“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Somnathpur

This weekend, I had planned a trip to Somnathpur, which is some 35 kilometers from Mysore. Its a Hoysala architecture temple in a small village.

Hatched a stupid plan to travel by night train to Mysore and catch a bus from there to Somnathpur. Was in Bangalore Majestic bus stop from 10, waiting for the 2'o clock to Mysore. After noon went to the train ticket counter to book the tickets. Waited in Bangalore railway station until 2.

Bangalore Railway station @ noon
The general compartment shows how the poor India exists still. Living in Bangalore and spending time by watching movies and trying new restaurants every week, just keeps you away from reality. The real India still suffers in poverty. Watching people of very poor background around you. To be frank, I felt completely out of the crowd and was scared a bit. I tried to sleep a bit but couldn't get any sleep because of the weather. I hadn't taken any precautions for the weather. The night was so cold.

Was expecting the train to reach Mysore by  5 in the morning. But to our shock it reached Mysore by 4. Now we have to face the problem. I will have to kill time till might be till 7 before the buses starts functioning to the remote village. So started to take a walk around the palace. The town was just getting ready for the day.

Mysore Palace @ 5 in the morning

The roads around the palace


Finally the sun is up

We had to take two connecting buses before reaching Somnathpur. The first bus took us completely outside Mysore to a small town called Bannur. I had a chance to see a lot of metdaor vans after a long time. They had just vanished from my memory. I never knew they still existed. We were waiting there not completely aware if we are in the right direction towards Somnathpur. Just then we encountered a Chinese who was backpacking around South India for a month now. A sign of a foreigner in a remote part of India just means that you are in the right direction towards your destination. Now all we have to do is follow him.

We had reached the temple well before the gates were open. The gates open by 8.30 AM. We took a small walk around the village, and then was back to the temple complex.

The temple complex looked so small at first. Small compared to a lot of other temples, I have visited. But it was later when I found out that why this temple out of no where in some remote village attracted so many visitors. During the few hours I spent in the temple, I had seen a lot of foreigners than Indians.

The thing, I like about old monuments is that, I time travel to the time when this monument was in it's glorious days. The imagination I make in my head, that is so beautiful. That is why I visit these historical places and that is why I love reading fiction especially historical fiction.

Just overheard it from the tourist guide, that this temple stopped operating, I mean people stopped worshipping in this temple after Mallik Kafur raided this temple and destroyed the structure. And he also pointed at the main shrine and mentioned that it was a replica of the original shrine which is in London Museum.

The best thing about this temple was its minute details. The minute details in each carving was simply awesome.


















After just going around the temple. I had just entered the temple. The inside of the temple is just awesome. It is un explainable. I just believe few things are better experienced in person than reading or seeing it a photograph. My camera's flash had stopped working. So I was not able to take any photos inside the temple. The ceilings were the highlight of the whole architecture. You should sure visit it and experience the awesomeness in person.

Then came back to Mysore well before lunch and had a quick look at the palace again and started to Bangalore. Roaming around the streets of Mysore brought back some nice memories of my time in Infosys.