Mantralayam - Hampi - Tungabadra Dam

Myself and Balakrishnan are default when it comes to roaming around. This time Anenth joined us.

We three decided to book a 2 day package tour to Mantralayam, Hampi and Tungabadra dam (also called as T.B Dam) organised by Karnataka tourism.

For more details about the package : http://karnatakaholidays.net/Html_Version/mantralaya.htm

Because it is a package tour, there were lot of comforts and everything was well planned. On the other side we didn't explore much regarding routes unlike other tours.


July 17th '09 - Frida

We started from electronic city at 5PM though the tour bus was planned to start from Badami house only at 8PM. Bala's skepticism of weekend traffic failed. We reached Badami house at 6:30PM itself. So we took a walk to SP road and killed time by going to each and every shop asking for rate of some electronic item. Then we had dinner at Adiga's.

The bus started at 8:30 PM (Indian Punctuality). It was a 30 seater non A/C bus and all the seats were full.



July 18th '09 - Saturday

We reached Mantralayam at 5:40 AM. We were given a room in AP tourism lodge for taking bath and getting ready for dharshan. (FYI, Mantralayam is in Kurnool district of AP. All the places we went are near Andhra-Karnataka border)

We started to Raghavendra temple at 8:30 PM. The temple had less crowd. Gents have to remove their shirts (banian too! [:)]) We were told that there was a special queue for people with dhothi. So we bought dhothi. After dharshan was over, we were taken to tungabadra river. There was not much of water. You will know the reason in later stage of this post.

There is a big dining hall run by devasthanam which was donated by Mrs. Narayanamurthy. It was Ekadasi. Unfortunately no food :( So we had our breakfast in a hotel and started to Hospet. After this, the day was full of travel. We went to a small Hanuman temple on the way.

The main highlight of the travel was Rajinikanth. The guide decided to put a film. So he gave some options to the tourists and asked us to choose a film. Shivaji was one in the option. Only we 3 were tamilians and all others were Kannadigas. So we just shut our mouth. To our surprise many told 'Shivaji'. Oh man! This shows the popularity of Rajinikanth! All of us enjoyed the movie.

We reached hotel near T.B Dam (Now we are in Karnataka) run by Karnataka tourism at 7:00 PM. There was a garden opposite to the hotel. We spent some time there and had our dinner in PROJECT restaurant. I don't know why they named it so. But we 3 were not happy with the name :)

July 19th '09 - Sunday

This was the day of tour. We started from room at 8:00 AM and reached Hampi at 9:30 AM. We stopped for breakfast in between.

Hampi is the former capital of Vijayanagara Empire. It was ruined by sultan invaders in 16th century. Ruins of Hampi are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

I don't know whether to appreciate the Vijayanagara emperors for their brilliant architectural works or curse the sultans for ruining them. The monuments were awesome. We took hundreds of pic there at Hampi and even then we felt like missing something. That place is full of monuments. See this song from a Tamil film 'Mounam Pesiadhe'. The entire song is taken at Hampi.





Hampi is also known for its hot temperature. It seems, the maximum crosses 45 degree celcius. We were fortunate that it was cloudy on that day. Otherwise we would have become 'Non-Veg Fries' in that place full of rocks :)

We enjoyed Hampi visit to the fullest. We left Hampi at 5PM and went to T.B Dam. There are buses operating between T.B Dam Garden entrance and a hillock near dam for Rs. 20/-. We can have a bird's eye view of T.B Dam and the beautiful garden from the top of hillock.



Now look at the pic. Water like an ocean on one side and few buckets of water on the other side. It shows why Tungabadra river hardly had water in Mantralayam (Andhrapradesh). Karnataka is not giving water to any one be it Cauvery to TN or Tungabadra to AP. Just kidding. Each state has its own reasons. It is not a political post either :)
The musical fountain in T.B Dam garden was nice, though not as great as Brindavan gardens, Mysore.


We started from T.B Dam at 9PM and reached bangalore at 5:30AM on July 20th '09.

I will finish this post with an interesting incident that happened in our return travel. While returning, the guide asked us to perform something. Bala and Anenth shouted my name. I was forced to sing a song. I proudly (with little self esteem) introduced myself as a MTech student in IIITB and then sung. I emphasized the word 'MTech' and tried to pose myself as a great person doing something great. Later a girl came and and she sung beautifully. She introduced herself politely as doing Electrical Engineering in IIT-Madras!!!! Shock No 1!!! Then a guy who was looking very ordinary and short came. He introduced himself as Scientist in NAL. Schock No 2!!!

I told myself. "Karthik, Don't think too much of yourself " :)