Images from Bali, Indonesia

The image of God from Bali, Indonesia. In this ritual, the family god is taken to a central place where all the families in the village are brought together to do the prayers.











I am not a mirror but an exquisitely done work of photographer and the building designer.












The perfect couple Rama and Sita, carved in wood at a gallery

Bali- An Indian Perspective

I recently went to Bali, Indonesia for a 4 day packaged tour. The trip was through Kuala Lampur. I plan to write a detailed travelogue later but some tips for Indians:

• The currency is Indonesian Rupiah which is roughly $1=9000 Rupiah, Re 1 = 225 Rupiah.
• The charges on the bills will be like 15.000 and has to be read as 15,000 rupiah
• Though they have low denomination rupiah, practically no one use it in Bali. So a tip of 2000 rupiah may sound great from your perspective but is negligible there
• In no time you will spend million rupiah.
  
• It is a nice idea to spend some time with the local family to know how common Indian and Balinese culture are.
• There are Indian restaurants. The one i went was called Gateway and had decent Dosa (Do not try the chutney and take sambar) and Vegetable biriyani (Some Chinese influence though). Vegetarians better carry some cup noodles!!
• In order to enter temple you should wear white kurtha and white mundu/Dhoti. Plan to wear a trouser underneath the dhoti as the way they wear it is slightly different.
• "Shuk suma" means thank you. Use this liberally.
• Avoid wearing gold jewelery, though personally we didnt find any issue. We did not wear any gold ornaments.
  
• Be careful when dealing with roadside vendors for goods, as there are cases of cheating.

Travelogue

We started at 12.30 PM from the Bangalore Airport. It was a Malaysian Airline flight. We got a seat in the middle row which was not the most comfortable one. The flight was better than the Air France i had flown for my Paris trip but still not as great as Domestic flights in India. As it was already night we slept quickly and woke up when the sun started peeping out in the orange hue. A beautiful morning to wake into.

We go down at Kuala Lampur Airport. The scale of this airport was colossal. The airport looked almost empty thought there quite a large number of aircraft landing and taking off. We took our time seeing the airport. The time here was 2.30 hrs ahead of IST. So changed the watches accordingly. We boarded the Malaysian flight to Denpasar Bali (The capital city of Bali) and landed at around 3PM local time in Bali. The visa on arrival process was smooth and we had the Jan's tour operator waiting for us in the lobby. He drove us straight to our Hotel.

Bali Dynasty, the hotel where we were put up was quite big one and had a good security system. This got me bit jittery about the safety aspect of the place. The Hotel was undergoing some repair, so they have shifted the reception to a smaller room. After the check-in procedure we were inside the room. A nice room with a small balcony.

Wait for the remaining part...

Bangalore South Kerala Road Trip

If you are taking a car, make sure you start earlier than 6 AM. You need to clear the silk board junction well before 6, so that you do not get stuck in the Bangalore traffic and waste precious time. Drive down to hosur and then to Krishnagiri. The road is awesome and you can cover this in 1.5-2 hrs. Recently, the work has started to expand some stretch of the hair-pin curves and in case you get some heavy truck movement, it can slightly slow you down.

The one way drive to Palakkad is 400 Km, so fill up the tanks accordingly. As petrol is cheaper in Tamilnadu, one can wait till tamilnadu to fill it up. At Shoolagiri just before Krishnagiri there is good integrated petrol pump + food jaunts like A2B, McDonalds and you may plan to fill up petrol from there. From Krishnagiri take the salem route. So you may need to take regular detour. Lot of new hotels has come on the way with options at Shoolagiri as mentioned earlier, Sharavana Bhavan after Salem and L&T highway in coimbatore (need a small 50m detour along the trichy road). In case the aboe location are not the right time for food another cheaper option is the hotels opposite the Vinayaka campus below the flyover (you will need to take the service road).

Another shorter option is through Mettur. Before you reach salem near Thoopur you will see a route to mettur to the right. This road is not so good now a days. When you reach the mettur dam, take the route to Bhavani. There is a bypass at Mettur town which allows you to skip the city.

Once you reach Bhavani, proceed on the route to Coimbatore. The road work is progressing in Avinashi/Perundurai section and hence be careful while driving. It has vastly improved from the old days when it was a 2-lane and once work is completed it will be a pleasure riding from Bangalore. This stretch is the only section till Kerala which can slow you down. You take the coimbatore bypass built by L&T. Recently there is some flyoer being built along the NH, so pl ensure you do not miss the L&T road. We did it and lost close to 45 mins through the city roads. For a car you have to pay Rs31/- (as on Aug 2012). This you paste it on to the windscreen else you would have to stop at multiple place for re-checking your payment. This is an excellent road, and you can try your car skills here. Traffic also is less and roads are straight. I did 150Kmph in my Wagon R. You will have to cross 6-7 counters before you hit NH-47. Drive straight and in another 50 Km ride will take you to Palakkad and another 100 Km from palakkad will take you to Thrissur.

You will find that you have paid toll more than the train ticket from BLR-PKD!!! I reached Palakkad in flat 8.15 hrs with my Wagon R and even faster with i10 and Honda Brio.

All the best.

Why a family roast is big for me?

Chennai Railway Station at 00.39.52 (The watch says it all!!) Red everywhere??

Weekend outings near Bangalore

This is a list of places you can go out depending on the time you have on the weekend (Assumes car/bike ride) based on my experience:

Half a day

• Visweshwaraya museum (in city center)
  
• Banyan tree (off Yeshwantpur through Magadi Road) and Manchinbele Dam
  
• ISKON temple (near Yeshwantpur)
• Lalbagh (Make sense during flower show around independence and republic day)
• Cubbon Park
  

One full day

• Nandi hills
• Lepakshi (Near Bangalore Andhra border)
  
• Mekadathu
• Mysore
• Sivaganga (For the trekkers)
  
• Sivanasamudram->Thalacaud
• Hogennakal
• Rengantutta Bird Santuary (off mysore)
• Pearl valley -> Banargetta Zoo

Two days

• Towards South
• Kabini->Sulthan Battery->edakkal caves->soojipara water falls ->vytiri boating
• Kabini->irupu water falls->Madikeri (abhay falls, Raja's seat)->Nisargadam (skip thalacauvery in madikeri else you will not make it back)
  
• Yellagiri (enjoy the ride rather than the end place)
  
• Ooty->Kodaikannal
• Mysore->bird santuary->srirangapatnam->nisargadam (golden temple and bamboo forest)
• Mangalore->Udupi->St Mary's Island
• Yercaud
• Towards North
  
• Belur->Hallebedu (one still pending in my trip list as i missed two-three trips due to some other engagements.)
• Hampi (Yet to go)
  

Flowers galore

Flowers few of them i had a chance to take in lalbagh...

Lepakshi

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.

Disclaimer: All the materials are my personal thoughts and this is to clearly indicate that that there cannot be any legal issue brought against me on any item published.

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Yellagiri

170 Km from Bangalore this is supposed to be the nearest hill station to Bangalore. To reach there the best way is to drive toward Krishnagiri along the hosur road (NH7) . At Krishnagiri take the Golden Quadrilateral toward Chennai. There are a lot of accommodation available there. so a casual ride would and searching room over there may still be fine.

We started in the evening and in some 3.5 hrs we were there in yelagiri. We stayed at ideya deepam a "dyanakendram" and it was a finest way to take off from the cars and traffic of Bangalore and enjoy the sleep along with the rhythmic cry of crickets.. (By the way it was also the final in world cup cricket of 2007.. and we did not even have a TV or radio to know any status..) We had a nice dinner and directly went for sleep after a small walk through the semicircular garden.. it was nice to see the stars in the sky after a long break..

Morning we went to don bosco center where they are into a novel project.. they freely teach kids from rural area toward their BCA or MCA degree.. Only criteria is that after course they have to work for 1/3 yrs before they can fend for themselves.. during this period they are provided accommodation free of cost for the needy or Rs 200/- who are bit better off.. they get some work outsourced from chennai and this is done by the student after their formal courses are over.. Work included making a soft copy of their "hard" counterpart.. it looked the old time typewriter institutes except that instead of type writer they had a computer in front of them. they were typing really really fast looking into the hard copy and never into their comp.. The students were claiming that they have more than 99% accuracy.. I saw a physically challenged girl among them.. it is nice to see such a novel endeavor which as per the principal were providing the students upto 40K per month salary. right now the college is not accredited to any college and the principal wants to make it an autonomous institution rather than joining some other university. As the teaching process is quite different it would be hard to get accredited to some university. Right now the student gets the degree from IGNOU. This was a place worth the visit..

After this we went to a artificial lake not at all a small one and had a one round boating.. it is Rs 15/- per person.. if u take a 25 rupee ticket you can get a half hour trip.. there is also a pedal boat option at a higher cost.. There is a decent children park next to it and could be good place to visit with children..

Next we went to swamimalai.. this is a good trek and starts from a "base camp" called mangalam.. it is around a 1 hr trek and at the top we can always see a long antenna.. ( a good guide to motivate you when ur exhausted) at the top there is a small temple and u can get some unripe mango and some biscuts.. there is no water.. though the lady at the top selling these goods told she used to carry water .. but when we went there it was over.. so please carry water.. The trek is quite simple as there are steps right till the top.. there is a good viewpoint from the top..

Afternoon after the food we left for bangalore.. In toto a real good trip..

MUTHYALA MADAVU (PEARL VALLEY)

We went for the trip from our office at around 7.30. We were six in total and had booked a qualis. The condition was that we need to be back in 8 hrs (or 80 Km) and this tour would cost us Rs 1300/- We didnt have much idea of the place we are visiting and all our information was from this site http://www.bangalorebest.com/discoverbangalore/sightseeing/ban-home.asp which had the following info about this yet to be discovered location:

" MUTHYALA MADAVU (PEARL VALLEY)
(45 kms South of Bangalore)

For those who wish to escape for a day to a quiet retreat, Muthyala Maduvu would be the ideal choice. Situated in the midst of hills, nestled deep down in a valley, this secluded place makes a fascinating picnic spot.

The attraction of this spot is the water falls, formed by thin jets of water spurting down from a height of 90 mts. These jets of water at the bottom give an impression of a pond of pearls - Muthyala Maduvu in Telugu. Overlooking these falls is a small shrine dedicated to Shiva, adding a religious touch to the place.
View Route

We reached this place in less than a hours time though we had stopped enroute for our breakfast. This place is around 28Km away from our office (J.P. Nagar). The driver took us to Narayana Hridualaya for our breakfast. There was a beautiful temple in front of it which had four different gods facing four different direction and all sharing a same roof. This was a wonderful sight.

We reached the pearl valley and found the place completly deserted. We climbed down towards the valley where a beautifully laid steps took us to the bottom. We reached the botom to see a small stream running down (shown in image). We had taken all bathing gears and we found to our sadness that there was not enough water for such lavish endeavours. So we roamed around and I found some animals which i readily took a snap. This turned out to be one of the good photos i have taken in recent past!! We climbed back with a gloom (not completly though.. we had expected the worst) on our face and then planned a visit to Banargetta national park.

Wildlife @ pearl valley

So plan this place on rainy season when things would be great.