Stay at Sagar, Karnataka

We had faced difficulties in zeroing the stay at Sagara, when we planned for a trip to nearby places of Sagara (Sagar, Karnataka), also getting decent food is little tough since this place is a little remote Taluka Head Quarters. If you want to stay at Shimoga and go around no issues but that will be little far from places though....

I found these places to be decent for a short stay at Sagara. Hotel Varadashree and Hotel Pavithra. We had our all three meals (????) from the Hotel Pavithra, it was decent and value for money. For the luxury stay, you can check Matthuga (google for more) but considering the crowd visiting these places esp in monsoons, you better book well in advance....

As you might know, There are SO MANY places around Sagara, you can get the full details here

Will post about the places we visited in the coming posts.....

Puligundu, Chittoor

Though we didnt have time to trek this Rock(Gundu) called Puligundu which has the temples for Lord Shiva (called as Puligundeshwer), Ayyappa..etc on top, got some quick snaps of it and information from the villager.This place is around 20kms away from Chittor town near to Penumuru. This rock is about 1000 feet high and cracks through which there's a way to trek to the top.

Here are the pics:

Tirumala Trip in Pics

Few Pics from my recent trip to Tirumala - Tirupati covering Kanipakam and Tiruchanoor as well.

                                           Lord Anjaneya, on the Pedestrian path (Foot way)

                                       Temple view from Shrivari Paadalu, Highest point in 7 hills.

                                            Shila Thoranam

In this trip, we had nice darshan's of dieties within very short (shortest so far for me) waiting time.

Yumthang Valley - In Pics

Tsongmo Lake

Here are some of the great views of Changu (Tsongmo) lake.

Yak ready for the ride at the lake side!

Gurudongmar Lake - SIKKIM

Here are some of my Sikkim trip snaps covering Gurudongmer lake, which is at 17100 feet above the sea level.Its frozen and the temperatue was around -10C when we visted in the month of April! Mercury will drop to -40 or so in the winter.Permissions/access to this lake is strictly under the control of indian army since its very near to the China Border. Nevertheless, its one of the beautiful places and must see in Sikkim.

Little more info at Wiki

Mud Tiles

I was amazed to see these tiles made of mud were arranged to form this beautiful painting like structure, which was hanging on the reception wall of a hotel in Kerala. Didn't wait much to capture it in my Camera with the due permission from the hotel folks!

Driving through Nagarhole National Park

While coming back from Coorg, we planned to drive through this beautiful and must see forest and national park adjoining the other national parks, Bandipur and Mudumalai, as my friends and colleagues insisted to visit this and indeed its a lovely experience watching the wildlife and nature beauty so closely and colourful. 

We have started our journey from Srimangala in the morning and dedicated the half day for these ~45 kms drive in the national park on the way back to Bangalore via Mysore, lush green paddy fields sorrounded by coconut and Areca palm trees with clear sky welcomed us in the morning and all along the way.Though the road was little bumpy in some stretches, it didn't deteriorate our mood and excitement  Enormous information about this place and wildlife at Wiki

This 45 kms drive consists of beautiful narrow road with lot of curves and hollows surrounded by all sorts of trees colourful grass, surprise appearance of some beautiful birds adding to the excitement. Rain god has also boosted us with some sudden showers which turned the forest even more beautiful. Since its a wildlife sanctuary, tourists are encouraged to maintain low speeds and no honking.

This forest is in rich with different wild animals, tigers, different types of deer, leopards, wild dogs and different species of birds, but all we could see was lot of peacocks, herds of deer, grazing, crossing the roads and few wild dogs. If you have the correct equipment, you could get some beautiful shots for your life.There's a safari which starts from 3pm  in the afternoon.

We took almost 4 hours to cover this stretch with lot of breaks enjoying the nature,wild life and of course for photography with different poses and angles :)

Previous posts from the Coorg Trip:

• Flowers from Coorg
• Coorg for a trip

Flowers from Coorg

As i mentioned in my previous post on coorg, i have taken some good number of pics of these different flowers on the way to coorg.

Rose

Standing Alone....

Spotted this beautilful house standing alone in the well known backwaters of Alleppey-Kumarakom,Kerala.

Ramappa Temple

Ramappa Temple which is located in Palampeta village, Mulugu taluq of Warangal district, which is around 70 kms away from Warangal town, was built in 1213 A.D  by Racherla Rudra a general of Kakatiya Ganapati Deva, as per the available records.This temple has a uniqueness that it has been built with the floating bricks by the sculptor Ramappa.

As per Archaeological Survey of India...

one of the sculptures inside the temple, on a pillar.

The most famous Nagini scultpure

Lord Ganesha and Nandi at the temple premises

you can find more info about how to reach this place and historical facts about this temple in Wiki and Internet.

Shivana Samudra Falls

As part of our Mysore trip for a long weekend, we have covered some beautiful places including Shivanasamudra falls, since this is around 70 kms from Mysore and around 120 kms from Bangalore, definitely a good getaway spot for the weekend. Here, the river Kaveri drops off from a height of 90 metres and width of around 800+ meters to form these 2 major segmented falls.

 Here are few of my clicks of these falls:

One segment of the falls

Another segment of the falls

Complete view of the falls

Have also covered other places like Somnathpur, Ranganathittu bird sanctuary, Kaveri Sangama and Srirangapatna including Mysore in this trip, will write about them in a different dedicated posts..stay tuned!