Somnathpur and Talakkad Road Trip – Aug 16 2008

This Independence Day long weekend we did a road trip to visit heritage sites around Bangalore – Somnathpur and Talakkad. Sham, Shruti and I went on the trip. We left around 7:45 am in the morning and hit back Bangalore at around 10 ish in the night. Nice as it was, the trip also had its own unexpected adventure moments.

The Route

While going, we started off on the route to Mysore via NH-7. After crossing Maddur, we took a turn towards Bannur and continued towards Somnathpur. The total trip from Bangalore to Somnathpur was around 130-140 kms. While getting out of Bangalore, we somehow lost our way in getting to the NICE road..resultant we spend an extra hour and maybe some extra 10-15 kms in getting onto the real road to Mysore. Talakkad from Somnathpur is around 30 kms; its basically just one road from the Somnathpur temple, keep following it.

The road condition from Somanthpur to Talakkad is pathetic at its best. Bad mud roads all along the way, those 30 kms took us nearly 2 hours to complete

On the way back we took a road via Malavalli Main road; through this we hit some 20 kms away from Maddur; We turned off into SH 86 which took us to Maddur. SH 86 leads to NH – 7 towards Bangalore. SH – 86 was also in no great condition, the road ridden with potholes all along the way.

All in all, this part of the trip gets a serious thumbs down from me; given a choice, I wouldnt want to take this kind of a road trip…at least not with a lancer…a Hummer might be nice:)

Somnathpur

At the temple entrance

Somanthpur is famous for its rock cut temple belonging to the Hoysala Dynasty. Other temples of this kind are found in Belur and Halebid.

The temple in Somnathpur is about 750 years old (according to the guide). It is a dead-temple, i.e. the dieties in here are not worshipped. It is built in the Hoysala dynasty charateristic style on a star-shaped base. Unlike popular belief that it is cut from one rock, it is not so; the work has been done on different pieces of rocks which have been put together. The temple houses 3 incarnations of Vishnu – Janardhan, Keshava and Venugopala.

One of the three idols in a garbha-griha

The intricate work is pretty nice; quite similar to the temple in Belur. The carvings are layered in themselves; elephants in the bottom most row, different dietes in the next, depictions of everyday life in the next, etc.

Intricate work on the ceiling

The work is very detailed and busy at times.

Work on the outer walls

The highlight across all this work was the first ever Brahma statue that I have seen. As people would know, Brahma is not worshipped; however this temple has an brahma idol carved into one of the sides of the temple.

Brahma Statue

We covered the temple in about an hour. Now, we had read about the Cauvery being very near to the temple and we decided to explore and find the place. It is about 2 kms from the temple…1 km can be done by car and other 1 km by walk. What greeted us was a very pretty sight of the Cauvery! There was plenty of water…KRS had released some water and the river was flowing full. Sitting by the river bank, we reveled in the silence and the cool breeze, with the water making sweet gurgling sounds.

By the banks of Cauvery

Talakkad

We left for Talakkad around 2 pm. It was about 30 kms from Somnathpur. But the roads were soooooooooooo bad, that it took us around 2+ hours to get to Talakkad.

Sunflower field on the way

Talakkad also has a famous history to it; we find a lot of sand in this place which is very surprising as we dont find sand near fresh water, right….so the story goes that Talakkad was cursed by the Queen of the Ganga Dynasty……in some feud between the Wodeyars and the Ganga dynasty, the queen cursed the Wodeyars that Talakkad would be fully covered with sand and that the Wodeyar’s will never have an heir to the throne..

Excavation Site in Talakkad

There was ample evidence of the place being covered with sand:) Apparently, ASI is still excavating for temples submerged in the sand. In all we visited around 7 temples in talakkad, one of them belonging to the Chola dynasty.

The Ride Back

We left for Bangalore around 5:30 pm from Talakkad. Instead of going back the way we came, terrifed of the going on the same road, we took the Malavalli main road. And we had a pleasant surprise in store. We had some awesome views of the country side, with lush green fields on one side and the cauvery flowing on the other.

Beautiful Countryside

The trip back took us about 4+ hours; dotted by a pot-holed SH-86, unfinished NICE corridor and a speed bump over which we went flying!

The verdict

All in all it was a good trip. But the roads left us in such a bad state that most of the fun got taken away. Though the sight of the lush green fields and the Cauvery pretty much makes it up for me:)