Lepakshi, 120 Km away along the NH-7 near the border with Karnataka, is a beautiful and colossal temple considered to be 500 years old. We (four of us) started from Banaglore at 7.30 on Nov 1st and had our breakfast at Devenahalli. Along the route to Lepakshi, we spent a lot of time catching the snaps of wonderful nature at its exuberant best with very minimal human presence. After hectic life of bangalore with blaring vehicles and engineers all around this was a welcome change.
Lepakshi was the first big left turn after we crossed the border. From this junction lepakshi was 20 km ahead. First along the route is a monolith Nandi statue considered to be the largest in Asia (Not sure who outside Asia has constructed a bigger Nandi!!). It was quite a big statue but though not big enough for at least my expectation!! This statue is facing the temple (though not visible due to lot of human settlement along the route) which was our next target. We went around the temple and had nice stone carvings and paintings. Paintings had not withstood the tick of clocks as the stone carvings had but still could make out. After spending around an hour and half we had a nice food right opposite to the temple. (This is the only hotel nearby and they serve a decent Andra meal. Seeing a "Sharanam Ayyappa" board in Malayalam we initially thought it was the pervasive Mallu restaurant.) We had already finished the trip and food by 2PM, so thought of getting adventurous and diverted to some road which indicated "swamy hills" with an expectation to see a temple atop a mountain. But our expectation was throttled when after riding for more than 15 km we saw no hill (the milestone indicated 10 km to swamy hills). We asked a person there who told that we have already passed the temple and a further ride will take us back to Lepakshi itself!!. We reverted back, but enroute the scenic beauty of the place was really good, so nothing to be sad about. We then drove back straight to bangalore after having a tea (usual one ounce karnataka tea.. we had 2) in between. So a nice trip to get out of bangalore on a one day trip.
Lepakshi was the first big left turn after we crossed the border. From this junction lepakshi was 20 km ahead. First along the route is a monolith Nandi statue considered to be the largest in Asia (Not sure who outside Asia has constructed a bigger Nandi!!). It was quite a big statue but though not big enough for at least my expectation!! This statue is facing the temple (though not visible due to lot of human settlement along the route) which was our next target. We went around the temple and had nice stone carvings and paintings. Paintings had not withstood the tick of clocks as the stone carvings had but still could make out. After spending around an hour and half we had a nice food right opposite to the temple. (This is the only hotel nearby and they serve a decent Andra meal. Seeing a "Sharanam Ayyappa" board in Malayalam we initially thought it was the pervasive Mallu restaurant.) We had already finished the trip and food by 2PM, so thought of getting adventurous and diverted to some road which indicated "swamy hills" with an expectation to see a temple atop a mountain. But our expectation was throttled when after riding for more than 15 km we saw no hill (the milestone indicated 10 km to swamy hills). We asked a person there who told that we have already passed the temple and a further ride will take us back to Lepakshi itself!!. We reverted back, but enroute the scenic beauty of the place was really good, so nothing to be sad about. We then drove back straight to bangalore after having a tea (usual one ounce karnataka tea.. we had 2) in between. So a nice trip to get out of bangalore on a one day trip.
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