Destination Shivagange!

Sunday, 3rd March 2013

This Sunday it is finally trekking :-). We chose Shivagange for small trek. I was not alone this time. Two of my office colleagues Rajesh and Sudhir also joined me. The plan was to start early from Bangalore and reach there by 10. However, I made it late ;-). Again same startup hiccups made me join them late. It was planned to gather around 9AM but I could only reach there 30minutes late :-(. We boarded Suvarna Karnataka Saarige bus destined to Pavagada. We had to get down at Dabaspet and take auto from there. We reached Dabaspet around 10:45AM. Fortunately there was no traffic nearby both toll gates this time. We enjoyed tasty sugarcane juice (all of us had 2 glass full!) and later took an auto to Shivagange. Usually if they carry in bulk, it would cost 10Rs per head. Since we hired it, he took around 50Rs.

We started our trekking at around 11AM. We had packed so many food stuffs to sustain during the journey. The first 10% of the walk path till temple is steps. Remaining is either plain walk path or uneven steps and sometimes very steep (especially last few sections). In between there are lot of monkeys. They easily identify photographers and do not disturb them or their cameras [Unless you are not holding food items ;-)]. They do not even bother taking pictures of them closeup [they actually pose well :-)]. I was taking lot of pictures of surroundings and my colleagues. Sometimes I was playing around Depth of field and Shutter speed.

FIRST VIEW

DON'T TOUCH MY KIDS

ONE MORE VIEW STILL UP

LANDSCAPE ;-)

NANDI & LANDSCAPE

NANDI FACING LANDSCAPE!

Almost half way up, there is a temple called Olakallu teertha (Water inside stone) where Veerabhadraswamy is deity inside a cave. Also there is natural rock water tub which has small hole. It is believed that if you can touch water, you are lucky. Ironically most of them could touch it easily :-) (me and Rajesh too!). Sudhir did not come inside temple since he was lethargic to remove shoes. You can have small offerings to deity too. Also laddus are available for 10Rs each which contains 2 in number. When we came out, Monkeys saw that and they were adamant to grab it. However Sudhir did some trick to disguise the laddus and they finally went away.

OLAKALLU TEERTHA!

The picture inside olakallu teertha was the first time I went beyond ISO-800. I could not grab much light at 1/15s and f/3.5. Decreasing shutter speed would have blurred out photo [I don't have steady hand ;-)]. This made me to bump up the ISO to 1600. One might ask was flash would not have been better? Yes but but it takes away natural look IMHO. What do you think?



Some more pictures!

THERE ARE LOTS OF SUCH EN-ROUTE!

ADVENTUROUS GOAT :-)

There are lots of snack shop along the way till peak of hillock. So do not listen to vendors in middle who misguide saying they are the last vendor along the way. There are huge number of monkeys too! If they see food packet, they do not hesitate to grab. If they start grabbing, make sure you hand over the food packet otherwise you will end up in misery! [Even they do not mind sharing :-)].

DO YOU HAVE FOOD OR ONLY CAMERA?

We were getting tired but our energy was still full! We were having water melon, cucumber and water to make sure body has enough liquid. Water melon and cucumber are really tasty and very good. Watch out for overgrown cucumber at some places. After some more trek we reached a temple place where beautiful Shiva and Parvathi statues were laid. We thought that was the peak. LOL :D, that was only beginning! The real trek point starts now with steep steps and walk paths. That was really tiresome. Rajesh was saying we had seen only trailer and movie is about to begin now!

WE THOUGHT IT WAS OVER

LOL :D. MOVIE HAS BEGUN FINALLY!

Despite of huge tiredness I took lot of shots in between. The best thing was to capture monkeys and their mischieves.

LOOK WHERE AM I

STILL MORE HARD STEPS

After few more hard walk, atlast we see the great Nandi carved from single stone! Hurrah we are on top now! We had 2 full glasses of buttermilk which was very tasty. There are also two small temples on top. There is a view point where two stone pillars stand tall. It seems during sankranti somewhere near these pillars, milk comes out which is used for rudrabhisheka. Not very clear, one of the vendor cited this. It will be crowded too at this point of time.

AT LAST WE ARE ON TOP

ONE MORE VIEW

CAN YOU DO THIS?

BEAUTIFUL NANDI

We could see many people at around middle of hillock but not much at the top. May be some people backout? Not sure. There were some people who had climbed the hillock barefooted. Really amazing with such hot sun and burning rocks. It almost took 3 hours to climb the hillock. May be because we took lot of stops to rest and take pictures. The most active on top of hillock were monkeys! They were checking each visitor for food packets. One of the monkey checked Rajesh's bag and his shirt pocket :-). They are fearless! The return journey is pretty much easy and only caution is to make sure to control the gravity pull. We took just an hour to come down.

LANDSCAPE AND BOULDER

FULL LANDSCAPE

POND

ENTRANCE

We had cool drinks after we were back to ground. There are auto-rickshaws to carry back you again to Dabaspet. They were charging Rs.80 now for hire. May be earlier auto-rickshaw driver was resident of this place or had some work here, he took less money. We decided not to hire and waited until auto got filled. It costs Rs.10/- per head if you decide to board it as mass transport.

GOODBYE SHIVAGANGE!

At Dabaspet. we boarded a bus to bangalore but without a seat. Sudhir got early seat near Nelamangala but me and Rajesh could not get until Jalahalli cross. Make your own arrangements for food and travel. It is really tiring to travel standing on bus after trek. Moreover Dabaspet does not have direct buses to Bangalore and most buses run over the NH-4 fly over rather than entering town. Only buses from Pavagada area stop here. There are private buses but they do not reach Majestic.

Some mistakes I made while taking photos:

1) I did not pop up flash at shadows. Some portraits came in dark however corrected with GIMP. I believe this is the situation where you have to use flash even in broad daylight
2) Did not change picture style to portrait from landscape while photographing people. Pictures of portrait came up bit more sharper than required.

I hope I will rectify these during my next trips.

The video!:

Video time. I have one video as of now. The other one is yet to be uploaded!
Watch humorous scene of goats enjoying tap water

ಚುರುಮುರಿ (Churumuri)

ಸಂಜೆ ಕಾಫಿ ಜೊತೆಗೆ ನನ್ನ ಅಚ್ಚುಮೆಚ್ಚಿನ ತಿಂಡಿ ಚುರುಮುರಿ. ಕರಾವಳಿಯ ಮಳೆಗೆ ಸರಿಯಾದ ಹೊಂದಾಣಿಕೆ. ಇದನ್ನು ತಯಾರಿಸುವುದು ಕೂಡ ಬಹಳ ಸುಲಭ. ನಾನು ತಯಾರಿಸುವ ವಿಧಾನವನ್ನು ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಬರೆದಿದ್ದೇನೆ.

ಬೇಕಾಗುವ ಸಾಮಾಗ್ರಿಗಳು:

೧) ೨ ಟೊಮ್ಯಾಟೋ (ಗಾತ್ರ ದೊಡ್ಡದಾಗಿದ್ದಾರೆ ಒಂದು ಸಾಕು)
೨) ೨ ಈರುಳ್ಳಿ
೩) ಮೆಣಸಿನ ಪುಡಿ
೪) ನಿಂಬೆಹಣ್ಣು - ಅರ್ಧಸಾಕು
೫) ತೆಂಗಿನಎಣ್ಣೆ
೬) ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಮಿಕ್ಶರ್
೫) ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ತುರಿದ ಕ್ಯಾರೆಟ್
೬) ಮಂಡಕ್ಕಿ.

ತಯಾರಿಸುವ ವಿಧಾನ:

ಮೊದಲು ಟೊಮ್ಯಾಟೋ ಮತ್ತು ಈರುಳ್ಳಿಯನ್ನು ಸಣ್ಣಗೆ ತುಂಡರಿಸಬೇಕು. ಸಣ್ಣ ಪಾತ್ರೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ೪ ಚಮಚ ತೆಂಗಿನ ಎಣ್ಣೆಯನ್ನು ಸುರಿಯಿರಿ. ಅದಕ್ಕೆ ರುಚಿಗೆ ಬೇಕಾದಷ್ಟು ಉಪ್ಪು ಮತ್ತು ಮೆಣಸಿನ ಪುಡಿ ಸೇರಿಸಿ. ನಂತರ ತುಂಡರಿಸಿದ ಟೊಮ್ಯಾಟೋ, ತುರಿದ ಕ್ಯಾರೆಟ್ ಮತ್ತು ಈರುಳ್ಳಿಯನ್ನು ಸೇರಿಸಿ. ಮಿಶ್ರಣವನ್ನು ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿ ಕಲಸಿ ನಂತರ ಅದಕ್ಕೆ ನಿಂಬೆಹಣ್ಣು ರಸ ಹಿಂಡಿ.  ಈಗ ಬೇಕಾದಷ್ಟು ಮಂಡಕ್ಕಿ ಸೇರಿಸಿ ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿ ಕಲಸಿ. ಅದಕ್ಕೆ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಮಿಕ್ಶರ್ ಸೇರಿಸಿ ಮತ್ತೆ ಕಲಸಿ. ರುಚಿಯಾದ ಚುರುಮುರಿ ತಯಾರು :-).

ತಯಾರಾದ ತಕ್ಷಣವೇ ತಿನ್ನಿ ಇಲ್ಲವಾದಲ್ಲಿ ಮಂಡಕ್ಕಿ ಮೆದುವಾಗುತ್ತದೆ. ಆದಷ್ಟು ಕೊನೆಗೆ ಮಂಡಕ್ಕಿ ಸೇರಿಸಿ. ಮೆಣಸಿನ ಪುಡಿ ಮತ್ತು ತರಕಾರಿ ನಿಮಗೆ ಬೆಕಾಗುವಷ್ಟು ಸೇರಿಸಿ. ಇಲ್ಲಿ ನಾನು ಬರೆದಿದ್ದು ಒಬ್ಬರಿಗೆ ಬೇಕಾಗುವಷ್ಟು ಮಾತ್ರ. ನಿಮ್ಮ ಬೇಡಿಕೆಗೆ ತಕ್ಕಂತೆ ಬದಲಾಯಿಸಿ. ಚುರುಮುರಿಗೆ ತುರಿದ ಮಾವಿನಕಾಯಿ ಮತ್ತು ಸೌತೆಕಾಯಿ ಕೂಡ ಸೇರಿಸಬಹುದು. ಸೌತೆಕಾಯಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ನೀರಿನ ಅಂಶ ಇರುವುದರಿಂದ ನಾನು ಹೆಚ್ಚಾಗಿ ಬಳಸುವುದಿಲ್ಲ.

My first RTI and story

It has been around 1.5 years since I shifted my organization. The main burden is to get PF transferred. The people in new organization do provide PF transfer application which we can fill and they submit to Central PF organization. In our organization, the PF is maintained by trust and hence we could track our PF status every month.

It would generally take around 6 months to transfer PF from previous to current account [which may include initiation my current organization + previous organization + actual PF office work]. Mine was not transferred even after 8 months. Some people had got it transferred in 2-3 months time. I got frustrated very much.  Inevitably, I had to track down on the status. I consulted the trust guys and they communicated that it has been already sent to my previous organization for transfer. I confirmed from my previous organization too! A grievance was raised with PF office too but no luck. The status was not updated for many months. My previous account status was showing that the account had been cleared and cheque has been drafted to deposit to new account. I am not sure where did that cheque travel to or was it a dummy entry altogether. Even trust was helpless since PF office will not entertain mangling with personal account. Finally I had no choice other than applying RTI. I looked around Internet for the help. After many searches I came across beautiful article in Jaago Investor on applying RTI for PF.

After following the procedure mentioned in the article, it was time to post it to PF office. A week after, I received acknowledgement for the reception too! After a month of wait, I finally received reply to my grievance that PF amount has been settled and transferred to new account. It takes one or two months for the actual deposit. For most people it may not be so much cumbersome, however my bad luck had turned things really bad. It took almost 1.5 years to settle it down. If I had not applied RTI, things would have not moved at all. Yes, it is duty of office to do it, however things are never reliable. Finally I am happy that PF is transferred to my new account, however not sure if they have included the interest for delay in transfer (I have not received PF slips for many years).

I once again thank Jago Investor article for help: http://www.jagoinvestor.com/2012/03/rti-for-epf-withdrawal-or-transfer.html

Chowdeshwari Temple in middle of Shiraadi Ghat

This is something we were planning during every car journey however could not make it due to various reasons. This time during our return journey from Bangalore to Kaup we halted at this place. Since we had started from bangalore around 5AM, we could easily reach here around 10:30AM. This place at the border of Dakshina-Kannada and Hassan district along NH-75 and belongs to Haanubaalu hobali of Sakaleshpur Taluk. Devi Chowdeshwari is facing eastwards. There is a small seva counter too! The place is around 9kms from Gundya Forest Gate. Gundya River flows besides the temple. There was not much water in river. During Monsoon, you will see it full vigor ;-). The hillock near by has railway tracks which runs between Sakaleshpur and Subramanya Road. It was very much hazy and could not grab good picture [can capture good train video with zoom lens of 300mm ;-)]. CPL filters would have done great job here since Sun was approximately around 90 degrees to plane. There is Nagabana here too! Lots of truck stop here to take blessings or just too have small rest (there are shops nearby) or to have fun in river [any of three may be applicable :-)]. We did not go near by river since we had to leave for Subramanya. Nevertheless nice place to enjoy temple with beautiful western ghats :-). Here are some pictures

BEHIND THE TEMPLE

THE DEITY - CHOWDESHWARI

GUNDYA RIVER - NOT MUCH WATER (SEE REAR END)

TEMPLE PREMISES

SHIRAADI GHAT

SIDE VIEW OF TEMPLE

NH-75 TOWARDS MANGALORE

NH-75 TOWARDS SAKALESHPUR

Visit to Devarayanadurga and Namada Chilume

This is my second visit to some noted places nearby Tumkur area. First one was Goravanahalli Mahalakshmi Temple. This time I had decided to visit Devarayanadurga and Namada Chilume. There are many places which are worth watching however I did not have own vehicle (car is at native place). As usual I planned to start early Sunday morning, however some pending work and breakfast preparation took some time. I took the bike till KG Road since there are no buses to majestic from my place. I parked at Kempegowda Maharaja Complex. They were charging Rs.25 for 12 hrs.

After reaching Majestic bus stand, I enquired a bus conductor about the buses to Devarayanadurga. He guided me to take buses destined to Pavagada and get down in between at oordigere. From there I can get autos which take us to temple. The bus was ready and started towards Dabaspet. The fare is Rs.53/-. There was no traffic at all. It was around 10:10AM the bus started. Surprisingly there was traffic jam in Jalahalli Cross and Dabaspet toll gate :-(. This may be because of high traffic density and people not tendering exact change. The jams near toll gates added almost 25 minutes delay. After 90 minutes of journey I reached Oordigere. As soon as I alighted, autos were calling for passengers towards Devarayanadurga temple. I asked auto guy to dedicate the auto to me for the day and show me all the places nearby. We agreed upon a fare and started towards the temple.  Some pictures enroute to temple

YOU CAN START FROM BOTTOM OF HILL

THE YOGANARASIMHA TEMPLE VIEW

The temple is around 6kms from Oordigere. There are two temples. One below and one above the hillock. The below one is known as BhogaLakshmiNarasimha temple while the above one YogaLakshmiNarasimha temple. There is an entrance fee for private vehicles too! First he carried me to hillock temple. The hillock temple is open till 5PM only while the below one I believe 7:30PM. The vehicle has to climb the hill through steep turns and can reach until a point. From there on one has two step towards the hill for about 200 in number. Watch out for monkey herd in between. Do not dare to hold any food items open. They will easily snatch without any hesitation. They did not bother about DSLR. Probably they know in advance the publicity they get from DSLRs ;-). One can also step into the hill from bottom if wished. But it may be more than 1000 I believe. The steps are pretty well renovated. Enjoy the scenic rocky mountain view in between. I took many pics but cannot post everything here ;-). Some pictures

HANUMAN IDOL CARVED ON THE BOULDER

WE ARE READY TO CLIMB!

ROCKY HILL VIEW IN BETWEEN

ONE MORE VIEW OF AMAZING HILLS!

The deity was very well decorated at the time I went. The temple premises seems to be recently renovated. Small sevas are also conducted here. However may be due to lack of space, they do not undertake larger ones. There are magnificent boulders in between. They are so well balanced too! Near the temple a small pushkarini can be seen and also Anjaneya temple. While stepping towards temple also one can visit Anajaneya temple. Do not miss the tasty cucumber and churumuri at the entrance. The churumuri just costs Rs.10/- with so many ingredients! They are really so tasty [I had around 5 cucumber pieces at a time with lime+salt+vegetables ;-)]. Also do not miss tender coconut water. Some people in their blogs had cited these eatables as unhealthy, however they are not atleast for me may be because I was grown up in village environment. We had enjoyed such things a lot during our childhood including churmuri in beach side despite the sand movement. So after so many pics taken, we moved towards the temple below the hillock.  Here are some pictures from hillock

HERE WE ARE FINALLY IN TEMPLE

VIEW FROM INSIDE

HUGE BOULDERS!

PUSHKARINI OF TEMPLE

FULL VIEW OF TEMPLE

It was already around 1:30PM when we reached the temple below the hill. This is BhogaLakshmiNarasimhaTemple. The deity looked similar to what was seen except expression on face. However crowd here was not so much or were they enjoying food? There is free lunch served near by temple in Anna Dasoha bhavan from 12PM to 3:30PM. One can even donate to this cause. This temple is also renovated and has more area too! I had lunch in Anna Dasoha bhavan and donated some money too! The lunch was very much simple and thats the way it should be. Rice, sambar, buttermilk and bit of payasam were the ingredients of lunch. It was tasty too since I was hungry :-). There are also monkeys and buffaloes near by temple.  Here are pictures nearby temple

BHOGA NARASIMHA TEMPLE BELOW HILL

VIEW OF HILL FROM BOTTOM

After my lunch which took some time, we moved to Namada Chilume. It has some mythology behind it too! There is small hole from where water spills out throughout the year. When I went it was not spillings but had water filled. There is fence around the point to protect from mangling by people. There are huge herds of nasty monkeys too. Also place belongs to Forest Department. Since it was spring, most trees had just shed their leaves. There are also lot of deers being fostered by forest department. You can also see lot of snack booths nearby. The entrance is Rs.3/- per head.  Here is a picture.

NAMADA CHILUME

It is believed that Lord Rama during vanavaasa had come here. He wanted to apply Tilak on his forehead. However there was no water nearby. Consequently he pierced the rock with arrow which resulted in water emerging out of the area. He used that water to apply Tilak. Since the water emerged due to reason Lord Rama wanted to apply Tilak, place is called Namada Chilume.

Two boys pleaded to take shot of theirs. I took some for their satisfaction. Seems like children of construction workers. They were really excited when I showed them pics. They asked me what would I do with pictures. I said will show it to many people so that they come here and shoot many pictures of you.

BOYS!

That's it end of my short journey. The rickshaw driver dropped me to Oordigere bus stop around 3:30PM. He was patient enough to wait for me all the time. I handed over him the money and my thanks! The buses here are infrequent and hence I went for quick tour of small town. Oh my God! Look at the fresh vegetables. They are so cheap and so nice! There were lot varieties too especially carrot, radish and green leafy vegetables. I do not require more so I bought only beans and carrot. My mother would have bought all of them I believe :-). Have a glance of oordigere market.

DO NOT MISS FRESH VEGETABLES IN OORDIGERE

I did not have much time since the bus arrived after 15 minutes. The bus was jam packed still managed a place to stand. I had to stand till Bangalore. Never mind, experienced it before too! Time for my DSLR to sleep for sometime before next journey. Unfortunately the bus got punctured near Dabaspet toll gate. Fortunately not within village limits which would have made us difficult for alternate transport. Driver was lamenting that roads past Oordigere towards Pavagada are in really in bad shape. Further to add to their pain, authorities force them to maintain time which compels them to drive with less care on those stretches. Finally we boarded alternate KSRTC bus to Bangalore and it was 5:30 when it reached Majestic bus stand.

There are many places nearby like Goravanahalli Mahalakshmi Temple, Siddarabetta, Shivagange, Siddaganga Mutt etc.. However you need have own vehicle. That is the best option to enjoy these places. It would cost less too if you can sum up many people! Despite so much physical stress, I enjoyed the journey to max especially my DSLR :-) which took some great shots. Due to severe sun, I used view finder most of the time rather than live view for focusing. All photos were taken either in Av or M mode. At times I bumped up ISO to 800 to get interiors of temple but forgot to revert for outdoors. Fortunately I noticed pretty early before most shots grained out! Few pictures are edited using GIMP.

The best way to visit these places is by private vehicles. If you are traveling by bus, take a bus destined to Pavagada and alight at Oordigere. You can find many rickshaws plying to temple. They take around Rs.30/- per head for below temple and a bit more for above temple. Note that this is applicable for one way journey only. If you are traveling by private vehicle, reach Dabaspet town and take right deviation beneath NH-4 fly over. Ask locals who are the best people to guide. 14kms after, you will reach Oordigere town (you can recognise by seeing huge stocks of vegetables road side!). After Oordigere town, travel 1km along the same route and you will find a welcome gopura which will lead you to Devarayanadurga. Free meals is served in temple below from 12PM to 3:30PM. If you do not want them, carry your own food since there are only good snacks but not restaurants. The nearest place is tumkur itself which is around 20kms. Near to Dabaspet, there is Kamath Upahar also!

ಟೋಮಾಟೊ ತಂಬೂಳಿ

ಬಹಳ ಸುಲಭವಾಗಿ ತಯಾರಿಸಬಹುದಾದ ತಂಬೂಳಿ! ಬೇಗನೆ ತಯಾರಿಸಬಹುದು ಕೂಡ.

ಬೇಕಾಗುವ ಸಾಮಾಗ್ರಿಗಳು:

೧) ಮೊಸರು : ಬೇಕಾದಷ್ಟು
೨) ಒಗ್ಗರಣೆ ಪದಾರ್ಥಗಳು: ಸಾಸಿವೆ, ಉದ್ದಿನ ಬೇಳೆ, ಬ್ಯಾಡಗಿ ಮೆಣಸು, ಕರಿಬೇವು ಸೊಪ್ಪು.
೩) ಟೋಮಾಟೊ : ಬೇಕಾಗುವಷ್ಟು.

ಮೊದಲು ಬಾಣಲಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ತುಪ್ಪ ಅಥವಾ ಎಣ್ಣೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಒಗ್ಗರಣೆ ತಯಾರಿಸಿ. ತಯಾರಾದ ಒಗ್ಗರಣೆಗೆ ತುರಿದ ಟೋಮಾಟೊ ಸೇರಿಸಿ. ಟೋಮಾಟೊ ಹದವಾಗುವಷ್ಟು ಫ್ರೈ ಮಾಡಿ. ಒಂದು ತಟ್ಟೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಮೊಸರು ಮತ್ತು ಅದಕ್ಕೆ ಬೇಕಾಗುವಷ್ಟು ಉಪ್ಪು ಸೇರಿಸಿಡಿ. ನಂತರ ಬಾಣಲಿಯಲ್ಲಿನ ಮಿಶ್ರಣವನ್ನು ಮೊಸರಿನ ತಟ್ಟೆಗೆ ಸೇರಿಸಿ ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿ ಕಲಸಿ. ರುಚಿಯಾದ ತಂಬೂಳಿ  ತಯಾರು! ನಂತರ ಅನ್ನದೊಂದಿಗಿ ಕಲಸಿ ಆನಂದಿಸಿ :-)

ಟೋಮಾಟೊ ತಂಬೂಳಿ

A day visit to Murudeshwara and Idagunji

This year end shutdown 2012 I had planned to visit nearby places. Consequently ended up in Murudeshwara and Idagunji. The journey was just for a day. It is hardly 2:30hrs journey from our place. We started at 8:30 AM and reached 11:30 AM. The heavy traffic between Kaup and Kundapur put breaks on our smooth journey. Since father was recovering from illness only me and mother traveled. This time it is Maruti Ritz VDi which was our transport :-). One never get strained driving this car and experience with CRDi engines is really awesome!

As always I mention in my previous posts, the travel between Mangalore and Karwar is real heaven with beautiful landscape, rivers, konkan railway tunnels, western ghats and sometimes beaches. As usual we stopped in Maravanthe beach for some time before proceeding further. The day was bit hazy so not the best time for photography unless you have ND or CPL filters. Still I captured some pictures of Souparnika River and Arabian Sea. There are some marine drive videos too ;-). I will upload sometimes later. Here are some pictures!

SOUPARNIKA RIVER NEAR MARAVANTHE BEACH

Around 11:30AM we reached Murudeshwara. We could get darshan of Lord Murudeshwara and had lunch in temple itself. Lunch was very good. Later we went to see Lord Shiva statue atop of hill. Also we went to beach. The sea was pretty much rough. There was huge crowd too! I wanted to have boat ride along sea but we did not have backup clothes. One had to walk for certain distance in sea water to have boat ride. We stayed till 4PM before leaving to Idagunji. Idagunji is only 20 minute drive from Murudeshwara. We had darshan and left from there. It was only 30 minute stay. I wanted to visit Honnavar to have look at majestic Sharavati river basin. However due to lack of time we dropped that plan. Here are pictures from Murudeshwara and Idagunji.

MURUDESHWARA TEMPLE

VIEW FROM ENTRANCE

VIEW FROM TEMPLE PREMISES - 1

VIEW FROM TEMPLE PREMISES -2

THE 117 FEET HIGH PINNACLE

THE MURUDESHWARA BEACH

SHIVA STATUE ATOP HILL

OM NAMO BHAGAVATHE RUDRAYA!

SHIVALINGA INSIDE HILL TEMPLE

MAJESTIC SHIVA FACING PINNACLE

IDAGUNJI VINAYAKA TEMPLE

TASTY CUCUMBER FOR HUMID WEATHER

We started around 5PM from Idagunji and again stopped at Maravanthe beach. There was really beautiful sky waiting for us there :-). I captured photos and video of the sky. Around 8:30PM we reached Kaup again. Here is one snap of evening sky in Maravanthe Beach

BEAUTIFUL SKY, MARAVANTHE BEACH

We chose Murudeshwara specifically for long time stay since we could not spend time during our last visits. Uttara Kannada district is the beautiful district in Karnataka in my opinion. During Monsoon, the district is simply awesome place to visit! I can never forget 4km scenic journey from Manki to Idagunji.

The videos!

Here I am back with boring videos ;). Please watch and comment for improvements. The video editor is the KDENLIVE under Linux, magnificent open source software. Watch the video of Murudeshwara and beautiful sky of Maravanthe beach!