Belur Halebidu Trip

After a long time, finally I got to meet up with friends and could get out of town on a long trip. We decided to go to Belur Halebidu. Belur-Halebidu are around 230 kms from Bangalore. So covering them was going to be a long tiring trip. Still we decided to go ahead.

We started early in the morning from Bangalore at around 7:00 a.m We booked a small tempo traveller that was good enough for around 13 folks. The highway was pretty good enough. At aroun 11:30 a.m we reached Shravanabelgola. A beautiful place it was indeed. But we decided not to climb the steps of the taller hill since it would hamper the plans of Belur and Halebidu. Instead we climbed the smaller hill and still could get the pleasure. :-)

After a brief stay at Shravanabelgola, wee started heading towards Belur. The tempo would go over Hassan. Hassan is a good place to stop over for lunch since there are quite some good hotel/restauarants like Sri Krishna, Hassan Asshok, Suvarna Regency. But since most of us were asleep in the tempo, we went past Hassan and directly stopped at Belur. I must admit though that while the road was pretty good enough, the drivers werent and we saw many accident scenes primarily because of the mistakes to overtake over a single lane and coming straight in front of the opposite coming traffic. Never do that. There is no hurry and nothing is more important than life. Enjoy the trip and go slow. Its a bad sight to see such accidents.

We reached Belur at around 2:00 p.m We had lunch at Belur in a pretty ordinary restaraunt and then straight away headed to the temple. We hired a guide because these temples can never be understood without the help of a knowledgeable guide. These guides are Govt. of India approved. And the guide we chose was indeed very knowledgeable. He explained the art, culture, science, history, geaography and everything. It was really fun to understand the concepts in details. After spending some time at Belur, we headed towards Halebidu which was around 15 kms. Halebidu was another beautifulpiece of art. This place was the capital of the Hoysala kingdom.

Halebidu has a beautiful garden and an adjoining lake. So go to Belur first, and then come to Halebidu and relax on the grass besides the lake.

At around 6:00 p.m we started heading out of Halebidu and back to Bangalore. And there you go. It started raining heavily. Wow. what was a pleasant rain it was after a hot sunny humid day.
We started heading towards Bangalore. Wanted to have dinner at Hotel Hassan Asshok but they didnt have Dosas in the night. What a bummer it was. So we came out and started heading home. At Bellur Cross, we stopped to have our dinner. After having and coffee and we started heading back. Most of us fell asleep after a tiring day. We reached Bangalore at around 12:00 in the midnight.

It was a fantastic trip. Belur and Halebidu are awesome and I wouldnt mind going again and just spend the whole day there.

Dont miss them if you are in Bangalore..


Enjoy the photographs.