Lepakshi Veerabhadra Swamy Temple, Andhra Pradesh

While returning from Belum Caves (Read about this in my previous post), we stayed in Anantapur at Hotel Sapthagiri Balla.  It is a very good hotel in this town with attached veg (Chutnees) and multi-cuisine (Spice) restaurants.  After a nice rest, we had breakfast at the attached Chutnees restaurant (buffet breakfast was included in the room charge), we started towards Lepakshi.

Lepakshi is a small village located in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh.  It is around 120km north of Bangalore.  The Veerabhadra Swamy temple dedicated to Lord Shiva is located here.  The temple is built in Vijayanagar architecture style and has excellent sculptures built by Vijayanagar empire artisans.  The temple also has a repository of mural paintings of Vijayanagar kings and gods.  A reference to this temple is made in the 'Skandapurana' as one of the hundred and eight important Shiva temples. This temple is a visual treat to anyone interested in historic sculptures and architecture showing the skill of the our predecessors.

Trip to Belum Caves, Andhra Pradesh

During this year end, we were looking for nearby places to visit in a day or two.  We were planning to travel with a friend and family and this place was suggested by them.  It is surprising that we never heard of this place before.  Belum Caves is the second largest cave in Indian subcontinent and the longest caves in plains of Indian Subcontinent, known for its stalactite and stalagmite formations. It have long passages, spacious chambers, fresh water galleries and siphons. The caves reach its deepest point 120 feet from ground level. Belum Caves derives its name from "Bilum" Sanskrit word for caves. In Telugu language, it is called Belum Guhalu. It has a length of 3229 meters, making it the second largest natural caves in Indian Subcontinent.  The cave was restored by APTDC and was open to public in 2002 for 1.5 km stretch.  Around 3.5km of the cave have been explored so far. (Information from Wikipedia)

Gagan Chukki Falls, Sivanasamudram

Our trip to Mysore on last October long weekend was the first pleasure trip after we got our daughter. She has almost reached a year and is ready to join me. En-route to Mysore, we visited Sivanasamudram (also called Sivasamudram). I heard about the water falls from one of my colleague and decided to check it out.

River Cauvery flows through this place towards its journey to find sea and creates two waterfalls called Gagan Chukki Falls and Bara Chukki Falls. The best season to visit the falls is around July-August when Cauvery river is full. There was not too much water this time of the year, but it was good enough to enjoy.

Sivasamudram is located in Mandya district in Karnataka state where the Cauvery river splits to two and forms a small island and the two water falls called Gagan Chukki (90 meters) and Bara Chukki (69 meters). Both the falls are only km away from each other. We visited only Gagan Chukki falls since we had to reach Mysore by that night. From Bangalore, the falls is around 135 kms.

Hogenakkal Falls Trip

We had a three day holiday due to Ugadi and decided to go out some where. Since Hogenakkal was in news for all the wrong reasons these days, we decided to go there. We started out in the morning in our car around 8:45am and reached Hosur by 9:15 am. Hoganekkal is around 150km from Bangalore.

There are three ways you can go to Hogenakkal from Hosur. First Krishnagiri-Dharmapuri-Pennagaram and second via Roayakkottai-Palakkod-Pennagaram and third via Denkanikottai. The third route is suppose to be very scenic and the shortest, but the roads are very bad. We were advised not to take that route on our Maruti 800.

Bannerghatta National Park

For this weekend and since this is a Gandhi jayanthi and a bandh day in Chennai, both of my brothers were in Bangalore.

We went to Bannerghatta National Park. We did Tiger and Lion Safari. We saw lot of tigers and some lions. Not a bad trip compared to some safari's I have gone in US where you don't see animals. But overall not very exciting. The animals were very healthy. Sometimes it resembles more of a zoo than a national park with lot of animals in cages.

The park is around 25 kilometer from HSR Layout and took around 40 minutes to reach. Well maintained and has also a good zoo. Some other attractions also are there including butterfly park, elephant safari etc. Pretty much a good destination for people with kids and also good for those who are nature loving to have a chance to spend some time out from the mechanical world.

Strawberry farm visit

Last weekend we went to Boone Hall Plantation, a Strawberry farm near Charleston. It was nice to pickup your own strawberries and blackberries. We need to search between the sea of strawberry plants to find a good and ripe one. Blackberries were more generous and cleaner. Cost was also 50% compared to grocery stores.

This is a very good way of spending time and getting some fresh and healthy fruits. There are many strawberry farms around Charleston at a radius of 5-15 miles. Once you reach there, they have a set of baskets for the fixed price of $2, $5 etc. You can choose one and fill as many fruits as you want. The one where we went also had a nice garden with different types of flowers. We took some photos there. There is also a large sunflower farm. It was good to be in the middle of so many sunflowers.