Trip to Kshetra Karnataka – Day2

The next day morning we woke up early and within couple of minutes we are all ready set go for our next destination. Manju was already waiting for us. It’s now, mom told there is a Gomateeswara temple here near manjunatha Swami temple and we headed towards it. Mom couldn’t climb Sravanabelahola, so she was interested in seeing this, as this was having relatively lesser steps. We all climbed the hill within couple of minutes and had a nice darshan there. When we reached the top of the cliff, we found some cars and taxis there. Only then we came to know there is a road path to the top of the cliff. We told this to Manju, when we returned to the car. On the way back to the lodge, we visited the Ram mandir near Ujire. This mandir has an awesome outlook and was neatly maintained. There were several sannidhis such as Gayathri devi, saraswati, Ganesha, hanuman, ram seetha lakshmana, so on and so forth. It had a separate space where all the navagrahas are placed with their respective chariots/vahanas. We then headed to have our breakfast. We went to Hotel Mavanthoor Residency, as everyone suggested that this would be a good choice, but only to get disappointed. The Idlies were horrible and the sambar was worst. Manju had some “vegetable bath” and everyone synchronously nodded to leave the hotel and move to a better hotel to complete our breakfast.

Soon we were out of the hotel and a small hotel in opposite grabbed our attention. Appa on seeing the pooris stacked there, told we would go to that hotel. We all nodded as we were sure, however bad the hotel/food be, it would still be better than the one that we had at Mavanthoor. We had pooris and took hot vadas freshly prepared after waiting for around 15 mins, then paid the bill and headed towards Horanadu. The combined bill was still less than 200 for four of us. We reached Kalasa after a journey of 2-3 hours. We visited the Kalasa temple and as I told, even here there was some Annadhanam going on. Pilgrims were taking plates and taking paayasam. Mom asked me, if we should go get it. I told her, as we are heading to Horanadu which is famous for Anna poorani, we should certainly take food there and so we decided to skip it here. Around 11:30 Am, we all started to Horanadu. Its another 15-30 mins travel. On the way we saw swarms of vehicles and concluded we can get darshan only around evening if we join the queue now. But we didn’t mind anything, as we have already taken a heavy breakfast, no one was really hungry and we entered the temple as soon as possible to join the queue. To our surprise, we had darshan twice within 10 mins and soon we were on our queue in the Annadanam area. I asked thrice, should we really wait this much time for food, having got darshan so quick?

At last we decided to stay on the line. After 20 mins, we were all made to sit on cement slabs laid back to back on a big hall. The hall had a big photo of Annapoorani and can easily accommodate around 300 people. The temple had 3 or 4 such big halls. In a fraction of a second, one person kept the plates, the other one a tumbler and the other one filled it with water. The mega climax here is how they served rice. One person kept moving the trolley having the rice and there were two persons who kept serving rice for two rows facing each other. They served in a rhythmic fashion. The speed of the trolley and the speed at which these guys served made me say awesome. The moment the rice was served, there is another trolley in which sambar was brought and served in the same fashion. Although I shouldn’t call it as sambar [chilly+tamarind hot water]. But in our hunger, it didn’t taste that bad. But the payasam they served was awesome. Unfortunately, they didn’t serve it much and no chance of asking it again as already people for next pandhi are already waiting in queue.

After our meals, we came out and to our surprise, now the queue was till the outer entrance. We then purchased coffee powder there, as my aunt had told to get her a kg. We then headed towards the cab. I told Manju to have his lunch there. But he told he would have it in Sringeri. We then headed towards Sringeri. This was the best roads with best sceneries. You will forget your own self in the nature’s beauty. We reached Sringeri around 5:00PM. We went inside the temple and inquired about Thorana Ganapathi, as I had to offer my special prayers and thanks to him. We then had nice darshan of Saradambal and the Tunga river there. The Tunga river had lakhs and lakhs of fishes of varying size and the pilgrims were feeding it with pori. We then offered our prayers to Thorana ganapathi. You can offer modhakams made of sugar by paying Rs.100 or Rs.200 and take the prasadam home. Thorana Ganapathi here is very powerful and he blesses you with all wishes you pray for.







Soon we came out of the temple and I asked Manju if we can reach Agumbe before the sunset. We know we are already late. Agumbe is 20 kms from Sringeri and the sun set here is very famous. The sun sets in between two cliffs. I had only drawn pictures on my K.G.s like a sun setting between hills but never witnessed one. So was very eager to see that. Manju tried his level best in driving at his best speed possible on ghat roads. We reached the place around 6:30pm and we could only see the whole sky painted in red. It was like “Harathi sprinkled on the whole sky for the Surya bagavan”. I then realized, if this itself is damn good, how would the sun set be? I decided to come here again. There is no wonder why Sarada devi got stumbled and stopped here seeing the natural beauty. Without God’s will you cannot enjoy his creations too. I pray god to give me a chance again to witness sun set @ Agumbe.

We took Agumbe route to reach Udipi. In another 2 hours we reached Udipi. After a marathon search in udipi we atlast found accommodation in Vaishali lodge in outer. It took us around 3 hours and 25 kms of drive to find one. We then went out to have our dinner. It took another 2 hours to finish our dinner, as the restaurant had poor serving. Meanwhile, we went to the temple and checked out the timings and there were lot of sevarthis. There was some dance festival going on. We decided to wake up early and reach the temple as early as possible in the morning. We then came back to room and had a nice sleep.