A quick recap, four of us - Ashish, Kshitiz, Shreyas and I started our South India bike ride on Dec 16, 2020. We had reached Munnar on Day 3 of our trip, and were in Coimbatore at the end of Day 5 to visit the Adiyogi Statue at Isha Foundation, just outside Coimbatore. Part 1 of the blog.
Many of the readers may know this, but for the uninitiated, this is bust of Hindu God Shiva, one of the Trimurti (Bhrahma - Vishnu - Mahesh). Adiyogi refers to God Shiva as 'the first yogi' .
As mentioned in Wikipedia, it is 34 mt tall, 45 mt long and 25 mt wide steel statue, weighing around 500 tonnes, and designed by Sadhguru himself. It is also recognised by the Guinness World Records as the "Largest Bust Sculpture". The Indian Ministry of Tourism has included the statue in its official Incredible India campaign.
The best thing I liked about the place, it offers the kind of calmness and peace that any religious/ spiritual place should offer without asking you to be religious and have any affinity towards that religion. One can simply visit the place, sit near the statue and enjoy the serenity that the surrounding has to offer. If you are planning to visit, Isha Foundation website offers trove of information about the place.
The owner of the hotel told us that the Adiyogi opens up for visitors at 9am, whereas it actually opens up at 6am. Not that our group would have reached there at 6am by any chance, but the misinformation did delayed our Day 6 start.
After visiting Adiyogi, we had a quick but heavy breakfast and headed out for our next destination. In our original plan, next stop was supposed to be Ooty with a day of rest. However, staying back at Ooty would have meant missing on Belur, which I'm glad we didn't. So the plan was revised to skip Ooty all together, stay in Coorg, and then head out for Belur.
Our target was to reach Coorg by day end, however our delayed start and the 30-45min time it took us to register on TN website before entering Ooty district, meant we again needed to adjust our plan. I would rate the driving experience from Coimbatore - Ooty - Coorg as the best in the trip. It had everything, good weather, superb roads, great scenery and full of twisties.
We crossed two forest reserve, one after dark. Point to note, in case you need to drive through a forest reserve, you need to cross the entry gate before 6pm, post which they restrict the entry for your safety. We encountered quite a few signs, warning us about Elephants, luckily we didn't encountered any. Or, should I say, didn't see any in the dark 😨. We ended at a place called Kattikulam at around 10:30pm. For a small town on the way, we found a fantastic hotel called Holiday Hills. They also have a property in Waynad, and given the quality of property and service in Kattikulam I'll certainly recommend their Waynad property as well. The manager (I think Nithin) was very helpful, and after knowing that Ashish is a youtube vlogger (Highway Stories), he upgraded our room as well as gave us good discount, which certainly made Ashish's day.
Day 6 blooper: Kshitiz with his hand still troubling him, wanted a break from everyday continuous riding and he decided to go to Kodaikanal and stay for few days before heading back home. So by end of day, the 'four musketeers' became 'three musketeers'.
Day 7 plan was to drive to Coorg, do local sight-seeing and stay overnight. We started around 7:30-8:00am and our first stop was Iruppu Waterfall on the way. It is also known as Lakshmana Tirtha Falls, derived from the name of a tributary of Cauvery which starts from these falls, the Lakshmana Tirtha River. The place is also a pilgrimage spot - the legend being that Ram and Lakshman, passed along the Bhramagiri range while searching for Sita. Ram requested Lakshman to fetch drinking water for him. Lakshman couldn't find fresh water nearby for his elder brother, so he shot an arrow into the Bhramagiri hills and brought out the river Lakshmana Tirtha.
To reach the waterfall, there is an entry ticket, a small forest trail and bunch of steps. By the time we reached the waterfall, owing to hot weather, riding gears and our low fitness level, we were quite tired. The waterfall, and its drizzle in the air quickly freshened us up. We spent some time there, came out and had our breakfast. A little girl of hardly 10years, was managing the front counter while her mother was preparing the breakfast orders. It was heartening to see that she still was a regular at school and was happily helping her mother run the shop, more power to her!
During our breakfast I realised that Talacauvery, which is the originating point of river Cauvery (just like Gaumukh is for river Ganga), is a quick detour from Coorg. Till this point all three of us were on the same page, however, Shreyas had started feeling home sick. When we stopped for a quick break, he just wanted to complete the ride and reach home; sight seeing, riding was now not providing enough excitement for him. So we decided to split up again, Shreyas continued to ride directly to Coorg, and wait for Ashish and me.
Talacauvery is 48km from Coorg, and around 1hr drive owing to narrow and twisty roads. It is also located in Bhramagiri range at height of 1,276 mts. A tank has been constructed at the origination point and the river originates as a spring feeding this tank, which is considered sacred. The spring water in not year round continuous flow but gushes out starting mid-October. The water then flow underground from the tank and emerges as river Cauvery some distance away from the origination point. The temple has been renovated quite well by the state government and attracts tourists and devotees in equal numbers.
We reached Coorg around 4pm, had our late lunch, booked a homestay for our over night stay. Shreyas was still in the same mood, and hence post lunch he decided to go to the homestay and rest. Ashish and I wanted to check out the Medikeri Fort and a local temple before calling it a day.
Medikiri Fort is nothing much to talk about in terms of grandeur or otherwise except that there is a palace building, which is quite average and an archeological museum. The temple was also nothing extra ordinary to talk about but the temple compound had that soothing feeling about it. It could be just the timing of visit, which was quite late, so there was no crowd.
Blooper Day 7: Shreyas was adamant that he wanted to ride directly to Mumbai, and don't want any other detour or sight seeing. Problem was two - (1) Selfish Reason: After riding so far, Ashish and I certainly wanted to visit Belur, (2) Rational Reason: Owing to the distance from Mumbai, we would have reached Mumbai on Day 9, irrespective of the route we took or way we rode. So we again decided to split up, Shreyas decided take extended sleep, and ride directly to Hubli. Ashish and I decided to start early morning for Belur, and plan was to meet Shreyas at Hubli and then ride together on the last day back to Mumbai.
Day 8 started early for Ashish and me. For those who don't know, Belur and surrounding area was part of the Hoysala Empire between 10th and 14th century. Belur was their original capital, however later it was moved to Halebidu. Hoysala Era was an important time period resulting in significant development in art, architecture and religion in South India. Today, the Hoysala Empire is primarily known for their architecture known as Hoysala architecture. During their reign of approx 400 years, they built many temples, hundreds of which are still surviving scattered across Karnataka.
We picked three primary temples, in our view, to visit - Lakshmi Devi Temple Doddagaddavalli, Chennakeshava Temple Belur and Hoysaleswara Temple Halebidu.
Our first stop was Lakshmi Devi Temple at Doddagaddavalli. As per the local, the temple was commissioned by a diamond merchant and his wife. I'm sure if the Wikipedia refers to this merchant or a different one. In addition to the superb Hoysala architecture,this temple is unique because of its chatuskuta construction (four shrines and towers). All of the four shrines are connected, and each one of them house on of the Primary Hindu God/ Goddess - Lakshmi, Vishnu, Kali and Shiva facing each other. In my limited experience I have not seen this in any of the temples.
Because of COVID, there were no tourists or priest at the temple, and the local person allowed us to click pictures inside the temple.
We stopped for breakfast at government 'Athithi Bhawan' which was surprisingly good and fresh. Chennakeshava temple was the main attraction of our Belur stop and I have to say that it completely lived up to its expectation. As the name suggest the temple is dedicated to Vishnu. To pay homage to two avatars of Vishnu - Kurma (Turtle) and Matsaya (Fish), the temple tank has both these species. I wouldn't be able to describe the beauty of intricate carvings that each stone block carried. It is unfathomable to even imagine how these artists carved out the stone in such intricate manner without high tech machinery. Just search for the temple pictures and may be you will understand what I'm trying to say.
After trying to capture its beauty in our camera, we headed out for last stop - Hoysaleshwara Temple, Halebidu. The temple is situated on the bank of a man-made lake. it is equally beautiful, but for some reason, the most neglected one. I don't know if this was because the country was still opening up after first wave of COVID or there were other reasons.
