This is probably the first time we went off for a short trip entirely without any prior plan. Till 8AM of a lethargic Sunday morning (11th March) we had no plans for any outings forget about long drive. My wife was discussing about what to have in lunch. We were debating about veg-nonveg. Finally she told me lets walk down to the Sunday fish stall and check out whether they got any prawns. I was discussing all this while reading newspaper.
While I was thinking all this my wife was getting ready to go to the fish stall. Now I told my wife lets dump some fuel in terms of some kms. She told where can we go in a day? Nandi Hills is too near and we have done it twice. Krishnagiri dam already done, I wanted to drive to an unknown road (preferably 2laner) not on NH7 GQ. Ialready read about Rahul Dubey (of indiahighways) riding to Lepakshi on Saturday. Chalo, lets go to Lepakshi. She told OK lets go, I had no food so lets go and perform some puja, Fine lets go but I will have something on the way as I am feeling hungry…
We had a nice bath and off we started at 9:15AM from home. ODO reads 13705km. immediately took the KR puram ring road to Hebbal flyover and onto NH7 also known as Bangalore-Hyderabad road. Immediately after a km there is a nice restaurant (Swati garden) near my office, I stopped and had a masala dosa.By 10:15AM, we started again and zoomed away. Within no time we passed Yelahanka, IAF Station and ITC cigarette factory. It was a nice 6 lane highway till Devanahalli. There was only one diversion where there some flyover construction. The 4/6 laning work was completed even about 8km after Devanahalli till the Nandi Hills turn as part of North-South corridor of NHAI.After that it was 2 lane road throughout. The road was OK and traffic was moderate till Chikaballapur. I was easily doing 100-110kmph. We were enjoying the nice dwindling roads. At Chikaballapur there is a right turn for Mulbagal (86km) on NH4. People going to Tirupati / Chennai from North can take this road bypassing Bangalore.After Chikaballapur, traffic eased out more and speed increased. It was hard to keep the car at 120kmph. The speed was increasing to 130kmph at down slopes. As we approached AP the roads became up and down (steep ascend and descent). It was a nice drive. Soon we reached Bagepalli, the last town/village of Karnataka. After that we entered AP where you can see a huge board “Eenadu Pradesh welcomes you”. I saw the same in Ichchapuram during the Kolkata trip.
At about 12:15PM, We were welcomed by a huge bull / nandi statue (but with his back side facing us) in Lepakshi. Immediately within 0.5km we reached the Veerabhadra Swamy temple (Veerabhadra is a form of Shiva). Veerabhadra swamy and goddess durga are worshipped at the same place. Total distance traveled was 125km. The temple architecture and paintings were one of the excellent things that I have seen so far. It has really much more than I expected. Its paintings / carvings reflected the Vijaynagar dynasty aka Hampi style. Inside the temple it had lots of carved monolithic pillars probably made of sandstone. Another major attraction was a huge shiva linga well guarded by a king cobra all marvelously carved by sandstone.
We offered puja and spent about an hour inside the temple and also sometime in a small park outside it. After the visit in the temple, we took a photo break at the Nandi statue and proceeded to our return journey by 2PM. I was feeling damn hungry and wanted to stop at some dhaba on NH7.By 2:45PM we stopped in a decent dhaba just 2 km before Chikballapur. We had nice rotis, egg bhurji, dal, channa-masala. The food was amazingly tasty which I was really surprised looking at the dhaba from outside. The bill came out to be just Rs 74. You can also find a Shanti Sagar in Chikaballapur and it looked a nice joint for food (atleast by the amount of cars parked outside).We started after lunch at 3:15PM stopped to buy grapes immediately after Chikaballapur and entered home by 4:40PM.
Total distance: 254km.
Signing off
Vijay
