Fourth weekend of March, 2008 (21,22,23) being a long one, Manideep and myself
decided to travel. Our initial plan was to travel the scenic locales from
Mangalore to Goa by Konkan Railway before we go to Belur and Halebidu. But the
plan was not fixed to make it flexible.

We packed our bags and set off to Mangalore on 20th. The weather was perfect for
travel with light drizzle bringing the mercury down. We had already, for some
unknown reasons, decided to drop the Konkan railway trip plan in favour of
Udipi. Mr. Radha Krishnan, a gentleman whom we met in train, gave us some rave
reviews about Kannur (North Malabar town), its picturesque backwaters and
sceneries. After some internal debate, Kannur was reserved for a future plan.

Some interesting incidents in train:
* A family, consisting old men, children and ladies (all evoking sympathy),
* boarded the s10 coach without reservation. By the time they realized their
* mistake (everyone in our coach were forcing them to get off), the train
* started moving. I explained them the situation and shared my seat with them.
* A telugu philosopher (sitting next to me) later likened my act to that of god's. :-)

* A couple who were also travelling in the same coach were to get down at
* Calicut (train reaches there at 11.30PM). I did not have a confirmed berth
* (RAC) and I actually convinced them to give me their berth. 

Day 2
Mangalore welcomed us with some brilliant weather and sweet chirpings of birds.
We performed all the early morning rituals at Mangalore station and left to
Udipi at 7AM. We reached the temple at 0830 and had a relaxed darshan. We failed
in our attempts to contact Dr. LaxmiNidhi as he had gone to his in-laws' place
in Kerala. Later it was when we were having the breakfast of our life that Laxmi
had called us up. Though it was my fault for not having informed in prior, he
refused to budge from his severely apologetic tone. So nice of you Laxmi.
  Having finished our breakfast, we went to Malpe Beach by 1100. After an hour
of agonizing wait, we got the Ferri to St. Mary's island. We forgot all about
out wait when the ferry actually went a little distance into the sea, giving us
the sight of the island. I was reminded of the DeCaprio movie - Beach instantly.

Summer Queen Lodge.
Day 3.
We got up at around 7 30 in the morning to find that the power is still
down. Our morales were lowered since our camera batteries was drained
and the outdoors looked beautiful. After a comfortable sleep, we were
ready for a hard day. We planned to go to Thalakaveri, Abbey falls,
Gaddhige (a tomb), Raja's seat(a view point) and the museum.  After
enquiries about these places during breakfast, we came to know that
Thalakaveri has just a temple and nothing else to offer and we
decided to drop it. That being a saturday, the museum was also closed.
   We went to Abbey falls which is about 8km from the Madikeri bus
stand.  We travelled through some of the finest coffee plantations of
this region. One other thing which caught out attention spontaneously
was the style of construction, especially the roofing. We reached the
falls at about 1100. We spent the next 45mins of our lives in a state of
delirium. The moist air around the waterfall was sufficient to drench us
completely. Though not the best fall around, I would rate it high for
the intoxicating coffee aroma present in the air.
   We arrived at the tomb (Gaddhige) of Kodagu kings (Lingarajendra,
Doddaveera Rajendra and his wife). The tomb was built in a
Indo-Sarcenic style by Chikaraveera Rajendra in 1820AD. There were few
other tombs at that site in memory of the royal priest and officials.
Kodagu kings, being worshippers of Shiva, have installed a couple of
bull statues as guards. The ambience looked good at the time we went
(post rain).
   After visiting other places in Coorg, we left to Hassan post lunch.
Our idea was to visit one of Belur/Halebidu on the same day, and stay
over if we like it, to visit the other the following day. Our hopes
crashed when we realized that we were too late upon reaching Hassan.
After some dilemma, whether to stay back or leave to Bangalore, while
having very tasty snacks at a small time darshini (Pepe something)
opposite Haasan bus stand, we halted at Haasan that night.

* Got appreciated for my Kannada. Not just once.
* The road from Madikeri to Haasan was a pleasant drive.

Day 4
The day started with a brilliant breakfast, again at the same darshini.
We headed to Halebidu first where we reached about 9 30. After some
initial attempts at understanding the beautiful architectures 
ourselves with help of a book, we resorted to hiring a guide. The guide 
gave us a lot of nice insights about the architectures. The sculptures
have so much of fine detail and it would actually take a week atleast to
understand entirely.
   The name of the place comes from the Kannada words Haalu and Beedu
which mean destroyed and village respectively. The temple was being
constructed for 190 years before the Sultanates from Delhi (Commanded by
Allaudin Khilji) attacked and  destroyed the city in the early 14th
century. The temple has many statues which have been destroyed and many
parts of the temple are still incomplete (Absence of shikhara has to be
noted). Actually there are two temples (Dvikutachala) - Hoysaleswara and
Shantaleswara on a single platform which is star shaped (plan/top view). 
	The exterior of the temple has 11 panels. The lowest panels has
elephants, symbolizing strength and stability. There are 1248 elephants
and each one is different from every other. The second panel/row has
lions - symbolizing courage, third and fifth - flowers for decoration,
fourth panel sculpted with horse epitomizing speed. The sixth panel
houses statues depicting scenes from Ramayana and Mahabharata such as
formation of Chakravyuha, Bhima killing elephants one after another etc.
The seventh panels has an imaginary animal called Makara. It has a body
of a pig, ear of a cow, tail of a peacock, eye of a monkey, mouth of a
croc and trunk of a elephant. The eigth has swans, ninth - musicians,
tenth- kshetrapalakas and eleventh is to educate people and has content
from Kamasutra.
	Some of the statues which impressed me the most were that of
Govardhanagiri Dhari, Gajasura vadhanam, Monkey pulling the saree of a
beautiful woman, the dancer with Bhava. The fine detail in these
pictures are so abundant that it takes hours to appreciate each one.
	  By the time we reached Belur, we were beginning to run out of
cash and hence we did not avail the services of a guide. This temple is
certainly bigger than Halebidu but less on densely packed with
architecture. This is a Vishnu temple while the one in Halebidu is a
Shiva temple. We spent all the time clicking and appreciating based on
our knowledge experience from Halebidu.
	We left to Bangalore at 1330 after lunch and we reach Bangalore
by 1900. Arvind Rangavajjula met us at the Railway Station and there was
a accidental running into the senior, RG, at the subway near the
Bangalore bus stand. That being a long weekend, we did not get any bus
and we resorted to travel in unreserved compartment of the special
train. We got a place to sit but it was the most horrible journey. We
reached Chennai early on the next morning and that was the end of a
great trip.