A weekend getaway to the Nilgiris

I had been dreaming of the Nilgiris for the last few weeks. They kept surfacing in my conversations and thoughts. So I decided to head out there this weekend. I am going to be in Coonoor and hope to roam around if the weather holds. I have no agenda and I hope to just relax and take it easy . See you guys next week and have a great weekend.

 Backpacker has loads of updates and stories coming up for you this week ; so stay tuned. Ciao !

Off to Coorg - Scanned Memories

I'm off to Coorg on Friday . Hence there is a sharp deviation from my posts on the west coast to the green environs of Coorg .

Ive been to Coorg many times..but it was all before the travel bug bit me. Those were days without a digital camera, with friends and families, weekends spent lazing around. But scanned memories do make a couple of trips special and they highlight one feature. That the trips have never been planned.

There is another trip that we made many years ago . We were living in Chennai then . We landed in Bangalore on the weekend and were immediately bored. We are not the partying variety and Bangalore even today tires me... Anyways,on a Saturday evening in late August when the rains had just settled down, we called up some friends and asked if we were game to drive to Mysore. It was 8 pm already as we started and landed in Mysore well past midnight. We all checked into a room and chatted the night away and decided that we will lunch in Madikeri. But as we drove through Nagarhole Forest, we lost track of time. And then we went looking for food and a waterfall. We found both in Irpu .

Located in the Brahmagiri Range , these falls are also known as the Lakshmana Tirtha Falls,the source of the river with the same name. As the name goes, there is a story dated back to the Ramayan days. While Rama and Lakshman were looking for Sita in the hills, Rama was thirsty. Lakshmana in his quest to get his elder brother water shot an arrow into the hills and the river is said to have originated . Crossing a paddy field followed by a forest, the trail led us to the spot which was also a pilgrimage spot. A famous Siva temple, the Rameshwara Temple is situated on the banks of the Lakshmana Tirtha River, en route to the Falls.

We still had not found food. We even found a bar , lots of tea shops in neighbouring Kutta but no place to lunch .So we kept driving around until we came to Ramcad estate and filled our appetite. A great place , I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a simple whole hearted meal with a great view. We wanted to linger, drive to Madikeri, but had a night train from Bangalore to Chennai . And that brought us to the end of another weekend getaway .

The last visit to Coorg was about a couple of years ago when we woke up one Saturday morning and decided that we wanted to go to Coorg ASAP. This time, friends were not available, and so we just drove .. It was more the drive than the destination that we went after and that phase of time, we were willing to give an arm and a leg, just to get out of Bangalore. Nothing to write home about, except that it was a fantastic weekend .

Shettihalli- a church submerged in water

My weekend getaway was quite a different experience. A visit to a coffee plantation( No-Not Coorg) was not just about long walks in the estate, or watching picking and pulping of coffee seeds or even getting lost in the many species of birds that were fluttering high. . It promised to be a discovery of sorts.

Blended with history and spirituality, the aroma was stronger. We started the weekend with a visit to a small hamlet , Shettihalli.


We were cruising down from Bangalore towards Hassan on the bypass road and the milestone read 2 kms to Hassan. My uncle had read that there was a ruins of a church in a hamlet close by and we decided to ask. Many fingers pointed left towards Shettihalli, some said 10 kms, some said 6 kms and we drove till we saw a dry field (probably sunflower )around us and then came a vast expanse of water . Standing tall in the water was the ruins of an ancient church, home to a few birds .

There was not a soul in sight and there were no roads leading to the church. We took a small detour from the road and parked the car and started walking , across what looked like a dry field filled with thorny bushes and a few trees.

It was the backwaters of the Hemavathy Reservoir and the monument was the Holy Rosary Church built by French Missionaries around 1860. We met a few villagers on our return who told us that this village was once a lush hamlet where the River Hemavathy flowed watering fields of sunflower.

An idyllic village lost to development when the reservoir was built at Gorur to develop agriculture around the neighbouring towns. No one there knew the name of the church and I tried googling it to find out. A couple of newspaper articles from The Hindu gave me the name and the rest tallied with what the villagers had told us .

The church was reportedly built with mortar and bricks and a mixture of jaggery and eggs.During monsoons, the water level rises submerging the entire church apparently, when only the spire is seen at times. The entire roof had caved in while part of the altar and the central nave still stand but there were no stained glass windows or pews or even windows left in the church.

We had loads of birds , cattle and reptiles for company , but not a person around . We chanced on it by serendipity, but discoveries like this make a weekend getaway special .


The post does not end here - A very special thanks to GMG (Blogtrotter)who has given me an award - "You make my day."

Now its my turn . I would like to give the award to 10 people whose blogs bring me happiness and inspiration and make me feel happy about blogland.

So I'll pass the "You make my day" to Smita, Reeta, Mark, Merisi,Priyank, Kalyan, Celine, Ajeya, Stephanie and GMG whose blogs have been a great pleasure to read ..

Mahabalipuram - Tiger Cave

There is neither a tiger nor a dark dingy cave , but located in Saluvankuppam, five kms from Mahabalipuram , are a couple of rock cut temples . The name is derived from a cave temple which has a crown of carved heads of an animal that looks like a tiger It is said that the animal depicted is the mythological yali and it is known as the Yali Mandapam .






Small hillocks, big boulders set amidst casurania trees and the sandy shores make this a great haven for birds and an idyllic picnic spot . The mandapam is like an open air theatre and even today, some cultural events are held here





The rock cut cave temple with a Shiva Linga and a Nandi is at a corner while the temple is situated below ground level and hence the top of the rock that forms the roof of the temple is accessible for climbing.






The beach is located near the cave temples and its a much quieter option than the Mahabalipuram beach .

Mahabalipuram- Monolithic Temples - The Five Rathas

In school. I had studied about the monolothic temples and often as kids, we had played hide and seek in these caves. Today, the perspective had altered completely .

A tribute to the Pandavas of the Mahabharath , the Pallavas have built five Rathas or chariots out of just a single boulder. The Rathas are called Dharmaraja ratha (Yudhistrar), Bheema, Arjuna, Sahadeva -Nakula and their spouse , Draupadi .





The ASI site says that the monolithic temples are called locally as Ratha (Chariot) as they resemble the processional chariots of a temple. Temples of different plan and elevation have been carved and the left over portions were intelligently used to carve animals in a natural way. The architecture style is said to be Dravidian in nature , while Buddhist styles and designs are also visible .

These monolith temples were carved during the reign of King Mahendravarman I and his son Narasimhavarman I. Gods, mortals and animals are sculpted on these temples as some of them are three storied like the Dharamaraja ratha and single storied like Draupadi ratha.



The richest in terms of art is the Dharmaraja ratha . Simple forms of Siva, Harihara, Brahma are some of the Gods depicted here . A portrait of a king, possibly Narasimhavarman I himself above which his titles Sri Megha and Trailokiya - vardhana-vidhi are inscribed. To quote ASI site again - "the upper floors, a veritable gallery of images, have excellently modelled images of Siva as Gangadara, the earliest representation of Siva as Natesa in the Tamil country, Vrishbantika, Kankalamurti, Vishnu resting on Garuda, and Kaliyamardhana. "




The Bhima Ratha is more oblong in shape and the shrine is probably dedicated to the reclining Vishnu, The Arjuna Ratha carved out of a single rock and has several sculptures - Siva and Skanda among other Gods. The Draupadi Ratha is more like a simple hut and here you can find the presiding deity to be Durga. The Sahadeva-Nakula Ratha is near Arjuna ratha and the other Rathas here are Ganesha Ratha and Pidari Rathas.



The setting sun did not allow me to go beyond the rathas. The watchman soon drove us away as we went to Arjuna Penance . I could not take pictures as the light was failing and it would not be fair to display the architectural genius in such poor light .

It is interesting to note that post tsunami in 2004 , excavations have shown some carvings and sculptures under water and the ASI is working on the premise that there was probably a city under water . Underwater excavations are going on at various sites near by and Punjeri, a small hamlet across the backwaters is now suggested as the port town with the lighthouse close by

For more details, you can read http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/may102004/1231.pdf ,
http://www.nio.org/past_events/archaeology/session_I.jsp or the ASI site http://asi.nic.in/asi_monu_whs_mahabalipuram.asp.



To quote from one of the papers written on the website of National institute of Ocenography by Sundaresh*, A.S. Gaur, S. Tripati and K.H. Vora,

"According to the local traditions these structures are the remains of temple as there were 5 temples believed to be submerged out of 7 and the shore temple is the last surviving one located on the shore at Mahabalipuram. The earliest possible date of these structures could be around 1500 years BP, as the temple architecture has flourished during the Pallava period. The backwaters at Mahabalipuram, on the western bank of Buckingham canal probably served as a port at Punjeri during early centuries of the Christian era. The major and important factor affecting Mahabalipuram cost is erosion. A recent study suggested that the rate of coastal erosion in and around Mahabalipuram could be as high as 55 cm per year. Therefore cause of the submergence of these structures is probably severe coastal erosion. "

As we drove back , a light from the old light house steered us back into the present and its a still a testimony to the old town thats probably under water , swept away by an earlier tsunami or sea erosion or..



Getting there - Mahabalipuram is about 60 .kms from Madras and you can reach by driving through ECR or OMR. Buses are available as well from Chennai / Madras. There are five star hotels, resorts to shacks and for further details , visit www.mahabalipuram.co.in . The best time to visit will be December-January as the festival usually takes place around this time of the year