My Holiday in Ruins

I wanted a getaway, from a lot of things. Work, pollution, grey cubicles and routine; just seek new experiences. My friend’s wedding started a perfect getaway in the last weekend of May. Joining me on the trip was Krishna, best known by everyone as KK, and Anirudh. A Tamilian, a Telegai and a part Maharashtrian Kannadiga (myself) who spoke 5 languages amongst themselves and spent a weekend on an unplanned trip in the great outdoors. How best to spend the weekend eh?

Saturday morning we reached my Mom’s native of Dharwad. Dharwad, the Oxford of Karnataka. I spent many a vacations in this quite town. Green and cosy, this wasn’t a village nor was it too big to make its citizens feel lost in it. Its University is marvelous and its education renowned. I loved the rains here. Everything would be so fresh and green. The Hordes of black faced Langurs have stopped marauding the fruit trees in the ancestral home. There is no ancestral home anymore to speak of now. It was years since I had been to this place. This was a wonderful opportunity to go back to those years.

The night in the train was a sleepless one. We arrived haggard at the place we were put up called Sevashram. It was a Christian institute with dorms. We freshened and changed quickly into Kurtas which we had coordinated. KK looked like he was coming straight from a communist party meeting. The marriage venue had my Family name, a lot of places do in Dharwad. The guys were teasing that I owned half of Dharwad. We decided to walk the short distance from the dorm to the venue, providing the natives a rare sight of three Kurta clad individuals walking. Rare because I guess it has unfortunately become de riguer for people to use vehicles even for short distances, especially if you are affluent moreso for a marriage. Yes I am a part time Tree hugger.

We met up with many of our friends from Bangalore at the Venue. This was the first Konkani wedding I was attending. The ceremonial dresses were quite unique. Ceremonies and rituals differ in different cultures and communities. This was another unique one. Anirudh was trying to compete with the official photographer and was doing a good job too actually. One mention – the Casio camera which he was using is very impressive. My friend, the bride’s, brother was running around to managing the event, which was flawless, reminded me of the duties I would have to do when my Brother will be getting married. Better start going to the gym :D . Best wishes to the lucky couple.

It was Saturday Afternoon. Now what? We have to do something. All the resorts were full because of school vacations. The archeological ruins at Badami, Aihole, Pattadkallu circle were off season. For a good reason. It was summer, in interior Karnataka near the Maharashtra border. It was blazing hot. It would be nuts for anyone to roam around in that heat. Lets go.

We went around Dharwad looking for anymeans to go to Badami, but as it turns out Dharwad is a little bit too laid back to have people at the ticket counters to even guide us. We took the next option of going to Hubli and trying for a way to get to Badami. Hats off to KK who ignored my whining to stay back in a hotel in Hubli and Dharwad and waste precious time. Hubli is the bigger of twin city to Dharwad. It was a big lucky break that we caught the only bus to Badami – the glorious Rani Channama Private Bus service, I will call it the RCPBS cause we will need it again later. Now RCPBS can give the airplanes a run for their money. They have Two screens and a DVD player! Plus the bus actually flies, low. Our host started the Kannada movie ‘Rama Shama Bhama’. This I truly enjoyed. I had seen the Hindi version –‘ Biwi No.1’ which was a murder of the movie. I didn’t notice the maniacal way the pilot/driver reached the destination in good time. My recommendation, catch the film, worth 2.5 hours. Oh Garcon, the champagne please….

It was dark by the time we reached Badami. We made our way to the closest decent hotel – Rajsangam which seemed to host a lot of foreign tourists during peak season. We bargained a decent 600 Rupees for a 3 bed room. Had a simple dinner of masala dosas and crashed. We would need all the energy we could for tomorrow.



The rates for Taxis, as usual of Tourist places, were too prohibitive for our budget. The rickshaws offer a far better deal. Airy and comfortable for the three of us, the whole tour for 350 rupees, the rickshaw was a super deal. 350! You say, the rates start at 600 for the record. An important advice for everyone at this place at this time of the year, stay hydrated. To do so we had to down almost 4 litres of water, a couple of cold drinks and 4 coconuts. Trust me its way better than sunstroke at this place.

First stop were the Badami caves. Just a few minutes from the town, these four temple caves were built by the Chalukyas in various centuries. The approach towards the cave complex, if you notice, is uphill a path bordered by huts. If you see closely is a proper path with way stones probably for a ceremonial route in the ancient times. We skipped getting a guide who would charge a flat 200 rupees for the gyaan which I was sure to forget in 5 days. The caves were as far as I can guess a Monolithic structure. The cave temples were for different deities. Vishnu and Shaivaite temples were the dominant ones, but surprisingly the last temple was a Jain or a Buddhist temple, that’s why you need a guide. The temples were made in different centuries by the Chalukyas. It is impressive that a kingdom can last for so long, so much so that there was even a shift in the faith of the people. We were really impressed by the carvings. They were incredibly detailed, beautiful and more importantly flawless. These were no idols or individual sculptures that you could replace if you goofed up while making them; they were part of the monolithic structure. The cave complex had a superbly built tank, rather a lake next to it. It was easily the size of a 50 Olympic swimming pools. Credit goes to the Archeological Survey of India for doing a good job here. In a day’s journey from Bangalore, I was standing in another century altogether.

Watch out for monkeys at the place, if you are not careful they will swipe your food primarily or your digicam if they are bored with the ones they had swiped before. Monkeys are OK, it’s the humans that consistently make me angry. Do you have to have a picnic at such a beautiful Archeological place? Gangs of picnickers desecrate the place with bottles and leftovers, at all the places we went to that day. Sometimes I feel these places should have stayed hidden in dirt because we don’t deserve to see their beauty.

Badami caves were a great appetizer for the main course coming up. Next stop Banshankari temple. As we were to see, this day we were going to set personal records in number temples seen in a day. This is a revered Devi temple, with people coming here from all over the nation. For sale were the crispy tough bhakri rotis and their accompaniments – chutney and curd. Mind you, if you skip the curd you will end up with a real bad stomach ache. We didn’t have the guts to try it.

Next up – Mahakoota. I have limited knowledge of this place, but if you are a Shiva devotee, you gotta come here at least once in your lifetime. I guess it has the largest number of Lingas in a single place. I can easily estimate more than 150 easily seen Lingas. There were replica or representative Lingas from all over India in small temples. There was a small tank at the centre with a small temple embedded inside enshrining a Linga. We were amazed at all the Lingas here. The number of Lingas was simply incredible.

We quickly moved to Aihole. The road to this place was almost alien. Dry, black and rocky, I am sure NASA can do some experiments around here. We reached the town of Aihole after quite a long drive. This was another temple complex from the Chalukya dynasty. These temple structures were Huge. They were beautifully stylized, and the construction was intricate. Its simply hard to not say how did they do it! You would definitely require modern construction techniques and the architecture acumen employed for this level of beauty would have been outstanding. I am sure if they updated Wikipedia back then, we would have made the Eiffel tower atleast 8 centuries early in stone. By this time fatigue had set in. The heat had taken its toll and we were hungry already. We had a forgettable lunch at the fabulous Mayura guest house, a government run tardy and inefficient facility, expected. We still had Patadakallu to go..

We were tired, despite the constant drinks, the heat had exhausted us. Patadkallu was still on the list. And it did not disappoint us. This was by far the best of all. The ruins here were big and beautiful. The temples were literally crammed in a small place. This place had a lot of variety in structures. The entire place was laid in stone and it seemed like a very important place of worship. Some of these structures were very spooky. A whole day of ancient temple watching was obviously monotonous but this place rocked! A definite must visit, I would recommend heading to this place before Aihole or Mahakoota. Patadkallu was a perfect ending for the tour.

We reached our room just after 4 PM. We had to get the bus to Hubli in time to make it for our train at night. We packed up and hurried out of the Hotel at 5, but we missed the Rani Channama Private Bus service (RCPBS). This was disheartening, frankly worrisome. Transportation wasn’t easy in these parts and there was the possibility of missing our train. We waited an hour for the next RCPBS, which was the same one we came in. The in flight movie, no prize for guessing, ‘Rama Shama Bhama’. This time we enjoyed it even more. The pilot got us into Hubli in good time. We headed straight for the Dharam Singh Line Bazar Shop to buy Dharwad peda. Sacrilege if you don’t get Dharawd peda if you visit Hubli-Dharwad. KK got a lot of that stuff. We had a simple Dinner at the Kamat’s. I would recommend some other place though. If anything the ‘Majgi’ saved the day for Kamat’s.

The train arrived 1.5 hours late, which got us into Bangalore 2.5 hours late on a Monday. A perfect start for another week of work. I wonder will I ever be able to see such work as done by the Chalukyas in my life time?

Not bad for my first decent article after my brief experience with RSI.