Poovar

Luxury travel is not my thing. I don't stay in resorts or stay in costly hotels. When I travel, I travel local and cheap. But you don't have a choice, when you travel with your life partner. Our first long trip to Povvar Island resort.

And the following photos are of the resort and the backwaters around it. If you go there don't miss the early morning bird watching trip in the back waters.

Woke to this view

A view from The Poovar Island Resort

Moon yet to set and the fisherman

This frame has the birds, moon, the fisherman and the resort

The place I stayed

Poovar Island Resort

Bird watching

Backwaters

A Kingfisher

Sailing through this was an awesome feeling

Madhugiri Betta

Hampi III

The gist of this travel.

I speak to my friends a lot about Hampi. So they asked me to accompany them as a guide to Hampi.

This time, I got company when I travelled to Hampi. We were able to reach Hampi by early morning. I pushed my friends to climb the Matunga Hills to view the sun rise. So at last got a chance to witness sun rise from Matunga Hills.

Hampi has a lot to offer. Each time it brings up some new spot. This time the underground shiv linga gates were open. The water level in underground shiva temple was down. I was able to get a closer look of the linga inside.

I didn't carry my camera this time as it was an unplanned trip. So this photo is taken using my mobile. You can see the linga if you look carefully.

And one other thing I noted was the new structures being renovated. There were few new structures which just showed up / were renovated since my last visit.

Tiruvannamalai

A small temple town in Tamilnadu, India. The temple here is around 200 years old. This target was in my mind for a few months now. Girivalam is a tradition in which pilgrimages go around the hillock in this village. The whole path covers around 14 kms. This Girivalam happens every full moon day of the month. Keeping away the spiritual things, I decided to participate in the Girivalam.

All along the path there are 9 lingams. It's believed that each lingam has its own special powers. For example the Kubera Lingam is believed to have the power to offer you a lot of wealth. Obviously this was the most crowded lingam.

We had started to Tiruvannamalai from Bangalore at about 10.00 PM. It took us a whole six hours to reach Tiruvannamalai because of the bad roads. We started walking as soon as we reached. We finished the whole round around 8.00 AM in the morning. During the trip, we encountered shops trying to sell authentic Ayurvedic medicine which cures all kinds of pain in 10 minutes, people selling medicinal soup, water, and all other eatables. There are a lot of book shops also for the book lovers. And like all other temple towns in India, there are a lot of beggars.

Infront of a lingam along the path

Yema Lingam

Stores attract customers with different strategies

A snake charmer

Surya Lingam 

Sunlight slowly comes in

The crowd in front of us

The hillock

One more snake charmer with a monkey

The RajaGopuram

Hampi II

I had visited Hampi again, I love this place for some unknown reason. I travelled alone this time too.

Here are few interesting incidents which took place in both the trips.

Lost in a Island
I was wandering along the Tungabhadra river in Hampi. I was following the sign boards leading to a temple. The place was completely deserted. The last people I saw was a group of youngsters posing for a photo with a solo foreign traveller. I had crossed them a long back and walked into the green lush near the river. I felt lost. I noticed a local guy following me. I was not sure if he was following me or he is in his way to do his work.

Anyway I acted as if I was taking photos and made him go ahead of me. So brilliant of me right :-p. After moving some ten feet ahead of me. He stopped and asked if I wanted a trip in the boat to the island he pointed. Sounds interesting right. I agreed and he rowed me there in his parisal.

After reaching there, I felt something about the place was fishy. This boat guy dropped me and sailed away. There was not even a single person in sight. After roaming for sometime I found a tamil lady and a tourist.I learned that she was settled in Australia and she was from Coimbatore.

The guide informed me that there is no bridge / boat to get out of this island. :-( I had to wait till there tour of the island was over and they gave me a lift to the other side of the river.

Free Tender Coconut
As usual, I was wondering and was so thirsty. I saw a bunch of people with tender coconuts in the road side. I stopped my bike and asked them for a coconut. They mentioned its not for sale. I started my bike again but the boss in the crowd stopped me and offered me a coconut. When I paid him money, he didn't take it. Free coconut.

I am Inspector
I was having a look around a deserted building. There was a old lady in the premises. I started speaking to her and started enquiring about the kind of work people do their for renovating the building. She asked me 'Are you here to inspect the work?'. Guess what. I answered yes, and inspected the building and left.

Hyderabad

This trip again was unplanned for. We wanted to go to Hyderabad on a long road trip. Its around 560 km from Bangalore. Friday night we started playing carom board and when the clock hit somewhere around 2 we started from Bangalore. The highway from Bangalore to Hyderabad is so awesome. There was no major incidents we noticed here on our whole 1200 km drive.

There was a bad experience with the Hyderabad traffic police, which I have blogged here.

First we had gone to Charminar. It didn't wow anyone. The interesting thing to note was there was a Hindu temple next to it. I had read about that the controversies about that temple a long back. When seeing incidents like this. I personally feel Tamilnadu is much peaceful than many other parts of India.

Then we went to a briyani place nearby called Shadaab. The briyani there wasn't so great. Then we visited the Makkah Masjid. And next in our itinerary was the Buddha Statue.

The statue looked so beautiful. But the lake smelled like shit. It was a very disgusting drive to the statue.

Next we booked a room and went to the Paradise Restaurant. There briyani was completely impressive. Next day we went to Golconda Fort. Then started to Bangalore to reach by the evening.