A Short Visit to Bettadasapura

My cousin, Kashi, had been telling me that we should visit this temple inside a fort that he had seen from a distance. We did that today and found that it is in a Bettadasanapura.

It was a little disappointing because the fort itself is newly built - in the last few years. Apparently, the original fort was dilapidated and only some of the gateways were all that was left of it. You can see them in the pictures below. The Garudagamba (A pillar in front of the temple) is an old (ancient?) one. The interesting thing is the Kalyani (temple pond) on this rocky and elevated place. It is now green with algae and has trash floating around.

The rocks, heated by the summer sun, made it uncomfortably hot. I plan to go there again during or immediately after the monsoons and early in the morning.

The main gateway

 Garudagamba

 A side entrance
 

Don't miss the mynah at the corner

The main entrance 














Kalyani


This time, unlike it the case of the previous post, I had a Canon DSLR.


https://www.google.co.in/maps/search/Bettadasanapura+Temple,+Bengaluru,+Karnataka+560100/@12.8396052,77.623976,879m/data=!3m1!1e3

A Sunday Morning Bike Trip

Whenever I crossed the Hebbal flyover, which was almost every day for some seven years, I saw a small hillock with, what appeared to be, a temple on top. I always wondered what it was. Today, I decided to satisfy my curiosity. Google maps told me that the temple is called Anandalingeshwara temple.

I awoke at six and rode to the place on my motorbike, armed with two cameras - one my mobile and the other an apology for a camera by Sony that their service centre refused to service. Here are some of them.

The setting moon as I took my first look at the hillock

The sunrise from atop

An uninvited guest who dropped in, quite literally, from the tree above me, to share the oats porridge.

The sun rises behind a rock

 

The view towards Hebbal 

Nagavara

Play of light on a door

This place is sixteen kilometers away from my place and it took just twenty minutes to reach it. An unthinkable time in normal traffic.

The best thing was that there was no other human on the hillock. The worst was that a nearby temple was playing loud pop devotional music.