kmph and reached sakleshpur by 9.45am, after this stop the actual western ghats begins and it continues for another 65km till

NH 48

NH 48

nelyady, the route is truely mesmerizing, for some distance you will be seeing the tea plantation surrounding the NH then the true turns begins, you will come across many hair pin curves which are pretty much steep and sometime becomes difficult to navigate through. I heard that the view would be much more eye poping when visited during rainy season, but going on a bike would become a challenge then, I have read many blogs where brave hearts had done this route during peak monsoon season.

Western Ghats

Well coming back to my journey, I passed major sections of the western ghats stopping as on when required and I felt like I was on top of the world with the beauty around. Well by 11.30 I reached the nellyadi Junction and finished western ghats core section, I took a pit stop and had a badam milk to get rid of exhausting heat and humid range of sea coast, next stop was puttur I zoomed towards uppinangadi and took left devation to puttur which was 12km from here. In another 15min I was in front of the mahalingeshwara temple,

near polali

had a dharshan of the lord shiva and left the place within 15min, the next deviation point was BC Road which was 30km from puttur, I took around 45 min to reach BC road and took deviation towards state-highway 101 to reach my house in Bajpe. In between I had visited two more temple of Polali rajarajeshwari and ganapathi temple of ganjimath.

polali Shanka

After reaching my home, honked in front of the gate, my cousin sister and mother were shocked to see me with my bike :P . There ends my first day of journey.

Day 2:

The day started as normal woke by 6am refreshed and then helped my aunt in preparing morning breakfast and by 10AM after having breakfast I was ready for second day journey, I had visit one of the function at my aunt place so visited the place had lunch there and left towards udupi which was 50km away,

@ padubidri beach

this part of the road is the one which gives the actual experience to ride in the western ghats, these roads are not as wide as national highway but small enough to fit two passing cars and no railing protection too, well I

my bike @ padubidri

managed to reach the place called padubidiri where I was supposed to stay for the night, myslef and my cousin reached there house by 5pm and the first thing we did was dropping at beach, we were adviced not to get drenched in the beach, but I just wanted to see the coast, the beach was less than 1km from house ad I took my bike to the beach too some snaps and waited to see the beautiful sunset over arabian sea. After spending an hour at the beach we returned back to home and ended my second journey of the day.

Day 3 :

Woke up by 7am jumped on the bike to go the beach for the morning bath spent an hour at the beach playing with my cousins and reached home 8.30 got ready to have the breakfast, by 10AM we were supposed to leave to see the shree krishna of udupi,

Udupi Shree Krishna Temple

but due we couldn't make it on time and had to start an hour later, udupi temple was 25km from padubidiri, and zoomed by bike at 100s in NH17, by 11.30 I was at the udupi temple, had dharshan in another 30 min and I had to start to another place called palimar, which was around 45km

Nagargjuna Thermal Plant

I could make it to the place in another 1hr had lunch at the temple of palimar and then I reached home at padubidri, slept for hour, and then started to my mother birth place puttige, which was 30km took 1 hour to reach the place and had dharshan of somanatheswara from here I headed to the house at mangalore which was another 30km from here and reached in another 1hour. Took the break for the day.

Day 4:

The second part of the long solo drive began at morning 6am, I got up 5.30 am refreshed and my aunt had prepared nice crispy paddu for breakfast, she was about to pack to have it on the drive, but I asked her to server at home only and also asked her to pack up :P

Route after crossing nelyadi

 by 6.15am when there was slight sunshine I started my bike, I didnt wanted to start when its dark as it would be risky in ghat section. I reached bangalore-managlore highway in another 30min took some snaps of the morning sunrise.  The next stop was nelyadi, I thought of having a tea, but I wasn't lucky enough to get a tea also even though it was 7.30am. I couldn't stop there for longer time, started towards bangalore, after passing nelyadi

kukke sri Subramanya Temple

Route towards Kukke Sri

 I saw the board of kukke subramanya and thought of visiting the temple which was 25km, took 30min to reach the temple and by 9.30 I had darshan ok lord subramanya, by 9.30 I was out of the temple and without wasting the time I  started towards my destination.

view of Western Ghats

It was by 10am then I felt hungry in middle of nowhere in the deep forest stopped my bike took out the paddus packed and started having the breakfast :P by 12pm I reached hassan took some break to have tea by a nearby shop, I

View of Western Ghats

thought of reaching bangalore by by 2pm if I havent planned kukk, but now its extended, by 1pm I thought of having lunch and stopped at malgudis restaurant it was 1.30 by then and bangalore was still 100km away, I took my vehicle to its max potential and reached nelmangala in another 30min, and as expected the traffic was full as I started toward the city in another 1hr I reached my house just laid down on the floor slept for 3hr :P had a wonderful drive time..

Total Distance

Ride to Hampi Badami Pattadakallu

About Hampi, Badami and Pattadakal

Hampi is an archeological place with more than 500 plus monument in the surroundings. Hampi is located 20km away from hospet town and is around 300km from bangalore. 

Hampi is currently the remains of vijaya nagara dynasty and also the religious center for temples.
Badami is famous for it caves and is located in the district of bagalkot, the caves of this place dates back to 540AD and is the capital of chaulkya dynasty.
Pattadakal is also located in the district of bagalkot and it is 20km away from badami, this place is located near to the malaprabha river, patadakallu encloses 9 temples of which one is jain temple, the panoramic view of the temples are mesmerizing.   

 

Hello folks, I know this is the blog to express the bike riding experience but this time I would like to include my trip to Hampi and Badami which was done with a car, I thought of including this in biketripsfrombangalore blog only because this blog might help bike riders too.  Well lets start with actually content..
This was trip which was planned a week before by Puneeth and he asked other 3 idiot's if we were interested. I would never say no to any trips most of the time, later Ravi and Deepu too joined the plan too. The initial plan was to go by bike., but due to several  circumstances, we had to agree upon with a car.

How It Went

Day 1: 
Route : Bangalore - Chitradurga - Hospet - Hampi (350KM)

It was friday 29, November all four of us had taken relieve from the offical pressure and wanted to enjoy the trip of three days. I got up 4.30am in the morning, got freshen up and started towards Puneeth's place by 5am on my bike, I was kind of depressed to leave my bike at puneeths place but still was looking forward to have a great time with my close buddies, by 5.30am everyone was ready and we started towards the outer ring road and hit AH47.

Sunrise @ AH47

Our first pitstop was somewhere near nelmangala, we pulled our car to side and puneeth opened the car boot to pull out some snacks as I was feeling hungry, and I had the full control of all the snacks, we were chatting remembering all our college day fun and was cruising on the national highway at high speed, it was 6.45am by then, and everyone wanted to go for a pee break, and in mean time sun had just began raising it was an awesome view to see the sun raising over the side of highway :)

Puneeth in middle of AH47

We took some snaps and passed considerable amount of time.

Chitradurga-Hampi

It was 7.15 by then and it was bit late as per the plan, so we started our journey, we passed the fort city and are supposed to take right turn near chitradurga, but we missed the deviation and we proceeded almost 5km ahead. later on turning on the maps we were able to make it up to the route.

The fun drive ends here, we stopped near the chitradurga hampi road for a break and took some snaps of wind mills, later we observed that the single road is full of truck traffice and believe me folks I am noot joking this traffic is as much as our city traffic, we totally drained and depressed thinking about the journey we had to cover for the day almost 130km to reach the destination, as we continued our journey to add to the bad traffic we had to face the bad road too, our Honda City was crying hitting the bumps and I could make out from puneeths face too :( .

Virupaksha Temple

After a painful 4hrs of journey we hit the hospet town, and we navigated to hampi with our navigation system which was just 15km away from hospet, by 12pm we reached hampi and checked into one of the lodge freshened up in few minutes and was ready to roam around. We were in dilemma to decide whether to take rented scooter for ride or our car, we found that car would be find to reach all the place, we got hold of a guide and we agreed to pay him 1000bugs for 6hr guidance,

Ugra Narasimha

Vitthala Temple

we started from Hampi bazzar street and visited some of the famous temples in and around hampi, narasimha temple, lotus pond, shiva temple, monolithic bull and so on and at last the most anticipated place called Vitthala temple, this is the place which had the stone chariot and pillars which can produces different notes of music, this place is to be covered through an electric vehicle as per the norms of the archaeological survey of India to save the architectures. It was 3pm by then and we were hungry and dropped to a nearby hotel to fill up the tummy, after completing our lunch session to moved towards hapi town and we were asked to see the virupaksha temple and our guide finally gave up, he was not the best as he dint stick up to his word of 6hrs, we has with us for less than 4hr and collected his full payment, anyways we didn't want to get into the scene, and we wanted to pass some considerable time at tungabadra river,

Tungabadra River

later we visited virupaksha temple and then started towards the kadlekai temple, from where we had a beautiful view of the virupaksha temple, it was almost 7pm by then, and some security guys had asked us to vacate the place, and we started towards our room, had dinner at one of the German restaurant and ended up at the room.

Day 2 : 
Route : Hampi - Hospet - Kustagi - Katral - Badami - Pattadakal - Aihole - Hunagund - Kushtagi - Hampi (320km)

We started at around 8am in the morning and badami was 150km from hampi, the estimated time to cover was 3hr and we are right on track, we crossed hospet town and hit the national highway 13,

Sunflower field

this would be yet another freeway kind of road, the condition of the NH was too good, and you could see some sunflower plantain by the side of road, we took break point at one of the plantation field for pics and later hit the road again, now the actual fun started,

Capped 180kmph

since the road was clear and straight Puneeth wanted to hit the gas to its max, it was like a drag race effect at the NH, Puneeth could make it upto 188KMPH and later deepu took the turn and he could hit 160KMPH, we crossed kustagi and took left onwards gajendragad which is a single road and we had to maintain decent 80 pace, later near katral we had another right deviation towards badami which was 35km away,

Badami

 in another half an hour we were at badami and we fascinated to see the panoramic view of the Badami caves and its surrounding from the parking spot, we took the ticket and started hiking toward the caves, this cave could be covered within 30min and view from the top of the cave was truly eye popping.

Myself :P

We spent an hour or so at Badami and then started towards pattadakallu, it was almost 12pm by then, and patadakkalu was 20km away, we took more than an hour to reach pattadakallu, thanks to the wonderfully maintained road by our government :P, anyways patadakallu was also equivalently beautiful

Pattadakallu

and seems like the architectures dates back to 800AD, after spending an hour or so at the temple we had lunch at a near by stall and then we decided head toward aihole, the condition of the road towards aihole

Pattadakallu

is one of the worst somehow made it towards aihole and truly speaking we didn't like the place at all, no maintenance nothing at all, we saw the arch sitting inside the car and we decided not to go through aihole, so we started to head back to hampi were we planned to stay for the night.

Towards Kushtagi

We stopped near aminagad and this place sell one of the best karadantu packed some sweet for home and office and we headed back to hampi, we reached hospet by 6pm Deepu noticed a new kannada movie in the nearby theater and asked us to stop over and watch the movie, and without knowing what the movie is we took ticket and entered the cinema hall, later we came to know that it was a damn horror movie based on true story it was 6-5=2 movie, after completing the show we were literally shivering and scared to enter the car also, puneeth double checked the center lock and we headed towards mild jungle of Hampi and we were scared to death :) by 8pm we entered Hampi refreshed at the room and then we decided to go to the same German restaurant, sorry guys I don't remember the place name, but these place prepares some of the best pizzas and the ambiance of the place is also too good, by 9pm we hit our bed and we planned to visit TB dam in the morning. 

Day 3: 

Route : Hampi - Hospet - Chitradurga - Bangalore (350km)

All four of us were ready by 8am and as planned TB Dam was the next spot to be visited, we reached dam by 9 am and there was bus which was ready to take us to the hill top,

Tungabadra Dam

the view of tungabadra dam from hill top was too good and we took some snaps here and there, then we moved towards the park and aquarium located at the dam area, and they have also opened  boating recently and quite well maintained. It was 11am by then, and we had to start towards bangalore by then,

Windmill near Chitradurga

so we started towards our car and we hit the crossing of chitradurga road, again the painful journey towards chitradurga started, myself and deepu were in deep sleep, the journey continued for another 2hrs and later we found some people selling bananas at very cheap price we filled up the car boot full of bananas and moved towards the AH43 we took pitstop nearby and had some pics of windmills again, finally we touched pune bangalore nh and we were happy to see some speed on speedometer again, in another 2hr 30min we were at our homes.

Our Team - The 4 Idiots